In this era of rapid social and technological change, we need to rethink what modern education is and how it relates to the country’s leading position in world economy. As it stands, the education industry, like media, manufacturing, transportation, and other industries, will be “out of business” if led by mediocrity. The NETP, powered by the No Child Left Behind Act, is to “raise expectations and produce results” and thus “turn multiple opportunities for success into reality for our nation’s nearly 50 million student.”
I applaud the U.S. Department of Education’s foresight and determination in shepherding a “systemic change” in education -- especially the 7 Major Action Steps which has laid out a long-term strategical framework. It seems that the USDE has sufficiently realized how vital it is to create a new student-teacher partnership and to eliminate the “digital disconnect” between them. However, it remains a complicated issue on filling the gap between today’s technology-savvy students and their comparatively technology-behind teachers. Simply put, how the educators who are “digital immigrants” teach their students who are “digital natives”?
Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. They represent the first generations to grow up with the new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. They are, as Marc Prensky designated, “Digital Natives”. The rest of us, who were not born into this digital world but later became fascinated by and adopted the new technology, consist of “Digital Immigrants.”
The serious problem of this in education is, as Prensky asserted, “our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.”
As a matter of fact, most Digital Immigrants like you and I will constantly confront this “Native/Immigrant Divide” when dealing with the young generation. It is not only about the different technology skill level or a generation gap that we have, but also about the difference between our thinking patterns and our languages! You keep asking yourself, what does that mean? Who can be your translator? What on earth do they want?
As it stands, understanding the “digital disconnect” is one thing, but how to handle it is another. There is still a long way to go in terms of “catching-up”. Probably the more urgent question for now is not how the Digital Immigrants teach the Digital Narratives, but who teaches the Digital Immigrants.
Showing posts with label EDTEC670. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EDTEC670. Show all posts
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Oversold and Underused
Maximal Access, Minimal Change: Review of Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom
Overview
Many educators, public officials, business leaders, and parents argue that school computers and Internet access will improve academic learning and prepare students for an information-based workplace. In an effort to examine the validity of this argument, Larry Cuban provides a critical look at the actual use of computers by teachers and students in early childhood education, high school and university classrooms in Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom. Combining an historical overview of school technologies with statistical data and direct observation of classroom practices in several Silicon Valley schools, he concludes that, "Without a broader vision of the social and civic role that schools perform in a democratic society, our excessive focus on technology use in schools runs the danger of trivializing our nation's core ideals"(P.197).
Key Points
The key points of the book are surrounded by the discussions on the following questions:
(1) What were the goals of promoting computer technology in schools? Was that supposed to be “transformative" or just a means of "catch up" for teachers and students?
(2) How do teachers and students use computers in classrooms for instruction in schools where computers are readily available such as those Silicon Valley schools?
(3) Have the promotion and investment in computer technologie changed the landscape of the teaching and learning? Why or why not?
(4) Are the technology investment in schools worth the cost?
In order to answer those questions, Cuban offers three explanations to the unexpected findings and outcomes of his work: (a) the slow change will eventually transform teaching and learning; (b) history and context of teaching -- gaps between different sectors of society and the beliefs that these people hold influence what happens in the classroom; and (c) culturally constrained choice -- while teachers’ beliefs and values reflect what they do in the classroom and while they choose what to endorse, reject, and modify, they are still influenced by the structure of American institutions (p.170).
However, Cuban does not fully validate these explanations. He asserts that computers have been oversold by policy makers and technology marketers, and underused by teachers and students. To fully deploy new technologies reform, he suggests that teachers, parents, policy makers, workplace leaders, and other stake-holders should work closely to build stronger communities and citizens with technology and achieve larger social and civic goals through financial investment (Lomicka, 2003).
Limitations of the Study
Although Cuban’s study is profound and scholarly, I found the following flaws that might have weakened the strength of the research.
(1) The statistic data in the book was accurate at the time the research was conducted. But some of them, such as school profiles, frequency of home use, and the use of technology in a college setting, are extremely outdated today.
(2) I do not quite understand why Cuban would think that “neither age, experience, nor gender was a significant factor in our data” (P.98). These variables sometimes produce quite different results, according to a recent research based on the understanding of the digital divide from a multicultural education framework which indicates that “equal access is considerably different from equitable access” (Gorski, 2002).
