Digital Technology: Transforming Schools and
Improving Learning
Moursund. D.G. (November 1999). Digital Technology:
Transforming Schools and Improving Learning. In Day, B.
(Ed.) Teaching and Learning in the New Millennium. Published
by Kappa Delta Pi, an International Honor Society in
Education.
An Education
Scenairo Set in the Year 2015
Introduction
to IT in Education
Computer
and Information Science
Computer-as-Tool
Information
Technology-Assisted Learning and Research
Information
Technology and Problem Solving
Current Goals
for Information Technology in Education
Six
Broad Categories of Technology Standards
Profiles
Describing Technology Literate Students
Prior
to completion of Grade 2
Prior to
completion of Grade 5
Prior to
completion of Grade 8
Prior to
completion of Grade 12
Information
Technology Now and in the Future
Potentials for
Improving Learning
Computer-Assisted
Learning, Distance Learning, and Improving Learning
Computer-as-tool
and Improving Learning
Information
Technology-based Changes in Curriculum Content
Potentials for
Transforming our Educational System
Is the
Education Scenario Believable?
References
An Education Scenario Set in the Year 2015
It is still raining and cloudy early in the
morning when Saundri finishes her breakfast and opens her
PEA (Personal Education Assistant). Clouds and rain mean
the household solar energy system is not producing much
power. Today is Saundri's fifteenth birthday, and she is
looking forward to a busy and fun-filled day. She hopes
the weather will improve so that a lack of electrical
power will not interfere with her evening party
plans.
Glancing at her PEA, Saundri notices that the
wireless connectivity to the Internet is solid at one
megabyte per second. The battery level indicator is at
the one-third level, indicating that she has about seven
hours of power. She will have to charge the batteries
later in the day. She also notes that the PEA's free
memory is down to twenty-five gigabytes. Soon she will
have to do some house cleaning.
With a few voice commands, Saundri sends her
previous evening's homework to her various teachers.
While doing so, she thinks briefly about her mathematics
teacher in London, her science teacher in Washington, DC,
and her global studies teacher in Mexico City. It would
be neat to someday meet them face to face. Being in
secondary school is fun, but she misses the interpersonal
contacts of elementary school, where the teachers and
students came together each school day.
Next, Saundri checks her computer "Inbox" and sees
that she has quite a few e-mail messages, voice phone
messages, and videophone messages. Her friends and fellow
students from around the world have messaged her because
they know it is her birthday. Plus, all of her course
instructors have provided feedback on the schoolwork she
turned in yesterday. There are other messages from her
teammates on several school group projects.
Saundri opens some of the birthday greetings and
talks to a couple of her friends. Several of her friends
speak and write in languages that Saundri does not know,
but her PEA provides reasonable quality translations in
real-time. One message contains a gift for two free video
viewings. She instructs her PEA to download Gone with the
Wind, her current all-time favorite. She will share it
with her friends and family at the birthday party this
evening.
In her courses, Saundri is working on several large
projects. In math and science, for example, her project
is to explore situations in which research in math has
led to new discoveries in science, and situations in
which research in science has led to new discoveries in
math. She is one member of a four-person team
collaborating on this project. Her specific task is to
understand what led to the development of the math topics
currently being studied in her math course. The intended
audience for this team term project are students located
throughout the world with an interest in both math and
science. The team will publish its report as an
interactive World Wide Website, which is designed to help
users learn how math and science have benefited each
other.
Saundri is working on another project individually.
It combines global studies with health education. She is
particularly interested in how various levels of
education in different countries may be affecting health
levels, and vice versa. This project is dear to her
heart, because one of her brothers died from a disease
when he was only six years old. So, the fifteen-year-old
decides to work on this topic for awhile.
She begins to look at death rates due to disease
among people worldwide fifteen to thirty years of age as
well as the number of years of schooling the deceased
achieved. Saundri is searching for possible correlations.
This project, however, seems too complex for the
correlation techniques she has studied in the past. She
asks to speak to her Statistical Consultant, a
computer-based "agent." After a brief conversation, the
Statistical Consultant senses that Saundri is in over her
head and begins to provide her with an interactive
tutorial on possible statistical techniques to use in
this situation. In addition, the Statistical Consultant
suggests that Saundri first study data from just two
countries, rather than from the worldwide set of 273.
This method will allow her to quickly carry out some
trial-and-error experiments to help her more fully define
the problem.
Meanwhile, her PEA has combed its own databases and
begun a Web search. It reports that its own databases
contain baseline data on education in the 273 countries
but that the desired health data is scattered over
thousands of databases on the Web. Saundri picks two
countries for her pilot study and tells her PEA how to
set up the database. Her PEA indicates that this task
will take a few minutes, because it will have to search
seventy-two Websites to get the needed data.
Rather than sit and twiddle her thumbs, the
birthday girl asks to speak to her Personal Tutor.
Saundri's Personal Tutor is another computer-based agent
that works with her as she uses the Intelligent
Computer-Assisted Learning (ICAL) materials in her PEA.
The tutor immediately appears onscreen and praises her
for beginning her schoolwork so early in the morning. Her
Personal Tutor has complete records on what Saundri has
studied, her interests, her preferred learning styles,
and her areas of greatest intelligence from Howard
Gardner's most recent list of ten intelligences.
Saundri's Personal Tutor and the ICAI system make it
possible for her to study anything she wants to study, at
any time she wants to study it. The nature and level of
instruction is always appropriate to her current
knowledge and skills, and the best current theories of
teaching and learning are always incorporated.
Later in the day, the sun shines bright and clear. Saundri plugs her PEA into the household solar energy system so it can recharge while she is out for soccer practice. She remembers to give a mental "Thank you!" to UNESCO for providing her with a full scholarship and the PEA for her secondary school education—especially since many of Saundri's friends dropped out of school at age twelve.
The bus into Nairobi will be coming through
Saundri's village in a few minutes, and she is looking
forward to this afternoon's workout with the soccer team.
However, she will have to be on time getting back to her
village, because she has a music lesson just before
supper.
Does Saundri's scenario from the year 2015 sound like
science fiction? Or does the technology-assisted education
of this fifteen-year-old girl from Kenya seem like a
plausible picture of the future? Before you answer those
questions, let us examine where we have been and where we
stand now in information technology (IT). Then, we can make
some forecasts on the costs, capabilities, and availability
of IT facilities in the year 2015.
Top of
Page
Introduction
to IT in Education
First, it is important to understand the major
differences among the three main instructional-use
categories of IT. Many misunderstandings about IT in
instruction can be resolved through an analysis of these
three categories. For instructional uses, the IT categories
include:
1. Underlying theory: computer and information
science.
2. Problem solving: applications of computer-as-tool.
3. Learning and research: IT-assisted learning and
research.
The next three sections describe these three categories
as if they are separate and distinct. In many applications,
these categories overlap one another. Indeed, a student is
seldom engaged in a use of IT that falls purely into one of
the three categories.
