ROLES OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION
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Introduction |
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It's been 20 years since the arrival of the first computer in our nation's classrooms. Schools have spent billions of dollars on technology since then. What's the role of technology and does it make a difference? This module examines various perspectives on technology. It presents a range of thinking on the subject from people who think that technology is vitally important to others who think it's a total waste of money. |
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Go to Part 2- Teachers, Students and Technology
Part
2: Teachers, Students and Technology
How is technology supporting learners
in doing things they couldn't do in any other
way?
It seems obvious that teachers are key to any efforts
related to school improvement. There is however an
unquestioned assumption present in many California schools
that technology, in and of itself, will make schools better.
One recognizes this when looking at school technology
budgets. General practice focuses on hardware acquisition
neglecting planning and staff development. Relentless change
and improvement in technology has created a dysfunctional
cycle wherein schools don't plan or work with staff. Most
efforts with technology are aimed at keeping "one's head
above water" and not getting behind. Futurist and educator David Thornburg refers to this
practice as, "ready-fire-aim" thinking. Schools figure out
what they are going to do with technology after they've
bought it. A more desirable strategy is to plan and train
first. Buying happens after schools know what they want to
do. Some important questions about the role of technology in
learning include: Exploring the role of technology in learning further,
visit the George Lucas Educational Foundation's Web site
featuring articles and information about teaching in the
digital age. Some interesting vignettes describing model
schools include: Browse other articles that explore issues on the role of technology in
education at GLEF's Innovative
Classrooms: Technology Integration.
Technology
Isn't Enough
Go to Part 3- Voices of Concern
Part
3: Voices of Concern
It would be overly simplistic to finish our examination of the roles
of technology in K-12 education here. A number of people have come forward
in recent years to voice concerns about the roles of technology in learning.
Clifford Stoll wrote a book titled, Silicon Snake Oil, in 1996.
The book articulated concerns about the depersonalization of education
and the substitution of "real people" with technology. Stoll argues passionately
that students need to be interacting more frequently with teachers and
other students- not technology. The July 1997 issue of The Atlantic Magazine featured an article titled,
"The Computer Delusion," by Todd Oppenheimer. This article presents a
strong condemnation of computers in K-12 schools with some excellent points.
Here is a brief excerpt from the beginning of Oppenheimer's writing: Complete text of the article is available at the following URL: The
Computer Delusion by Todd Oppenheimer Another important perspective urging caution with technology comes from
Jane M. Healy. Healy is an educational psychologist with more than 35
years experience as a classroom teacher and principal, college professor,
and learning specialist. She is also the author of a book titled, Failure
to Connect: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds And What We Can
Do About It. Healy shares some of her thoughts in a Winter 1999 iinterview
with Technos Magazine located at the following URL: Other people have expressed concern about computers and the "digital
divide." The National Telecommunications and Information Administration
states that: "....in just about every country, a certain percentage of
people has the best information technology that society has to offer.
These people have the most powerful computers, the best telephone service
and fastest Internet service, as well as a wealth of content and training
relevent to their lives. There is another group of people. They are the
people who for one reason or another don't have access to the newest or
best computers, the most reliable telephone service or the fastest or
most convenient Internet services. The difference between these two groups
of people is the digital divide." Being on the less fortunate side of the "digital divide" means that there
is less opportunity to take part in our new information-based economy,
in which many more jobs will be related to computers. It also means that
there is less opportunity to take part in the education, training, shopping,
entertainment and communications opportunities that are available on line.
In general, those who are poor and live in rural areas are about 20 times
more in danger of being left behind than wealthier residents of suburban
areas. Schools frequently reflect the technological differences of the digital
divide: communities with greater economic resources tend to have schools
with better technological infrastructures; conversely communities with
less economic power tend to have fewer technological resources. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has explored another
area of concern: the divide between males and females in the use of computers.
In a report titled, "Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age,"
the AAUW found that girls have reservations about the computer culture.
In its inquiries into gender issues in computers and education, the AAUW
found that girls are concerned about the passivity of their interactions
with the computer as a "tool." They reject the violence, redundancy, and
tedium of computer games. They dislike narrowly and technically focused
programming classes. Addressing these concerns the AAUW report makes the
following recommendations to schools: The complete AAUW report is available at the following website: http://www.aauw.org/research/girls_education/techsavvy.cfm Still more perspectives on the digital divide are shared in a PBS documentary
series narrated by Queen Latifah. The series asks the question: is everyone
participating equally, if at all, in the "digital revolution?"
And are "wired" kids being taught how to use computers in ways
that enhance instead of replace traditional learning skills? Through interviews
with innovators around the country who are bridging the digital divide
in the classroom and in the streets, the series explores some of the best
practices for using technology effectively at school and in the home.