(3) In Cuban’s study, students surveyed in the schools reported little to no use of computers in foreign language classes. However, according to a language professor (Lomicka, 2003), it may be interesting to “conduct a longitudinal study documenting the use of computers in second language classrooms.” “Had Cuban included observations that document the recent growth and development of telecollaborative work”, Lomicka suggests. “Perhaps findings in the area of language learning may have yielded somewhat different results in his research.”
Questions and Thoughts
Finally, there are a couple of questions and thoughts that I came up with during the reading. I hope they will be helpful for my further study.
(1) Can we afford such a luxurious experiment on the adoption of computer technology in classrooms? How big is the risk that stakeholders are taking by doing that?
(2) What are the changes in the classrooms since Cuban’s research was conducted? Actually we don’t see much of that, if any. And will the next decade see the same scenario (or even worse due to the education budget cut)?
(3) On the one hand, when teachers are not given a say in how the technology might reshape schools, “computers are merely souped-up typewriters and classrooms continue to run much as they did a generation ago.” On the other end, the pressures and the traditions that block many teachers from making more powerful use of these new tools exacerbate the former. Will this form a vicious circle of technology use struggling in a dungeon that Cuban called the “slow revolution?”
Although Cuban does not provide answers for these questions, like he does not point out how technology investments can be turned into impressive learning gains, his examination of the unexpected outcomes should to a large extent help technology planners and educational leaders improve their future efforts, and, more or less, “remind us of the deepest civic and humane goals of education” (Wald, 2003).
References
Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom. Library of Congress.
Wald, R. (2003).Radical teacher book review. Available online at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JVP/is_2003_Spring/ai_102119717
Lomicka, L. (2003). Review of Oversold and Underused. Language Learning and Technology, Vol. 7, No. 3.
Gorski, P. (2002). Dismantling the digital divide: A multicultural education framework. Modern Education online, Fall 2002. Available online at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3935
Overview
Many educators, public officials, business leaders, and parents argue that school computers and Internet access will improve academic learning and prepare students for an information-based workplace. In an effort to examine the validity of this argument, Larry Cuban provides a critical look at the actual use of computers by teachers and students in early childhood education, high school and university classrooms in Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom. Combining an historical overview of school technologies with statistical data and direct observation of classroom practices in several Silicon Valley schools, he concludes that, "Without a broader vision of the social and civic role that schools perform in a democratic society, our excessive focus on technology use in schools runs the danger of trivializing our nation's core ideals"(P.197).
Key Points
The key points of the book are surrounded by the discussions on the following questions:
(1) What were the goals of promoting computer technology in schools? Was that supposed to be “transformative" or just a means of "catch up" for teachers and students?
(2) How do teachers and students use computers in classrooms for instruction in schools where computers are readily available such as those Silicon Valley schools?
(3) Have the promotion and investment in computer technologie changed the landscape of the teaching and learning? Why or why not?
(4) Are the technology investment in schools worth the cost?
In order to answer those questions, Cuban offers three explanations to the unexpected findings and outcomes of his work: (a) the slow change will eventually transform teaching and learning; (b) history and context of teaching -- gaps between different sectors of society and the beliefs that these people hold influence what happens in the classroom; and (c) culturally constrained choice -- while teachers’ beliefs and values reflect what they do in the classroom and while they choose what to endorse, reject, and modify, they are still influenced by the structure of American institutions (p.170).
However, Cuban does not fully validate these explanations. He asserts that computers have been oversold by policy makers and technology marketers, and underused by teachers and students. To fully deploy new technologies reform, he suggests that teachers, parents, policy makers, workplace leaders, and other stake-holders should work closely to build stronger communities and citizens with technology and achieve larger social and civic goals through financial investment (Lomicka, 2003).
Limitations of the Study
Although Cuban’s study is profound and scholarly, I found the following flaws that might have weakened the strength of the research.
(1) The statistic data in the book was accurate at the time the research was conducted. But some of them, such as school profiles, frequency of home use, and the use of technology in a college setting, are extremely outdated today.
(2) I do not quite understand why Cuban would think that “neither age, experience, nor gender was a significant factor in our data” (P.98). These variables sometimes produce quite different results, according to a recent research based on the understanding of the digital divide from a multicultural education framework which indicates that “equal access is considerably different from equitable access” (Gorski, 2002).