Top of
Page
Computer
and Information Science
Over the past fifty years, computer and information
science has emerged as a major discipline of study. Many
community colleges, technical institutes, colleges, and
universities offer degree programs in this discipline, and a
relatively high demand exists for workers with good
knowledge and skills in it. A number of high schools offer
an advance placement (AP) course in computer science. (The
course prepares students to take an AP test; those who score
well may receive college credit.) This course is a balance
between theory and practice in the field and includes a
considerable emphasis on computer programming. Sometimes it
is offered as a two-year sequence, designed to cover roughly
the equivalent of a one-year university course. Only a small
percentage of students take AP computer science courses in
high school. The majority of K-12 students receive little or
no formal instruction in this academic discipline. This
represents a considerable change over the past twenty
years.
In the early days of microcomputers, there was an
emphasis on teaching students computer programming.
Gradually that emphasis has been replaced by having students
learn computer tools, such as word processor, spreadsheet,
database, graphics, and the Internet. Interestingly,
developing interactive multimedia and developing
spreadsheets tends to require some of the same knowledge and
skills used in computer programming. Few K-12 teachers who
use multimedia and spreadsheets in their classes have this
insight or the computer programming knowledge to follow up
on this insight. This oversight is a significant weakness in
instruction in these areas.
Top of
Page
Computer-as-Tool
The computer is a useful and versatile mind tool. It can
be used to help solve the problems and accomplish the tasks
at the center of many different academic disciplines.
Computer tools for education can be divided into three
categories: generic tools, subject-specific tools, and
learner-centered tools.
1. Generic tools. Software programs such as word
processors, spreadsheet, database, graphics, e-mail and the
Web cut across many disciplines. A student who learns to use
these tools can apply them in almost every area of
intellectual work. Many school districts in the United
States expect that all of their students will have learned
how to use these tools by the end of elementary or middle
school. Perhaps you are familiar with ClarisWorks (which is
now called AppleWorks). It consists of a collection of
generic tools, and many students learn to use all of these
tools before finishing middle school.
2. Subject-specific tools. These tools are designed for a
particular academic discipline. Hardware and software to aid
in musical composition and performance is an example.
Software for mechanical drawing (computer-assisted design)
is another widely used example. Many different disciplines
have developed hardware and software specifically to meet
the needs of professionals within their disciplines.
3. Learner-centered tools. These tools are that require
some programming skills but that focus on learning to learn
as well as on learning subjects besides programming. Most
hypermedia or multimedia authoring systems serve as
examples. In addition, many of the generic tools include a
built-in "macro" feature that adds learner-centered
options.
Progress in developing more and better applications
packages, as well as better human-machine interfaces, has
caused the tool use of computers to grow rapidly. In
addition, computer scientists working in the field of
artificial intelligence (AI) are producing application
packages to solve a variety of difficult problems that
require a substantial amount of human knowledge and skill.
Such application packages will eventually change the content
of a variety of school subjects.
What students should learn to do mentally versus what
they should learn with assistance from simple aids (books,
pencils, paper) versus what they should learn assisted by
more sophisticated aids (calculators, computers, other IT)
remains a key educational issue. Given the constantly
changing state of IT, it is not an easy issue to answer with
a single solution. The slow acceptance of the hand-held
calculator into the curriculum suggests that more
sophisticated aids to problem solving will encounter
substantial resistance. The gap between what tools are
available and what tools are used in education likely will
increase.
The computer can also be a tool to increase teacher
productivity. Computerized grade books, data banks of exam
questions, computerized assistance in preparing individual
education programs (IEPs) for students with learning
disabilities, and word-processed lesson plans and class
handouts are all good examples. These increase the teachers'
productivity by improving overall efficiency of effort and
saving valuable time. This benefit is particularly true if
networks allow teachers to easily share successful
materials.
Many teachers now make use of a desktop presentation
system as an aid to interacting with a group or whole class
of students. This format is a projector system attached to a
computer used to display pre-prepared materials, or graphs
and other materials generated during the interaction between
students and the teacher. For example, in a math class, the
computer and projection system can be used to create and
project a graph of data or a function being explored.
Top of
Page
Information
Technology-Assisted Learning and Research
IT-Assisted Learning and Research combines three
important uses of IT in education: (1) computer-assisted
learning (CAL) is the interaction between a student and a
computer system designed to help the student learn; (2)
computer-assisted research is the use of IT as an aid to
doing library and empirical research; (3) distance learning
is the use of telecommunications designed to facilitate
student learning.
Over the past forty years, CAL has been given many
different names, such as "computer-based instruction" and
"computer-assisted instruction." In recent years, the field
has come to include distance learning, e-mail-based
instruction, and Web-based instruction. The CAL name is
intended to emphasize "learning" rather than just
"instruction." CAL includes drill and practice, tutorial,
simulation, and a variety of virtual reality environments
designed to help students learn.
The computer can be used for instructional delivery to
students of every age, in every subject area, and with all
types of students. Evidence is mounting that CAL is
especially useful in special education and in basic skills
instruction (Kulik 1994). In addition, CAL and distance
education can provide students access to courses not
available in a teacher-delivered mode in their schools.
There are two major categories of computer-assisted
research at the K-12 level. First, there is the use of
computers to read CD-ROM materials and to search electronic
databases (for example, using the Web). Students of all ages
learn to make use of some of the knowledge and skills of the
research librarian. Second, there is use of computerized
instrumentation to gather data and the use of computers to
help process data. Many middle school and secondary school
students are learning to use microcomputer-based laboratory
tools and statistical packages.
Distance learning is rapidly growing in use and
importance (International Society for Technology in
Education [ISTE] 1999). Through the use of
telecommunications, students and instructors can be
connected in a two-way audio and a one-way or a two-way
video network that allows real-time interaction. The Web is
increasingly being used to provide the needed connectivity.
Oftentimes, such instruction is asynchronous (not
real-time), making use of videotapes or materials stored on
a computer. This dimension adds convenience for the student.
In the typical Web-based course, students interact with one
another and the instructors (students often do group
projects), even though they may be located at different
places around the world.
Top of
Page
Information
Technology and Problem Solving
An excellent overview of education and the wide variety
of attempts to improve it has been provided by Perkins
(1992). He analyzed attempted improvements in terms of how
well they contribute to accomplishing the following general
goals of education: (1) acquisition and retention of
knowledge and skills; (2) understanding of one's acquired
knowledge and skills; (3) active use of one's acquired
knowledge and skills (ability to apply one's learning to new
settings and ability to analyze and solve novel
problems).
The third goal is the focus here. Different stakeholder groups differ significantly in what they believe should be the major goals of education. However, most agree that higher-order thinking skill—less ability to solve complex, novel problems and accomplish complex, novel tasks--is an important goal of education. Thus, higher-order thinking skills and problem solving are an implicit or an explicit component of almost all courses. In this section, the term "problem solving" includes both solving problems and accomplishing tasks.
There is a substantial amount of research literature on
problem solving (Polya 1957; Frederiksen 1984; Frensch and
Funke 1995; Moursund 1996). Many writers use a somewhat
common set of vocabulary as they talk about problem solving.
Problem solving consists of moving from a given initial
situation to a desired goal situation. Another way of saying
it: problem solving is the process of designing and carrying
out a set of steps to reach a goal. Many writers also
include provisos that, in a problem, it is not obvious how
to reach the goal and there may be strict rules,
constraints, and limitations of resources. (If it is
relatively obvious how to get from A to B, then the
situation is called an exercise. Of course, this means that
the same exact situation can be a problem for one person and
an exercise for another person.)