Check out the Digital Divide documentary web site at:
Little or no data exists on
how computers effect the brains of young learners and
whether we are teaching students to be better thinkers
because they have access to technology.
Some people view technology as the tool of our children's day,
despite the fact that little data exists regarding the outcome of its
use in classrooms. Opinions range from computers as expensive drill and
kill flash cards, to the view that achievement gains are irrelevant when
compared to the need for techno-literacy. Little or no data exists on
how computers effect the brains of young learners and whether we are teaching
students to be better thinkers because they have access to technology.
In other words, no clear method of "best practices" is evident. In lieu
of this, it appears that schools are forced to make subjective decisions
which affect the future of education on a massive scale.
The Atlantic Magazine July 1997
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul/computer.htm
Go to Part 4- Seven Lessons About Technology
Part
4: Seven Lessons About Technology
Computers can improve education, but
not without serious planning from schools and
teachers.
An article appeared in both The Wall Street Journal and
The Press Democrat in November 1997, titled "Mixed Grades
for Computers in School." The author, William M. Bulkeley,
seeks to answer one of the essential questions of this
online lesson: What are the roles of computers and other
technologies in today's classrooms? Bulkeley responds with
seven important points. Mixed Grades for Computers in School by William M. Bulkeley What have we learned? After a decade of computers in the school, after billions
of dollars spent on the promise of reinventing education,
the glib answer these days is: very little. The great
promise of high-tech learning too often seems unfulfilled,
and growing numbers of taxpayers who have footed the bill to
wire schools are asking where the payoff is. But things aren't as gloomy as they look. Amid all the
dissatisfaction and rancor, educators have picked up some
concrete lessons about high tech. Chief among them:
Computers can improve education, but not without serious
planning from schools and teachers. "The backlash is coming from people who thought
simplistically about how technology could revamp the schools
and are disappointed," says Martha Stone Wiske, co-director
of the Educational Technology Center at Harvard
University. But it's a long road between having machines and seeing
results. What is the difference between a program that works
and one that doesn't? For starters, we offer seven lessons from educators in
the trenches. Lesson 1- Computer labs are a lousy location for
computers "What we've learned is that 30 minutes a week doesn't
have any impact," says Linda Roberts, director of the
U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational
Technology. "The lab concept was to introduce kids to
computers. We've come to understand that you don't want
to introduce kids to computers. You want them to use
computers." Many teachers say even a single computer in the
classroom has more value than occasional access to a
lab. Alan Haught a physics teacher at Weaver High School in
Hartford, Conn., says, "I'm uncomfortable going to the
computer lab in the middle of a physics experiment. It's
like having to go next door to use the phone. It may be
cost effective, but it tends to inhibit you." So Haught
makes do with $80 graphing calculators that can be handed
out to each student daily, and an aging Macintosh
computer and laser printer that kids use to type up
reports. Lesson 2- Struggling students often get more out of
computers than average or above-average performers In Orlando, Fla., the Orange County Public School
District applied technology to one of its biggest
problems: middle-schoolers who were functionally
illiterate and were doomed to drop out as soon as they
became old enough. Orlando developed a program, which has been used on
2,000 children since 1993, to take children out of
regular classes for two-hour blocks each day and put them
in half-size classes. There they spend a quarter of the
time reading and answering questions on a computer that
includes video, animation and text; the rest of the time
they read from books. The program, developed by researchers at Vanderbilt
University, employs tougher vocabulary words and
more-complex stories than normal elementary reading
programs. It corrects student mistakes and gives personal
feedback via headphones. On average, the children have gained more than a year
of literacy for each year in the program giving them a
better shot at "reaching a level great enough to
graduate, to read the newspapers and function in
society," Taylor says. Lesson 3- Most teachers still don't know how to use
computers in class The trouble is, most teachers a woefully unprepared.
