Planning for Two Transformations in Education and Learning Technology Report of a Workshop (2003) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 1-10
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
While many pioneering IT projects have been developed by the education research community and individual schools or school districts and examples of commercially and publicly available IT for supporting language arts, mathematics, science, and technology education abound, there is a growing recognition that IT hardware and applications are having less influence on improving learning for all than has been envisioned. Despite the frustration about the unrealized potential, however, there is a sense of optimism that the motivation to confront and address the issue is gaining momentum.
|
From page 2... ...
Currently, the United States possesses an infrastructure in which over three-quarters of all classrooms have Internet access and multiple computers for student use (Cattagni and Farris, 2001~. This change is due to the billions of dollars that American schools have expended in the past five years on the costs of information technology and telecommunications, with funding enabled by the E-Rate (discounted telecommunications services for schools and libraries)
|
From page 3... ...
2) concluded that "the research base is severely limited" since "out of the 195 experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation studies that our initial search identified, just 31 studies used designs that met our minimum requirement for methodological criteria: the use of a comparison group, large enough samples, reliable measures of achievement, and sufficient information for estimating an effect size." Nonetheless, with these stringent criteria secured, their meta-analysis did support a positive association between the use of discrete educational software products and student achievement in reading and mathematics, with an overall weighted effect size of +0.38 standard deviation.3 4 This effect size is consistent with and slightly larger than earlier meta-analyses of computer-based instruction.
|
From page 4... ...
The types of IT application described in How People Learn have great potential for improving teacher learning and professionalization, for connecting learners via telecommunications to the distributed expertise of others from whom they can learn, for using student responses much more frequently in formative assessments that can guide instructional practices, and for providing far broader student access to complex concepts and skills more typically associated with only advanced learners by using visualization and other dynamic knowledge representation techniques (e.g., National Research Council, 2000; Kaput, Noss, and Hoyles, 2001; Pea, 2002; Linn, Davis, and Bell, 2003~. As many of these more recent developments and applications using IT in K-12 learning engage multiple aspects of systemic reform, from curriculum to assessment to teacher development and parental involvement, they may offer great potential to have impacts on learning that go well beyond those demonstrated for discrete educational programs in the meta-analytic reviews cited above (e.g., National Research Council, 2000; Roschelle et al., 2001~.
|
From page 5... ...
, and the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) to catalyze the creation of a community of experts in technology, cognition and learning, and education who are devoted to improving education through creative and research-based applications of information technology." While the primary focus of this project has been at the K-12 level, there are clear cross-cutting issues and opportunities for intersections with higher education (e.g., National Research Council, 1997, 1999a, 2002a, 2002c)
|
From page 6... ...
As suggested by a number of reports (e.g., National Research Council 1997, 2000, 2001b) , this next generation of technology could improve learning by such means as supporting deeper conceptual learning and providing more useful, individualized formative assessment to guide instruction.
|
From page 7... ...
Such a community would work to monitor developments in technology, learning research, and classroom practice to help inform local district decisions about how to use education technology, governmental decisions about the research agenda and financial support in education technology, industry decisions about how to supply the market for education technology, and researcher decisions about how to design studies that address the pressing questions, challenges, and opportunities faced by today's educators with respect to information technology (e.g., National Research Council, 1999a, 2001a)
|
From page 8... ...
It is also important to bring them to a scale of use that would benefit students and educators in many more educational environments than happens traditionally by means of government-sponsored research activities. The January 2003 workshop resulted in a number of suggestions for key enablers of the two transformations in the use of information technology to improve learning.
|
From page 10... ...
Appendix A consists of personal statements by committee members regarding next steps to encourage the effective use of IT in K-12 education. Appendix B provides the complete set of key enablers for the two transformations that were developed by the breakout groups in the January 2003 workshop.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.