(3) In Cuban’s study, students surveyed in the schools reported little to no use of computers in foreign language classes. However, according to a language professor (Lomicka, 2003), it may be interesting to “conduct a longitudinal study documenting the use of computers in second language classrooms.” “Had Cuban included observations that document the recent growth and development of telecollaborative work”, Lomicka suggests. “Perhaps findings in the area of language learning may have yielded somewhat different results in his research.”
Questions and Thoughts
Finally, there are a couple of questions and thoughts that I came up with during the reading. I hope they will be helpful for my further study.
(1) Can we afford such a luxurious experiment on the adoption of computer technology in classrooms? How big is the risk that stakeholders are taking by doing that?
(2) What are the changes in the classrooms since Cuban’s research was conducted? Actually we don’t see much of that, if any. And will the next decade see the same scenario (or even worse due to the education budget cut)?
(3) On the one hand, when teachers are not given a say in how the technology might reshape schools, “computers are merely souped-up typewriters and classrooms continue to run much as they did a generation ago.” On the other end, the pressures and the traditions that block many teachers from making more powerful use of these new tools exacerbate the former. Will this form a vicious circle of technology use struggling in a dungeon that Cuban called the “slow revolution?”
Although Cuban does not provide answers for these questions, like he does not point out how technology investments can be turned into impressive learning gains, his examination of the unexpected outcomes should to a large extent help technology planners and educational leaders improve their future efforts, and, more or less, “remind us of the deepest civic and humane goals of education” (Wald, 2003).
References
Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: computers in the classroom. Library of Congress.
Wald, R. (2003).Radical teacher book review. Available online at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JVP/is_2003_Spring/ai_102119717
Lomicka, L. (2003). Review of Oversold and Underused. Language Learning and Technology, Vol. 7, No. 3.
Gorski, P. (2002). Dismantling the digital divide: A multicultural education framework. Modern Education online, Fall 2002. Available online at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3935
Policy Review
Education Technology Policy Review: A Power-On Yesterday, a Transforming Today and a New Golden-Age Tomorrow
Overview
From the 1980s’ stand-alone computers, to the 1990s’ network-based multimedia, to the 21st century’s wireless campus, educational technology has evolved significantly. Consequentially, educators’ visions and the policies of the technology have changed as well. The educational technology policy documents over the past 20 years, from A Nation at Risk of 1983 to PCAST Report 1997, from the No Child Left BehindAct of 2001 (NCLB) to the new National Education Technology Plan 2004, have addressed multiple aspects of understanding the process of using technological tools to change teaching practices and improve learning outcomes. These aspects, however, has drawn three distinct approaches to thinking about and investing in technology. They are: investing in technology to support specific and long term needs of educators, transforming education through technology, and matching technologies to public priorities for educational improvement (Culp, Honey, & Mandinach, 2003). After a brief review of these documents in chronological order, I found that three policies, including one from the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s, have played important roles in developing our vision for how technologies can impact teaching and learning. These particular documents helped to shape how we view the promise and potential of technology in education and marked significant steps in the evolution of educational technology enlightened by the spirit of the A Nation at Risk report and the NCLB Legislation.
The 80s – a Power-On Yesterday
The educational reform reports of the 1980's were being issued parallel to the establishment of the personal computer and interactive technologies as important tools in education. Both the reform reports and the emergence of new technologies during the 1980's pointed to the American economic transition occurring simultaneously (Doyle, 1994). According to A Nation at Risk report, schools were seen as failing to turn out productive citizens as well as failing in academic preparation. The needs of the American marketplace were changing from an industrial orientation to that of information/service. This would lend impetus to the reform movement by the business community. Educational Technology policies such as Power On! New Tools for Teaching and Learning initiated by this reform movement, were to study the potential of interactive learning tools for improving the quality of education. The Power On report also “analyzed the technological, economic, and institutional barriers to achieving the technologies future promise” (OTA, 1988).
During this period, however, there was no best solution for all level of government and school districts to develop a comprehensive plan and to share funding responsibilities. Although interactive technologies were identified as powerful and important educational tools, they were not able to be fully developed due to lack of a unifying conception.