Here is a formal definition of the term "problem." You
(personally) have a problem if the following four conditions
are satisfied: (1) you have a clearly defined given initial
situation; (2) you have a clearly defined goal (a desired
end situation); (3) you have a clearly defined set of
resources that may be applicable in helping you move from
the given initial situation to the desired goal situation
(there may be specified limitations on resources, such as
rules, regulations, and guidelines for what you are allowed
to do in attempting to solve a particular problem); (4) you
have some type of ownership--that is, you are committed to
using some of your own resources, such as your knowledge,
skills, and energies, to achieve the desired final goal.
These four components of a well-defined problem are
summarized by the four words: givens, goal, resources, and
ownership. Increasingly, IT is a readily available resource
in problem solving.
People often get confused by the resources part of the
definition of formal problem. Resources do not tell you how
to solve a problem; they merely tell you what you are
allowed to do and/or use in solving the problem. For
example, you want to create an advertising campaign to
increase the sales of a set of products that your company
produces. The campaign is to be nationwide, to be completed
in three months, and not to exceed $40,000 in cost. You have
a computer available and you know how to use a spreadsheet.
You are not to make illegal agreements with your competitors
or to violate the high ethical standards of your company.
All of these things fit under resources. You still have to
figure out how to create the ad campaign.
This definition of formal problem emphasizes that
problems do not exist in the abstract. They exist only when
there is ownership. The owner might be a person, an
organization, or a country. One of the difficulties that
teachers face is that they have textbooks that contain
so-called "problems" ( exercises and activities for
students), yet the students often have no ownership of these
exercises and activities. Project-based learning tends to
allow students to define the problems that they will solve
(the tasks that they will accomplish). Research indicates
that this increases student motivation, because the students
have ownership of "their" problem (Blumenfeld et al. 1991;
Moursund 1999).
Over the years, humans have developed many important
mental aids, including reading, writing, arithmetic, and
computers. They have developed many important physical aids,
including the plow, car, airplane, telecommunications, and
automated machinery. They have developed a number of aids to
formal and informal learning, such as schools. places of
worship, playgrounds, and parks. Collectively and
cumulatively, these three categories of aids allow people to
routinely solve problems and accomplish tasks that were
beyond what anybody could do a century ago.
In addition, over the years, humans have learned a great
deal about problem solving. To illustrate some roles of IT
in problem solving, we will focus on the single most
important idea in problem solving: the idea of building on
the previous work of yourself and others. In other words, do
not reinvent the wheel! This idea means it is helpful to
learn to conceptualize and to represent problems using the
vocabulary and notation that people have developed over the
millennia. This process of representing (modeling) problems
is an idea that cuts across problem solving in many
different disciplines. In addition, it is helpful to have
the knowledge and skills of a research librarian and to have
access to a good library.
Reading, writing, arithmetic, science, and technology are
excellent examples of the previous work of others. Millions
of researchers and practitioners have worked individually
and collectively over thousands of years to develop our
current knowledge base. Remember Saundri in 2015? She asked
her PEA to find some data and organize it into a database
that would be suitable for carrying out various statistical
tests. Saundri did not invent computers, databases, and the
various statistical tests she will use. Saundri and her
Statistical Consultant know what statistical tests will be
appropriate to her study and how the data needs to be
organized to allow the computer to carry out the tests.
Humans store their collected knowledge and skills in
their minds, in books, in artifacts they build, and so on. A
car represents a huge amount of knowledge, as does the
infrastructure that supports automobile transportation. It
is relatively easy for a person to learn to drive a car. It
will be even easier in the future as people develop
automated car-driving systems akin to automatic pilots in
airplanes.
To a large extent, a book represents a static way of
storing information and knowledge, while an artifact such as
a car represents a more dynamic way of storing information
and knowledge. In essence, a book can tell a person what he
or she needs to learn and how to solve a certain type of
problem or accomplish a certain type of task. The person
both needs to do the learning and follow the instructions.
But a car can "just do it."
This explanation is an over simplification; however, the
point to be made is actually rather simple: People build
artifacts that incorporate a great deal of knowledge and
skill. Other people learn to use these artifacts--often
quite quickly and easily. In essence, by doing so, they gain
knowledge and skill from the previous work of others.
The various information technologies that we call IT can
be thought of as an artifact or a collection of artifacts
that people have developed. What problems can a computer
system solve? An answer is that computer systems can already
do a lot, and that every year the collection of
computer-solvable problems is increasing substantially. A
computer system is a way of storing information (databases)
along with sets of directions on how to use the
information--and the ability to "just do it."
The term "computer system" as used in the preceding
paragraph includes everything from a hand-held calculator to
a microcomputer to a fully automated factory. Consider the
inexpensive hand-held, solar battery-powered calculator. In
1997, you could purchase a new calculator at Office Depot
for $4.99. Besides the usual four arithmetic functions, it
includes sin, cos, tan, log, exponential, factorial,
parentheses, and some internal storage. In high schools of
yesteryear, square roots were calculated by hand, math
tables were used to look up values of trigonometry
functions, and learning to use a table of logarithms was
necessary to carry out various calculations. Now, all of
that instructional time as well as the math tables have been
replaced by a reliable, easily portable, inexpensive
hand-held calculator.
That is only a small piece of the story. Many high school
students now use a calculator that also includes a key
labeled "Solve" and a key labeled "Graph." The calculator
can solve equations and graph functions. Even that is only a
small piece of the story. There is microcomputer software
that can solve a wide range of the types of problems covered
in the traditional math curriculum up through the first two
years of college. Indeed, this software is also available on
a hand-held calculator.
Such calculators and microcomputer software have had some
impact on the math curriculum. However, it would be a far
stretch to suggest that math education has been transformed.
It has not been. Remember, our educational system is highly
resistant to change. It seems easy to be overly optimistic
about the potentials of school reform or other major changes
for education.
In the above examples, the focus was on calculators and
computers in math. However, each area of human intellectual
activity can be analyzed from the point of view of the
problems it addresses, and the current and potential roles
of IT in helping to solve these problems. IT is a powerful
aid to problem solving in every academic discipline. The
educational implications are profound.
Saundri talks to her PEA. Should students spend time
developing good keyboarding skills when voice input is
available? Computers can graph functions and data. Should
students spend time learning to do this by hand? Computers
can decide who is an acceptable risk for a home loan, and
they are a powerful aid to doing one's income taxes. A good
Web search engine can do many of the things that a skilled
research librarian can do. The mechanical drawing course has
disappeared from the high school curriculum--replaced by a
computer-aided design course or a graphics art course.
Because a computer system is a "just do it" tool, it has
become an everyday tool for many workers. For white-collar
workers in the United States, the ratio of computers per
employee is now in excess of 1:1. It is inevitable that the
steadily increasing "just do it" capability of computer
systems will eventually lead to major changes in the school
curriculum and in assessment.
Assessment is a particularly interesting challenge as we
try to reconcile authentic assessment with the capabilities
of a PEA. How do you test Saundri and her PEA working
together? An "open computer" test? For example, how much
weight should be given to spelling and grammar in writing?
Even today's word processors are relatively good at
detecting and correcting errors in spelling and grammar.
