The Future of Information Technology in Education

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Moursund, D.G. (1997). The future of information technology in education. (Selected Chapters.) Eugene, Oregon: International Society for Technology in Education.

The following materials are from the book listed above, but have been slightly modified to bring them up to date and/or better fit the needs of this course.

Preface

Chapter 3: Educational Systems Change Over Time

Chapter 4: Computer Technology in Education

References

Preface to the Book

This book is about the future of information technology in K-12 education. It is intended for people who have an interest in how information technology will change and improve education. This includes parents, teachers, school administrators, school board members, legislators, corporate foundations, and educational policy makers.

Some Features of This Book

Some noteworthy feature of this book include:

• It is relatively short.
• It contains a number of brief quotes from many different popular press news items. These help paint a picture of current and emerging roles of information technology in our society.
• While the focus of this book is on education in the United States, quite a few of the examples report on use of information technology outside of the United States. All of the educational systems of the world are faced by the problem of dealing with the increasing capabilities and availability of information systems.
• The forecasts are supported by multiple sources of information and forecasting techniques. Appendix A discusses a number of different forecasting methodologies. You can use ideas discussed here if you want to make your own forecasts.
• Each chapter ends with a few concluding remarks and some recommendations. You can think of these recommendations as "my best professional advice."
• Chapter 9 discusses long-range strategic planning for technology in education. You can use these ideas to help plan educational changes that you feel are appropriate.
• The References section is extensive and contains brief annotations for each of the items.

Personal Note

I have been a "computer educator" for more than 30 years. During all of that time I have been optimistic about the future of computer technology in education.

In retrospect, it is clear that I have been overly optimistic. Educational systems are quite resistant to change. Progress has not occurred as fast as I had thought it would. Still, considerable progress has occurred, and the groundwork has been laid for further progress. It is clear to me that we are just at the beginning of a number of major changes in our educational system that will occur because of continuing progress in information technology.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank Paul Duchin, Maureen O'Rourke, and Irene Smith for the feedback they provided on the manuscript.

A number of the brief quotes used in this document were obtained through use of the Internet. I want to give special thanks to John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas at Educom. They are the writers of Edupage, a summary of news about information technology, which is provided three times a week as a service of Educom, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. To subscribe to Edupage, send email to:

listproc@Educom.unc.edu

with the message:

subscribe edupage First Last

where First Last is your first and last names.

David Moursund

April 1997

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