The 90s – Transforming for Today
With the emergence of the Internet and technology becoming more a central force in economic competitiveness, policies in mid-90s have changed the focus from technology as tools to technology as a driver of school reform. Instead of focusing on isolated, skills-based uses of technology, Panel on Educational Technology under the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) claimed that schools should promote the use of various technologies for sophisticated problem-solving and information-retrieving purposes (Panel on Educational Technology, 1997).
One of the major voices of the documents during this period is the emphasis on infusion of technology into the curriculum to promote learning through the technology instead of learning the technology. As articulated in the Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strenghen K-12 Education in the United States (PCAST 1997), school should be transformed to a place where students should be introduced to and instructed through the technology as a tool for understanding, exploration, and problem solving. The documents in this decade primarily advocated improving access, connectivity and infrastructure as well as defining and promoting the roles of multiple stakeholders.
The 21st Century – Towards a New Golden-Age Tomorrow
The launch of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 further deepened education reform in the 21st century with new standards of accountability. Driven by the NCLB, recommendations focusing on the need for new regulations and policies regarding educational technology have emerged. The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) 2004 generated a big-picture vision of what is possible using technology in education today. It highlights the major challenges and opportunities of education technology, offers examples of successful school technology programs, and presents seven action steps and a series of recommendations. The NETP is not a top-down document from the federal government; it has meant as a comparison and a framework, grounded in practice and reality (Jackson, 2005). By matching technologies to public priorities for educational improvement, the plan started a campaign that will accelerate “a nation on the move” towards a new golden age.
The Changes and the Challenges
Within the defining frame of the A Nation at Risk report and the NCLB legislation, the policies reviewed have empowered the technology to renovate traditional education landscape and gradually changed the conversation from integration to transformation. Meanwhile, the under-funding of the NCLB, digital divide/disconnect, lack of adequate training, and lack of understanding of how technology can be used to enrich the learning experience seem to have posed both physical and philosophical challenges on the evolution of these policies. However, with some latest policies pointing out some solutions such as using the existing resources and budget creatively, creating a new student-teacher partnership, and strengthening leaderships at every level, we are cautiously optimistic about the future of the technology-based educational improvement.
REFERENCES
Cetron, et al. (2003). A forecast for schools. Educational Leadership, vol.61, Issue 4
Dildine, J. (1999).Technology-incentive instruction with high performing and low performing middle school mathematics students. Available online at http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/dildine/thesis/
Doyle, C. (1994). Technology impact. Available online at http://learning.kern.org/tlc_resources/stories/storyReader$21?print-friendly=true
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). (2001). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Available online at http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html
Jackson, L. (2005). The National Educational Technology Plan: an interview with OET Director Susan Patrick. Available online at http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech212.shtml
Office of Technology Assessment. (1988). Power on! New tools for teaching and learning (OTA- SET-379). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available on line at http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk2/1988/8831/8831.PDF
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A Nation at Risk. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
President Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Educational Technology. (1997). Report to the president on the use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/k-12ed.html
U.S. Department of Eduation. (2003). A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/participate/20years.pdf
U.S. Department of Eduation. (2005). Toward a New Golden Age in American Education: how the Internet, the law and today’s students are revolutionizing expectations. Washington, DC: Author.
Overview
From the 1980s’ stand-alone computers, to the 1990s’ network-based multimedia, to the 21st century’s wireless campus, educational technology has evolved significantly. Consequentially, educators’ visions and the policies of the technology have changed as well. The educational technology policy documents over the past 20 years, from A Nation at Risk of 1983 to PCAST Report 1997, from the No Child Left BehindAct of 2001 (NCLB) to the new National Education Technology Plan 2004, have addressed multiple aspects of understanding the process of using technological tools to change teaching practices and improve learning outcomes. These aspects, however, has drawn three distinct approaches to thinking about and investing in technology. They are: investing in technology to support specific and long term needs of educators, transforming education through technology, and matching technologies to public priorities for educational improvement (Culp, Honey, & Mandinach, 2003). After a brief review of these documents in chronological order, I found that three policies, including one from the 80’s, 90’s and 00’s, have played important roles in developing our vision for how technologies can impact teaching and learning. These particular documents helped to shape how we view the promise and potential of technology in education and marked significant steps in the evolution of educational technology enlightened by the spirit of the A Nation at Risk report and the NCLB Legislation.