Top of
Page
Current
Goals for Information Technology in Education
In very simple terms, there are two major goals for IT in
education: One goal is to make use of IT as an effective aid
to accomplishing the "traditional" (non-IT-related) goals of
education. The second goal is to learn IT and its uses to
solve problems and accomplish tasks--especially for
situations in which use of IT conveys distinct advantages
over nonuse of the technology. For example, nowadays, IT is
routinely used to solve problems that cannot be solved
without the use of IT.
As an example of the first goal, we all want students to
learn how to read. We know a great deal about how to help
children learn to read. We can capture part of the theory
and practice of teaching reading into a CAL system. For most
students, CAL is not nearly as good as one-on-one tutoring
by a highly skilled human teacher; however, for many
students, CAL systems are more effective than large-group
(whole class) instruction for some of the components of
learning to read. A number of CAL research and development
efforts are being directed toward creating better CAL-based
systems to help students learn to read.
There are many examples of the second goal. A computer
system can be used to simulate an airplane design. It can be
used for computer-assisted design that ties in with
computer-assisted manufacturing. A computer system can
simulate the exploding of a nuclear weapon or conduct
long-range weather forecasting.
One can think of the World Wide Web as a Global Digital
Library. The development of such a huge library, as well as
providing lots of people access to it, was not possible
before current technologies emerged. The Web is a new form
of information storage and retrieval. Many people find it is
highly useful to have good skills in searching the Web as
well as making use of the types of resources it
provides.
The IT education goals outlined previously are quite
general. More specific goals are needed to help guide the
development of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. In
recent years, ISTE has been developing standards for
students and for preservice and in-service teachers. ISTE is
a nonprofit professional society that publishes a variety of
journals, participates in conferences, publishes books, runs
workshops, conducts research, and maintains a high quality
Website. ISTE has worked with the National Council for
Accreditation of Teacher Education to develop IT standards
for preservice teachers (ISTE Standards). Such standards are
periodically revised to fit the continuing rapid changes in
IT and uses of IT for K-12 education. Several U.S. states
have adapted these preservice standards to fit their needs
for in-service teacher standards. These standards need to be
high enough so that teachers are well prepared to work with
students trying to meet the student standards.
The following materials are from the ISTE National
Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for pre-K-12
students (ISTE Standards). A number of states are making use
of NETS as they develop their state standards and
assessment. Check your own level of IT knowledge and skill
against the performance indicators for the various grade
levels. Very few preservice and in-service teachers
currently meet the suggested standards for students
completing grades 9-12.
Top of
Page
Six
Broad Categories of Technology Standards
The technology foundation standards for students are
divided into six broad categories. Standards within each
category are to be introduced, reinforced, and mastered by
students. These categories provide a framework for linking
performance indicators for various grade levels given in the
next section. Teachers can use these standards and profiles
as guidelines for planning technology-based activities in
which students achieve success in learning, communication,
and life skills.
1. Basic operations and concepts: Students demonstrate a
sound understanding of the nature and operation of
technology systems. Students are proficient in the use of
technology.
2. Social, ethical, and human issues: Students understand
the ethical, cultural, and societal issues related to
technology. Students practice responsible use of technology
systems, information, and software. Students develop
positive attitudes toward technology uses that support
lifelong learning, collaboration, personal pursuits, and
productivity.
3. Technology productivity tools: Students use technology
tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and
promote creativity. Students use productivity tools to
collaborate in constructing technology-enhanced models,
preparing publications, and producing other creative
works.
4. Technology communications tools: Students use
telecommunications to collaborate, publish, and interact
with peers, experts, and other audiences. Students use a
variety of media and formats to communicate information and
ideas effectively to multiple audiences.
5. Technology research tools: Students use technology to
locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of
sources. Students use technology tools to process data and
report results. Students evaluate and select new information
resources and technological innovations based on the
appropriateness to specific tasks.
6. Technology problem-solving and decision-making tools:
Students use technology resources for solving problems and
making informed decisions. Students employ technology in the
development of strategies for solving problems in the real
world.
Top of
Page
Profiles
Describing Technology Literate Students
A major component of the NETS project is the development
of a general set of profiles describing technology literate
students at key developmental points in their pre-college
education. These profiles reflect the underlying assumption
that all students should have the opportunity to develop
technology skills that support learning, personal
productivity, decision making, and daily life. These
profiles and associated standards provide a framework for
preparing students to be lifelong learners who make informed
decisions about the role of technology in their lives.
The Profiles for Technology Literate Students provide
performance indicators describing the technology competence
students should exhibit upon completion of the various grade
ranges. In each profile list, the numbers in parentheses at
the end of the items correspond to the six overarching
technology standards for students given previously.
Top of
Page
Prior to
completion of Grade 2, students will:
1. use input devices ( mouse, keyboard, remote control,
and so forth) and output devices (monitor, printer, and so
forth) to successfully operate computers, VCRs, audio tapes,
and other technologies (1);
2. use a variety of media and technology resources for
directed and independent learning activities (1, 3);
3. communicate about technology using developmentally
appropriate and accurate terminology (1);
4. use developmentally appropriate multimedia resources
(interactive books, educational software, elementary
multimedia encyclopedias, and so on) to support learning
(1);
5. work cooperatively and collaboratively with peers,
family members, and others when using technology in the
classroom (2);
6. demonstrate positive social and ethical behaviors when
using technology (2);
7. practice responsible use of technology systems and
software (2);
8. create developmentally appropriate multimedia products
with support from teachers, family members, or student
partners (3);
9. use technology resources (puzzles, logical thinking
programs, writing tools, digital cameras, drawing tools, and
so on) for problem solving, communication, and illustration
of thoughts, ideas, and stories (3, 4, 5, 6); and
10. gather information and communicate with others using
telecommunications with support from teachers, family
members, or student partners (4).
Top of
Page
Prior to
completion of Grade 5, students will:
1. use keyboards and other common input and output
devices (including adaptive devices when necessary)
efficiently and effectively (1);
2. discuss common uses of technology in daily life and
the advantages and disadvantages those uses provide (1,
2);
3. discuss basic issues related to responsible use of
technology and information and describe personal
consequences of inappropriate use (2);
4. use general purpose productivity tools and peripherals
to support personal productivity, remediate skill deficits,
and facilitate learning throughout the curriculum (3);
5. use technology tools (multimedia authoring,
presentation, Web tools, digital cameras, scanners, and so
forth) for individual and collaborative writing,
communication, and publishing activities to create knowledge
products for audiences inside and outside the classroom (3,
4);
6. use telecommunications efficiently and effectively to
access remote information, communicate with others in
support of direct and independent learning, and pursue
personal interests (4);
7. use telecommunications and online resources (e-mail,
online discussions, Web environments, and so on) to
participate in collaborative problem-solving activities for
the purpose of developing solutions or products for
audiences inside and outside the classroom (4, 5);
8. use technology resources (calculators, data collection
probes, videos, educational software, and so on) for
problem-solving, self-directed learning, and extended
learning activities (5, 6);
9. determine when technology is useful and select the
appropriate tool(s) and technology resources to address a
variety of tasks and problems (5, 6); and
10. evaluate the accuracy, relevance, appropriateness,
comprehensiveness, and bias of electronic information
sources (6).