McKinsey Co., a New York management consulting firm,
estimates that nearly half the teachers in America have
little computer training or experience. Nationally, only
13 percent of school systems mandate computer training
for teachers, and more than half don't provide stipends
or other incentives to encourage them, according to the
Education Department. So it's little surprise that only
20 percent of teachers use computers regularly to teach
classes, according to the agency. Part of the problem is that even teachers who know how
to use computers have never been taught how to teach with
them. Lesson 4- School systems must plan their computer use
carefully Mandating that all students produce something on the
computer is a start. The Boston school system now
requires all fourth-graders to produce a travel brochure
about Boston, retrieving information from computerized
encyclopedia and the Internet. "You need to get clear what your goals are," says
Harvard's Wiske. With proper planning by teacher she
says, computers can help students memorize facts, develop
basic skills in teamwork and problem analysis, and help
understand fundamental concepts in math or social
science. Lesson 5- Computers are a tool, not a subject Anthony Amato, superintendent of New York City's
District Six says that in one class studying the
environment students watched the effects of pouring
various amounts of water across a tilted table of sand,
then fed the results into a computer. "They were putting
Information into the computer and seeing it on graphs,"
he says. By using the PCs to get an abstract
representation of the results, the kids "captured the
essence of predictive models." Thomas Wesner, a humanities teacher at Renaissance
Charter School in Boston, says the computer is especially
useful in teaching writing. "In one class I said, This is
a really nice sentence, but it doesn't belong in this
paragraph." The students decided where to move it by
cutting and pasting in the word-processing program. "The most difficult thing for a kid to do is to
rewrite a composition," adds Roberts of the Education
Department. "If you give them good word-processing
software, you take away the drudgery and let them focus
on the substance of the composition not mechanics." Lesson 6- Kids flourish when everyone has a computer
-- but schools aren't spending enough to guarantee
that Janice Gordon, a fifth grade teacher in the Mott-Hall
public school in Near York, whose class was entirely
equipped with laptops in a program co-sponsored by
Microsoft Corp. and Toshiba Corp. says "kids wrote a huge
amount more" with the machines. Since every child has his or her own computer, there
weren't any fights over keyboard access, and many weaker
students blossomed using the computer, Gordon says. "None
of the other classes made such substantial progress"
during the year, she adds. Superintendent Amato says the success of Gordon's
class persuaded him to develop a plan to get every
student a laptop. He says he has arranged a leasing plan
under which the schools can pay $35 a month for each
child's computer, and their parents can put up matching
donations. In three years, the families will own the
laptops. Such special deals may be the only way schools can get
every student a computer. In the 1995 school year, the
nation spent $3.3 billion on computer hardware, networks,
teacher training and infrastructure, estimates McKinsey
& Co. That isn't nearly enough to give all children
frequent access to computers. And the amount that is
needed is staggering: McKinsey says even getting one
computer for every five children would require spending
$47 billion by 2005 - 20 percent of it on improved
electrical wiring and air conditioning plus a $14 billion
annual bill for operations and maintenance. That would
amount to almost 4 percent of the nation's total K-12
education budget in 2005, or triple the 1.3 percent
proportion spent today. Lesson 7- Computers don't diminish traditional
skills Wright of Trotter School says that her student
teachers "were amazed how fast" second graders learned to
tell time by using computer programs -- "and not just on
digital clocks," she adds, "they use an IBM program calls
Measuring, Time and Money that shows students the digital
8:30, and then prompts them to move the hands on an
analog clock on the screen using a mouse. What about fears that computers in the classroom would
breed antisocial behavior? Educators report that in many
classroom computers actually foster teamwork, as small
groups of students jointly discuss what's on the screen.
This even occurs in schools where most children have the
own computers, teachers say. And, contrary to popular belief, many students who use
computers to improve their reading skills still embrace
books. "Books are better," says Scotland Willis, a Boston
second-grader who practices with a Macintosh phonics
program.
Most schools start out in computing with a
single room where kids pile in once a week or so to try
their hands at the keyboards. Often, it's a waste of
time.
Study after study has shown that it's the slower
kids who benefit the most when using computers. No doubt
that's partly because they have so much more room for
improvement. But it's also because computers are
effective at drilling basic skills like reading writing
and math. "People say drill-and-practice isn't
interesting, but (computers have) been interesting to
these kids as a way to reinforce basic elements," says
Roberts.
Computer extremists once thought machines might
replace teachers. But it turns out that today's computers
are pretty much useless unless a teacher intervenes,
scripting careful lesson plans and guiding students along
the way.
In the past few years, schools have installed
computers willy-nilly, without any thought on how
integrate them into the curriculum. Now many states have
learned their lesson, requiring school districts to have
comprehensive technology plans with budgets for training
and support, and corporate-style "mission statements."
Most students develop computer skills best if
they learn them in regular classes, such as math, where
computers can demonstrate difficult concepts like algebra
and probability, and English, where the machines make
rewriting easy.
Adults don't share computers in offices if
companies want maximum productivity. Similarly, kids with
computers of their own are likely to benefit the most. In
places where computer makers have fully equipped
classrooms with computers, students and teachers are
enthusiastic.
Some teachers say that kids with spell-checkers
actually become better spellers than kids with
dictionaries, apparently because they always get instant
correction and reinforcement when they misspell a word.
Computer math programs also can reduce the drudgery of
practicing multiplication tables, for both teachers and
students.