The 80s – a Power-On Yesterday
The educational reform reports of the 1980's were being issued parallel to the establishment of the personal computer and interactive technologies as important tools in education. Both the reform reports and the emergence of new technologies during the 1980's pointed to the American economic transition occurring simultaneously (Doyle, 1994). According to A Nation at Risk report, schools were seen as failing to turn out productive citizens as well as failing in academic preparation. The needs of the American marketplace were changing from an industrial orientation to that of information/service. This would lend impetus to the reform movement by the business community. Educational Technology policies such as Power On! New Tools for Teaching and Learning initiated by this reform movement, were to study the potential of interactive learning tools for improving the quality of education. The Power On report also “analyzed the technological, economic, and institutional barriers to achieving the technologies future promise” (OTA, 1988).
During this period, however, there was no best solution for all level of government and school districts to develop a comprehensive plan and to share funding responsibilities. Although interactive technologies were identified as powerful and important educational tools, they were not able to be fully developed due to lack of a unifying conception.
The 90s – Transforming for Today
With the emergence of the Internet and technology becoming more a central force in economic competitiveness, policies in mid-90s have changed the focus from technology as tools to technology as a driver of school reform. Instead of focusing on isolated, skills-based uses of technology, Panel on Educational Technology under the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) claimed that schools should promote the use of various technologies for sophisticated problem-solving and information-retrieving purposes (Panel on Educational Technology, 1997).
One of the major voices of the documents during this period is the emphasis on infusion of technology into the curriculum to promote learning through the technology instead of learning the technology. As articulated in the Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strenghen K-12 Education in the United States (PCAST 1997), school should be transformed to a place where students should be introduced to and instructed through the technology as a tool for understanding, exploration, and problem solving. The documents in this decade primarily advocated improving access, connectivity and infrastructure as well as defining and promoting the roles of multiple stakeholders.
The 21st Century – Towards a New Golden-Age Tomorrow
The launch of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 further deepened education reform in the 21st century with new standards of accountability. Driven by the NCLB, recommendations focusing on the need for new regulations and policies regarding educational technology have emerged. The National Education Technology Plan (NETP) 2004 generated a big-picture vision of what is possible using technology in education today. It highlights the major challenges and opportunities of education technology, offers examples of successful school technology programs, and presents seven action steps and a series of recommendations. The NETP is not a top-down document from the federal government; it has meant as a comparison and a framework, grounded in practice and reality (Jackson, 2005). By matching technologies to public priorities for educational improvement, the plan started a campaign that will accelerate “a nation on the move” towards a new golden age.
The Changes and the Challenges
Within the defining frame of the A Nation at Risk report and the NCLB legislation, the policies reviewed have empowered the technology to renovate traditional education landscape and gradually changed the conversation from integration to transformation. Meanwhile, the under-funding of the NCLB, digital divide/disconnect, lack of adequate training, and lack of understanding of how technology can be used to enrich the learning experience seem to have posed both physical and philosophical challenges on the evolution of these policies. However, with some latest policies pointing out some solutions such as using the existing resources and budget creatively, creating a new student-teacher partnership, and strengthening leaderships at every level, we are cautiously optimistic about the future of the technology-based educational improvement.
REFERENCES
Cetron, et al. (2003). A forecast for schools. Educational Leadership, vol.61, Issue 4
Dildine, J. (1999).Technology-incentive instruction with high performing and low performing middle school mathematics students. Available online at http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/dildine/thesis/
Doyle, C. (1994). Technology impact. Available online at http://learning.kern.org/tlc_resources/stories/storyReader$21?print-friendly=true
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). (2001). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Available online at http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02/index.html
Jackson, L. (2005). The National Educational Technology Plan: an interview with OET Director Susan Patrick. Available online at http://www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech/tech212.shtml
Office of Technology Assessment. (1988). Power on! New tools for teaching and learning (OTA- SET-379). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available on line at http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/byteserv.prl/~ota/disk2/1988/8831/8831.PDF
National Commission on Excellence in Education. (1983). A Nation at Risk. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
President Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Educational Technology. (1997). Report to the president on the use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/k-12ed.html
U.S. Department of Eduation. (2003). A Retrospective on Twenty Years of Education Technology Policy. Washington, DC: Author. Available online at http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/participate/20years.pdf
U.S. Department of Eduation. (2005). Toward a New Golden Age in American Education: how the Internet, the law and today’s students are revolutionizing expectations. Washington, DC: Author.
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