Top of
Page
Prior to
completion of Grade 8, students will:
1. apply strategies for identifying and solving routine
hardware and software problems that occur during everyday
use (1);
2. demonstrate knowledge of current changes in
information technologies and the effect those changes have
on the workplace and society (2);
3. exhibit legal and ethical behaviors when using
information and technology, and discuss consequences of
misuse (2);
4. use content-specific tools, software, and simulations
(environmental probes, graphing calculators, exploratory
environments, Web tools, and so on) to support learning and
research (3, 5);
5. apply productivity/multimedia tools and peripherals to
support personal productivity, group collaboration, and
learning throughout the curriculum (3, 6);
6. design, develop, publish, and present products (Web
pages, videotapes, and so forth) using technology resources
that demonstrate and communicate curriculum concepts to
audiences inside and outside the classroom (4, 5, 6);
7. collaborate with peers, experts, and others using
telecommunications and collaborative tools to investigate
curriculum-related problems, issues, and information, and to
develop solutions or products for audiences inside and
outside the classroom (4, 5);
8. select and use appropriate tools and technology
resources to accomplish a variety of tasks and solve
problems (5, 6);
9. demonstrate an understanding of concepts underlying
hardware, software, and connectivity, and of practical
applications to learning and problem solving (1, 6); and
10. research and evaluate the accuracy, relevance,
appropriateness, comprehensiveness, and bias of electronic
information sources concerning real-world problems (2, 5,
6).
Top of
Page
Prior to
completion of Grade 12, students will:
1. identify capabilities and limitations of contemporary
and emerging technology resources and assess the potential
of these systems and services to address personal, lifelong
learning, and workplace needs (2);
2. make informed choices among technology systems,
resources, and services (1, 2);
3. analyze advantages and disadvantages of widespread use
and reliance of technology in the workplace and in society
as a whole (2);
4. demonstrate and advocate for legal and ethical
behaviors among peers, family, and community regarding the
use of technology and information (2);
5. use technology tools and resources for managing and
communicating personal/professional information (finances,
schedules, addresses, purchases, correspondence, and so
forth) (3, 4);
6. evaluate technology-based options, including distance
and distributed education, for lifelong learning (5);
7. routinely and efficiently use online information
resources to meet needs for collaboration, research,
publications, communications, and productivity (4, 5,
6);
8. select and apply technology tools for research,
information analysis, problem solving, and decision-making
in content learning (4, 5);
9. investigate and apply expert systems, intelligent
agents, and simulations in real-world situations (3, 5, 6);
and
10. collaborate with peers, experts, and others to
contribute to a content-related knowledge base by using
technology to compile, synthesize, produce, and disseminate
information, models, and other creative works (4, 5, 6).
Top of
Page
Information
Technology Now and in the Future
IT has changed markedly over the past fifteen years.
Moreover, the pace of will likely continue for the next
fifteen years.
Following are two original ads from a local
newspaper:
(1984) Spring Special: New microcomputer, only
$900! One megahertz speed, 8-bit, 64K memory, 5.25-inch
floppy disk drive, printer, and monochrome monitor.
(1999) Spring Special: New microcomputer, only
$750! Three hundred megahertz speed, 32-bit, 48M memory,
3.5 -inch floppy drive, 5-gigabyte hard drive, 24X
CD-ROM, 15 -inch color monitor, color printer, and 56k
modem.
Several of the fifteen-year changes are especially
noteworthy:
- The change in speed from 1 MHz 8-bit to 300 MHz
32-bit. Depending on the types of operations being
performed, the 1999 microcomputer is approximately 1,200
to 19,200 times as fast as the 1984 microcomputer.
- Internal memory in the 1999 microcomputer is about
1,300 times as much as in the 1984 machine.
- A 3.5-inch floppy disk holds about ten times as much
as a 5.25-inch floppy disk.
- The 5-gigabyte hard drive and the 24X CD-ROM were not
available for microcomputers in 1984. In those days, a
5-megabyte (one-thousandth as much storage) hard drive
cost about $5,000 and the CD-ROM had not yet been
invented.
- Although the Internet had been invented, telephone
modems were relatively slow (300 bps or about 180 times
slower than the 56k modem) and relatively few
microcomputer users had modems.
- The 1999 microcomputer costs less than the 1984
microcomputer. If one take inflation into consideration,
it costs well under half as much.
It is more difficult to provide an analysis of changes in
software, databases, networking, and other resources between
1984 and 1999. The advent of the Macintosh in 1984
introduced the general public to the graphical user
interface, the laser printer, and powerful word processing
and graphics tools. Now, all of these facilities are
commonplace. The World Wide Web has been developed, and use
of the Internet has become commonplace. Interactive
hypermedia, a huge range of CD-ROMs (and now, DVD), along
with streaming audio and video on the Web are beginning to
be taken for granted.
What does the future hold? Perhaps the most often quoted
basis for predicting the future of computer hardware is
Moore's Law. Gordon Moore was one of the founders of Intel.
In the mid-1960s, he noted that the number of components
(transistors, resistors, capacitors) that could be
manufactured on a single chip had been increasing at a
steady and somewhat predictable pace. Eventually, he made
the statement that the density of components on a chip was
doubling every 18 months, and this has come to be known as
Moore's Law.
Moore's Law has proven to be relatively accurate for more
than thirty years, and experts predict that it will continue
to hold for about another twelve to fifteen years. After
that, no further doublings will be possible without a
complete change in the technology, so the farther future is
harder to predict. Researchers are currently working on
developing new forms of transistors and other related
electronic components that will be much smaller than those
expected to be manufactured twelve to fifteen years from
now. However, it is difficult to tell whether
laboratory-produced discoveries will ever "scale up" to mass
production at a reasonable cost.
What does this periodic doubling mean? It means that, if
a 1 million component chip is state of the art, then
eighteen months later a 2-million component chip will be
state of the art--and 18 months later a 4-million component
chip will be state of the art. Over a fifteen-year period of
time there are 10 doubling periods of 18 months. Note that 2
x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 is 1,024. Very roughly
speaking, this tends to mean that the speed and memory of a
state-of-the-art microcomputer will improve by a factor of
1,024 over a period of fifteen years.
The PEA that Saundri uses is not state of the art.
Indeed, it is a three-year-old model that cost in the
mid-price range in the year 2012. Saundri's PEA is 100 times
as fast, has 100 times the hard disk capacity, and costs
less than half as much today's modest-priced microcomputers.
Her PEA has a speed of 35 gigahertz (35 billion operations
per second), about 5 gigabytes of primary memory, and about
500 gigabytes of disk storage.
Such numbers are so large as to be meaningless to most
people. A 300-page textbook with a reasonable number of
diagrams and small low-resolution photographs requires
approximately 2.5 megabytes of storage. This reference point
means that the hard drive on Saundri's computer can store
approximately 200,000 such books. That is perhaps ten times
the number of volumes in a typical secondary school
library.
Of course, it would be silly to fill all of this disk
memory space with books. With an Internet connection running
at 1 megabyte per second, Saundri can download a book in
less than three seconds. So, much of the PEA's disk storage
is used for video materials. It requires many billions of
bytes (many gigabytes) of storage for a full-length,
high-resolution movie.
Saundri's wireless connectivity to the Internet seems
quite fast by today's telephone modem standards. However,
such speeds are possible with today's technology, and so
they will be inexpensive and commonplace fifteen years from
now. Saundri lives in a poor rural African village that
lacks the infrastructure found in many wealthier parts of
the world. Fiber optic has already been installed in many
nations' businesses and schools, and it is beginning to be
used to connect homes. If Saundri had a fiber optic
connection, it might be a thousand times as fast as her
wireless connection.
What good is all of that computer speed--the 35
gigahertz? Recall that Saundri talks to her computer. Voice
input to computer is now in widespread use. Yet today's
"voice input" simply means that the computer can input the
stream of sounds, translate it into words, store the words
in its memory, and display them on the screen. A
35-megahertz computer can do this almost in real-time, and
with an accuracy rate of perhaps 95 percent.
Today's voice input systems do not understand the meaning
of what they are hearing. Sure, a computer can be programmed
to carry out specific tasks when it receives specific voice
commands. For quite a few years, we have had computer
systems that respond correctly to commands such as,
"Computer, open the word processor" or "Computer, save the
file." That is a very limited form of "understanding."
In recent years, however, computer translation of natural
languages has made considerable progress. The next fifteen
years will bring still more progress in the theory and
practice of voice input, language translation, and
understanding of natural language. The gains to be expected
in computer speed and memory capacity will also help.
Fifteen years from now, we will have relatively good
simultaneous (real-time) translation (voice input, voice
output) of natural languages. Such systems will still not be
nearly as good as a highly qualified human translator, but
they will be quite adequate for many communication
tasks.
Voice input and natural language translation are not the
only problems being worked on by researchers in artificial
intelligence and other aspects of the field of computer and
information science. Films such as the 1999 Star Wars movie,
Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, required many thousands of
hours laboring on state-of-the-art microcomputers. In the
movie, can you tell the difference between creatures
animated by human actors inside costumes and creatures fully
created by computer animation? Progress in the field of
computer animation, along with faster computers, will narrow
this gap even more. The increased speed of computers will
make it possible for people like Saundri to do very
high-quality animation work on their personal computers.
What difference does this make in education? Saundri was
making use of Intelligent Computer-Assisted Learning (ICAL).
This program covers a range of learning aids, such as
drill-and-practice, tutorials, simulations, and virtual
realities. Simulators are so good that they have become a
routine aid to training airplane and spaceship pilots. In
such computer simulations, it is necessary to generate video
images (what the person is seeing) very rapidly--a pilot
turns the airplane, changes altitude, or looks out a side
window; new images have to be produced in real-time.
Saundri's ICAL system includes virtual reality that
allows her to meet and talk with key historical figures ("be
they alive or be they dead"), explore the cities of the
current and ancient worlds, and carry out scientific
experiments too dangerous and too costly to "actually" do.
The PEA gives her access to original sources of information
from the great libraries of the world. Although her Personal
Tutor is not really very smart from a human point of view,
it can provide a lot of help as she explores these virtual
reality worlds and makes use of other aids to learning.
Saundri's PEA gets better year after year, due to
continued progress in development of software, teaching
theory, learning theory, and so on. Her PEA is fast enough
and has enough storage capacity to accommodate a great deal
of continued progress in the non-hardware areas.
In a recent issue of The New York Times, this quote
appeared: "Researchers from Hewlett-Packard and the
University of California at Los Angeles have developed a way
to create molecular-sized computing components using
chemical processes (rather than light beams) to make
integrated circuits. Although their accomplishment is just a
first step for the new field of molecular electronics
("moletronics"), it leads in the direction of a new world in
which computers will be 100 billion times as fast as a
Pentium processor and a space no bigger than a grain of salt
will hold the power of 100 workstations" (The New York Times
1999). This type of "far out" research suggests that there
may well be major technological breakthroughs in the future
that will lead to still faster, smaller computers. Current
technologies will make Saundri's PEA quite possible by the
year 2015. Future technologies may produce a far more
powerful PEA of wristwatch size!
Top of
Page
Potentials
for Improving Learning
Saundri's use of her PEA illustrates some ways that
information technology will improve learning. In addition to
providing good access to people and to information, her use
of automatic language translation opens up still more
library and people resources. The Internet provides her
access to human teachers, fellow students, and a wide range
of formal coursework. Distance learning allows her to pursue
a curriculum appropriate to her abilities, current
interests, and long term goals. The PEA's Intelligent
Computer-Assisted Learning system allows Saundri to study
almost any topic she can think of--at any time she wants.
The instructional materials presented are appropriate to her
current levels of knowledge, skills, and learning styles.
Her Personal Tutor has knowledge of what Saundri has studied
and knows, general theories of teaching and learning, and
how to provide some help in her studies. Finally, the PEA is
providing Saundri with learning opportunities that would not
otherwise be available to her.
The potentials for improving learning can be grouped into
three areas: (1) computer assisted learning, distance
learning, and improving learning; (2) computer-as-tool and
improving learning; (3) improving learning through IT-based
changes in curriculum content.
Top of
Page
Computer-Assisted
Learning, Distance Learning, and Improving
Learning
CAL can be thought of as attempts to use IT to implement
teaching theory, learning theory, brain research, and so on.
This process has been going on for more than forty years,
and significant progress has occurred. Kulik (1994) is a
meta-metastudy of computer-assisted learning. That is, by
the time Kulik was doing this federally-funded study, there
had already been enough metastudies of CAL to justify a
study of the metastudies. Kulik's study suggested that, over
a huge range of studies, students learn about 30 percent
faster and somewhat better, as compared to the various
control groups that were used in the studies. This is
impressive. Mann, Shakesshaft, Becker, and Kottramp (1999)
report a large-scale, multiyear use of CAL in West Virginia.
The results are consistent with the Kulik (1994) study. In
addition, the overall project suggested that such wide scale
implementation is economically and politically possible,
even in a state that has economic problems. (West Virginia
does not spend nearly as much money per student as a number
of other states. Per capita income in West Virginia is a lot
less than in many other states.)
At some point, CAL will inevitably become a routine
component of our educational system. Some CAL will be
delivered through the Internet and some will be delivered
from local sources, such as CD-ROM, DVD, and local area
networks. This integration will lead to improved learning
over a broad range of subject matter areas for most
students. Another aspect of CAL, and all types of distance
learning, is that it makes available courses of instruction
otherwise inaccessible to students. If a student gets an
opportunity to take a physics course--when the student's
school does not offer such a course--do we call this
improved learning? Certainly.
Top of
Page
Computer-as-tool
and Improving Learning
There have been innumerable small studies (for example,
doctorate dissertations) on use of individual tools such as
a word processor or a database in a wide range of schools
and grade levels. Collectively, such studies provide some
evidence that an individual computer tool may lead to small
improvements in learning.
An interesting parallel exists with computer use in
business. Over the past forty years, business has invested
hugely in IT. Initially the investment was for isolated
applications. Businesses did not detect much in the way of
overall improvements in their efficiency, levels of
productivity, and profitability due to these initial
investments. In more recent years, many more computers--and
more powerful computers--have been acquired, and networking
has been implemented. Substantial amounts of money have been
spent on staff development. Businesses have come to
understand use of IT as an integral part of their overall
system. This realization has made a major difference in
productivity and profitability. In recent years, the United
States has had a very long period of increasing prosperity
and productivity, couple with low inflation. Research
suggests that quite a bit of this economic success is due to
IT. That same scenario will occur in education.
Until recently, IT has not been readily available to
students, and IT has not been networked. Even now, our
schools have only about one microcomputer per five students
(Becker 1998). Many of these microcomputers are quite old,
and the majority of them are not networked. Research
literature suggests that making lots of IT available, along
with supportive professional development, improves
learning.
Sandholtz, Ringstaff, and Dwyer (1997) presented results
from ten years of research on high-density computer sites.
Each student had a computer at school and a computer at
home. Initially, these computers were not networked. Many
different measures were used to explore potential
improvements in education, such as student performance on
tests, student attendance, student drop-out rates, and
students going on to post-secondary education. The results
were quite positive. The Sandholtz et al. (1997) study also
included a considerable amount of discussion of
project-based learning and how this improved learning.
A report by the President's Committee of Advisors on
Science and Technology (1997) summarized research on IT in
education with evidence that it improves learning. The
report placed special emphasis on project-based learning and
on constructivism. It also noted that not enough funds are
being put into educational research. IT is changing
education, the committee agreed, and the United States
should be spending more money doing research on IT uses to
produce changes for the better.
Rockman (1998) studied school settings in which whole
classes of students have laptops and Internet connectivity
to use at school and home. As with the Sandholtz et al.
(1997) study, there were multiple measures and a large
number of participants. At the time, the laptop program had
only been going on two years. Improved learning was
occurring. Such laptop projects began in Australia in the
early 1990s. Increased learning was noted in these early
projects.
The Web is a tool beginning to have an impact on student
learning, but we lack definitive research on the nature of
this impact. One of the arguments for providing students and
teachers Web access is its rich source of information.
Students and teachers can access more information, from more
varied sources, and the information is more up to date. (If
you have not spent much time looking at educational
resources on the Web, you might want to look at Federal
Resources for Educational Excellence site--www.ed.gov/free.
The U.S. Government has made available a huge amount of
up-to-date materials and continues to add to these
resources. Perhaps you will want to check out the Central
Intelligence Agency site; it includes detailed information
on about 250 countries.)
Schools in the United States (as well as in a number of
other countries) will continue to increase their numbers of
computers and to improve their connectivity. Some school
systems take a CAL approach, while others focus on
computer-as-tool. In both cases, improved students learning
is a likely outcome if the implementation is done well. In
both cases, professional development is important. However,
it appears to be a more critical factor in the computer-as
tool approach.
Top of
Page
Information
Technology-based Changes in Curriculum Content
Earlier, the issue was raised about what we want students
to learn in situations when a computer can solve or make a
major contribution to solving a problem being studied in
school. For example, should students learn to calculate
square roots using paper-and-pencil techniques when the
least expensive hand-held calculators have a square root
key? Should students learn to do graphic artist and
mechanical drawing work by hand when computer-assisted
design tools are such a powerful aid to accomplishing such
tasks? In some cases, the answer is already in.
Changes have occurred in the math curriculum, and
mechanical drawing courses have disappeared from the
curriculum. Paper-and-pencil bookkeeping courses have been
replaced by courses in which students learn to use the
spreadsheet and accounting software. One can argue that
these changes represent improvements in learning. What sense
is there in spending learning time to develop skills that
will never equal those of a computer? The time is better
spent in learning to work with a computer, with the human
doing problem posing, reality checks, and other activities
that computers do not do very well. Students in architect
schools study a wide range of topics, including design as
well as structural soundness and energy use. Many of the
students have considerable artistic design talents and are
especially interested in this aspect of architecture. Yet,
what good is this creative talent if their buildings will be
felled by a high wind or by an earthquake? What good is it
if their buildings are energy inefficient and too costly to
use? In recent years, software has been developed for
structural engineering and energy use analysis of a proposed
building. These are complex problems well suited to the
capabilities of a modern computer. Such software will
gradually have an impact on the curriculum content in an
architecture program.
Over time, the IT-based changes in curriculum content
will have a very major impact on student learning. The
overall learning of students will be much improved by
providing students with better tools and spending school
time in helping them to learn to use these tools.
Top of
Page
Potentials
for Transforming our Educational System
Nowadays, school reform, school restructuring, and school
renewal are in vogue. The first two terms suggest that our
educational system is in some sense "broken" and that major
changes are needed. The third term suggests that perhaps
less drastic action is required.
There are many possible definitions of what it might mean
to "transform" our educational system. Among the possible
goals related to technological issues are these three:
Goal 1: Provide every student with lifelong opportunities
to obtain a good education. Substantially narrow the gap
between the "haves" and the "have-nots." Do this by
significantly improving the opportunities available to the
have-nots--not by lower the opportunities available to the
haves.
Goal 2: Implement the best theory-based and
practitioner-based ideas that have been developed for
improving education.
Goal 3: Help students gain effective levels of expertise
over a wide range of disciplines that society deems
important as well as over disciplines students deem
important. For example, our society considers math an
important discipline. We require students to study this
subject for many years. Indeed, many students are required
to take at least one year of math in college.
If we could accomplish all three of these goals, I would
say we had transformed education. Of course, you can add
many items to this list, and, undoubtedly, many individuals
will consider their additions more important. Still, the
potentials of IT to help accomplish various goals in
education seem clear.
Saundri's PEA can be mass-produced and mass-distributed.
There is considerable economy of scale. We are used to the
idea of providing all students with textbooks; it is not a
far stretch of the imagination to think of providing all
students with a PEA. We might well come to consider a PEA
and its connectivity as a birthright--something made
available to everybody throughout their lifetime. That would
be a significant step toward meeting the first goal of
transforming education.
In terms of the second goal, our current educational
system struggles with translating theory and best practices
into widespread use. When a well-proven new idea becomes
available, how do you get it implemented in several million
different classrooms? Similar questions hold true for the
new knowledge being developed in every field. Many
researchers estimates the totality of human knowledge is
doubling every few years--such as in three, five, or ten
years.
Professional development is always listed as an important
part of the answer. Yet, this approach cannot possibly
succeed. The pace of progress in research in all aspects of
knowledge--including in all aspects of education--far
overwhelms the ability of educators to keep up with
everything relevant to their professional work. Improvements
in curriculum, instruction, assessment, and educational
materials have long been part of the answer. Provide the
teacher with new, better textbooks and lesson plans. Many
school districts manage to do this on a six-year cycle (time
for four doublings in areas covered by Moore's Law; perhaps
the time for one doubling of the totality of human
knowledge). Clearly, these two traditional approaches are
doomed to failure when faced by exponential rates of
change.
Does Saundri's PEA provide a solution to the second goal?
Yes--at least partly. The electronic availability of content
and learning materials means they can be updated easily and
frequently. Updates can occur automatically every time
Saundri is on the Internet. The PEA certainly changes the
role of a teacher. A teacher becomes a learning facilitator,
not a primary source of information and of delivering
instruction. The skills of being a learning facilitator
(what many of us would currently call a "good teacher") tend
to have a long lifetime and tend to grow with increasing
experience and maturity. Professional development remains
important, but it is a less-overwhelming challenge.
The third goal focuses on students gaining a useful level
of expertise in many different areas. The meaning of
"useful" changes over time. As a very general example, at
the end of World War II, the typical industrial
manufacturing job in the United States required a
fourth-grade education. Now, there are less than one-third
as many of these types of jobs, and new employees typically
need at least a high school diploma.
Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) presented an excellent
overview of the research and practice on expertise. It takes
a long period of study and practice for a person to achieve
their full potential in a particular field. If a person has
the potential to be world class in a field such as
gymnastics, chess, or math, it takes ten years or more of
hard work to achieve this potential. Thus, a person does not
have enough years to achieve a really high level of
expertise in many different fields. However, few of us
aspire to being world class in multiple disciplines. A more
practical question is how long it takes to achieve a
functional level of expertise in the various disciplines
important to our lives.
For a specific example, consider the level of knowledge
and skills it takes to correctly fill out a federal income
tax form. Not only is this task complex, the tax laws change
every year. Consequently, many tax preparers make a living
by maintaining a level of tax expertise adequate to
successfully complete the task. Perhaps you make use of a
professional to do your income tax returns. Or, perhaps you
make use of a piece of software (a computer-based expert
system) to help you do the task. Indeed, you and your
computer system can have the knowledge and skills to
complete the task. Yearly updates to your software, and a
modest amount of yearly learning on your part, can maintain
the expertise of your income tax preparer.
As a final example, consider arithmetic and mathematics.
How good are you at paper-and-pencil long division? Probably
you can still do this, since you are an educated person.
Yet, can you figure the monthly payments for a house or a
car loan? Can you do appropriate fiscal planning for your
retirement? These problems relate to math, and they are
beyond the capabilities of most people who have studied only
a year or two of college mathematics--that is, our current
system of math education does not provide an adequate level
of math expertise for most people.
Similar examples can be developed for any area of
academic expertise. Increasingly, a PEA is part of a
solution to the problems that the third goal addresses.
Together with his or her PEA, and appropriate education
using it, a student can achieve a level of expertise
appropriate to many problems and tasks. Unaided by a PEA,
and/or with an inappropriate education, the student does not
have much of a chance.
Will IT transform education? The answer is inevitable:
there are many goals of education that can no longer be met
without appropriate use of IT. Because so many people
believe these goals are important--both to themselves as
individuals and to our society or nation--IT will and must
be used. Such use will transform education.
Top of
Page
Is the
Education Scenario Believable?
By now, you have probably made up your mind about the
extent to which you believe the Saundri scenario set in the
year 2015. This scenario is set at the secondary school
level. It portrays an anywhere-anytime educational system
that makes use of computer agents, intelligent
computer-assisted learning, distance learning, the Internet,
the Web, and local opportunities for face-to-face
participation in sports, music lessons, and so on. The
worldwide demand for such educational opportunities (which
includes considerable demand from rural United States) is
driving the creation of this type of educational system. The
development of facilities that Saundri uses are
inevitable.
How soon Saundri's facilities become available will be
determined mainly by funding. Various components of the PEA
system have already been built, and they are gradually
improving. Bringing these components all together could be
carried out by an enterprising company, or it could be done
through large grants--for example, from governmental
agencies or a very large foundation. Progress on developing
each of the needed components is ongoing. Thus, the cost of
pulling it all together will gradually decline over the
years. Fifteen years seems far enough into the future, so
that some reasonably good version of Saundri's PEA should be
available by then.
Clearly, the PEA will have an impact on education. Even
in quite traditional schools, we will see the PEA becoming a
routine tool. Students will come together in classrooms, and
the teacher will provide face-to-face facilitation as
students work in a combination of traditional and
PEA-assisted learning. Students in rural settings,
home-schooled students, and students in less-affluent
locations throughout the world will gradually come to use
the PEA as a major component of their educational system.
Even students in affluent traditional school systems will
begin to receive a significant portion of their formal
instruction via the PEA.
The PEA and the facilities Saundri is using constitute a
type of competition for our current educational system. As
Norman (1998) noted, the PEA is a disruptive technology. It
is a type of technological change that can completely
transform an industry. Our educational system is a large and
complex industry. It may be able to accommodate to the PEA,
or it may be severely disrupted. An example of severe
disruption would be privatization of much of the current
public educational system, perhaps with a majority of
schools being run by for-profit companies. A different type
of disruption would be a huge growth in home schooling or
very small private schools run by groups of parents and a
few paid staff--made possible by the PEA. Still a different
type of disruption would be major changes in secondary
education, perhaps with a large number of secondary school
students engaged in a work/study situation run by the
companies in which they hold jobs.
You can create your own scenarios, including "business as
usual." The future holds interesting times for our
educational system.
Top of
Page
References
Bereiter, C., and M. Scardamalia. 1993. Surpassing
ourselves: An inquiry into the nature and implications of
expertise. Chicago and La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.
Blumenfeld, P. C., S. Soloway, R. W. Marx, J. S. Krajcik,
M. Guzdial, and A. Palincsar. 1991. Motivating project-based
learning: Sustaining the doing, supporting the learning.
Educational Psychologist. 26(3-4): 369-98.
Costa, A. L., (Ed.). 1991. Developing minds: A resource
book for teaching thinking. Alexandria, Va.: Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Frederiksen, N. 1984. Implications of cognitive theory
for instruction in problem solving. Review of Educational
Research, 54: 363&endash;407.
FREE. Federal resources for educational excellence
Website. http://www.ed.gov/free/ Federal Resources for
Educational Excellence.
Frensch, P. and Funke, J., (Eds.). 1995. Complex problem
solving: The European perspective. Hillsdale, N.J: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
International Society for Technology in Education
Standards. National educational technology standards for
students; ISTE/NCATE standards for preservice teachers.
www.iste.org/Standards/index.html.
International Society for Technology in Education. 1999.
Distance Education Summit: A Dialogue about Online Teaching
and Learning.
www.iste.org/ProfDev/Events/DistanceEdPaper/index.html
Kulik, J. A. 1994. Meta-analytic studies of findings on
computer-based instruction. In Technology assessment in
education and training, E. Baker and H. O'Neill (Eds.).
Hillsdale, N. J: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Mann, D., C. Shakeshaft, J. Becker, and R. Kottkramp.
1999. West Virginia story: Achievement gains from a
statewide comprehensive instructional technology program.
CD-ROM: 59-103 (on the Milken Exchange).
Moursund, D. 1997. The future of information technology
in education. Eugene, Ore.: ISTE.
Moursund, D. 1996. Increasing your expertise as a problem
solver: Some roles of computers. Eugene, Ore.: ISTE.
Norman, D. 1998. The invisible computer: Why good
products can fail, the personal computer is so complex, and
information appliances are the solution. Cambridge, Mass.:
The MIT Press.
Perkins, D. 1992. Smart schools: Better thinking and
learning for every child. N.Y.: Free Press.
Polya, G. 1957. How to solve it: A new aspect of
mathematical method (2nd ed.). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press.
President's Committee of Advisors on Science and
Technology. 1997. Panel on Educational Technology. Report to
the president on the use of technology to strengthen K-12
education in the United States. Washington, D.C.: PCAST.
ROCKMAN ET AL (October, 1998). Powerful tools for
schooling: Second year study of the laptop program. San
Francisco, CA: ROCKMAN ET AL. www.rockman.com.
Rogers, E. M. 1995. Diffusion of innovations. N.Y: The
Free Press.
Sandholtz, J. H., C. Ringstaff, and D. C. Dwyer. 1997.
Teaching with technology: Creating student-centered
classrooms. N.Y.: Teachers College Press.
Top of
Page
|