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What does technology do to education?

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Choose from a wide variety of shapes to create diagrams and charts. Free from Google.

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New York Times on Technology effective education

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New York Times on Technology effective education

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Matt Richtel writes about the pros and cons of technology in the classroom

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Teachers who were not involved in the surveys echoed their findings in interviews, saying they felt they had to work harder to capture and hold students' attention.

"I'm an entertainer. I have to do a song and dance to capture their attention," said Hope Molina-Porter, 37, an English teacher at Troy High School in Fullerton, Calif., who has taught for 14 years. She teaches accelerated students, but has noted a marked decline in the depth and analysis of their written work.

She said she did not want to shrink from the challenge of engaging them, nor did other teachers interviewed, but she also worried that technology was causing a deeper shift in how students learned. She also wondered if teachers were adding to the problem by adjusting their lessons to accommodate shorter attention spans.

"Are we contributing to this?" Ms. Molina-Porter said. "What's going to happen when they don't have constant entertainment?"

Scholars who study the role of media in society say no long-term studies have been done that adequately show how and if student attention span has changed because of the use of digital technology. But there is mounting indirect evidence that constant use of technology can affect behavior, particularly in developing brains, because of heavy stimulation and rapid shifts in attention.

Kristen Purcell, the associate director for research at Pew, acknowledged that the findings could be viewed from another perspective: that the education system must adjust to better accommodate the way students learn, a point that some teachers brought up in focus groups themselves.

"What we're labeling as 'distraction,' some see as a failure of adults to see how these kids process information," Ms. Purcell said. "They're not saying distraction is good but that the label of 'distraction' is a judgment of this generation."

The surveys also found that many teachers said technology could be a useful educational tool. In the Pew survey, which was done in conjunction with the College Board and the National Writing Project, roughly 75 percent of 2,462 teachers surveyed said that the Internet and search engines had a "mostly positive" impact on student research skills. And they said such tools had made students more self-sufficient researchers.

But nearly 90 percent said that digital technologies were creating "an easily distracted generation with short attention spans."

Similarly, of the 685 teachers surveyed in the Common Sense project, 71 percent said they thought technology was hurting attention span "somewhat" or "a lot." About 60 percent said it hindered students' ability to write and communicate face to face, and almost half said it hurt critical thinking and their ability to do homework.

There was little difference in how younger and older teachers perceived the impact of technology.

"Boy, is this a clarion call for a healthy and balanced media diet," said Jim Steyer, the chief executive of Common Sense Media. He added, "What you have to understand as a parent is that what happens in the home with media consumption can affect academic achievement."

In interviews, teachers described what might be called a "Wikipedia problem," in which students have grown so accustomed to getting quick answers with a few keystrokes that they are more likely to give up when an easy answer eludes them. The Pew research found that 76 percent of teachers believed students had been conditioned by the Internet to find quick answers.

"They need skills that are different than 'Spit, spit, there's the answer,' " said Lisa Baldwin, 48, a high school teacher in Great Barrington, Mass., who said students' ability to focus and fight through academic challenges was suffering an "exponential decline." She said she saw the decline most sharply in students whose parents allowed unfettered access to television, phones, iPads and video games.

For her part, Ms. Baldwin said she refused to lower her expectations or shift her teaching style to be more entertaining. But she does spend much more time in individual tutoring sessions, she added, coaching students on how to work through challenging assignments.

Other teachers said technology was as much a solution as a problem. Dave Mendell, 44, a fourth-grade teacher in Wallingford, Pa., said that educational video games and digital presentations were excellent ways to engage students on their terms. Teachers also said they were using more dynamic and flexible teaching styles.

"I'm tap dancing all over the place," Mr. Mendell said. "The more I stand in front of class, the easier it is to lose them."

He added that it was tougher to engage students, but that once they were engaged, they were just as able to solve problems and be creative as they had been in the past. He would prefer, he added, for students to use less entertainment media at home, but he did not believe it represented an insurmountable challenge for teaching them at school.

While the Pew research explored how technology has affected attention span, it also looked at how the Internet has changed student research habits. By contrast, the Common Sense survey focused largely on how teachers saw the impact of entertainment media on a range of classroom skills.

The surveys include some findings that appear contradictory. In the Common Sense report, for instance, some teachers said that even as they saw attention spans wane, students were improving in subjects like math, science and reading.

But researchers said the conflicting views could be the result of subjectivity and bias. For example, teachers may perceive themselves facing both a more difficult challenge but also believe that they are overcoming the challenge through effective teaching.

Pew said its research gave a "complex and at times contradictory" picture of teachers' view of technology's impact.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis, who studies the impact of technology on the brain and is the director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital, emphasized that teachers' views were subjective but nevertheless could be accurate in sensing dwindling attention spans among students.

His own research shows what happens to attention and focus in mice when they undergo the equivalent of heavy digital stimulation. Students saturated by entertainment media, he said, were experiencing a "supernatural" stimulation that teachers might have to keep up with or simulate.

The heavy technology use, Dr. Christakis said, "makes reality by comparison uninteresting."

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Technology Is Changing How Students Learn, Teachers Say

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Teachers who were not involved in the surveys echoed their findings in interviews, saying they felt they had to work harder to capture and hold students' attention. "I'm an entertainer. I have to do a song and dance to capture their attention," said Hope Molina-Porter, 37, an English teacher at Troy High School in Fullerton, Calif., who has taught for 14 years.

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Susan Williams writes her perspective on the current trends with technology

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current trends
susan m. williams

school
howard d. mehlinger
susan m. powers

higher education
roger g. baldwin

CURRENT TRENDS

Computers and Internet connections are becoming widely available in schools and classrooms. In 1999, 99 percent of teachers in the United States had access to a computer in their schools, and 84 percent had one or more computers in their classrooms. At the same time, Internet connections were also widespread, with 95 percent of schools and 63 percent of classrooms having access. Worldwide, many countries are making the creation and diffusion of information and communications technology (ICT) an important priority. Even in developing countries, usage is increasing dramatically. As ICT becomes more widely available, teachers and policymakers are turning their attention to the difficult task of understanding how best to integrate this technology into learning environments.

ICT can be used in many different ways, and how it is integrated into educational settings depends largely on teachers' instructional goals and strategies. Changes in the goals of education during the latter part of the twentieth century, coupled with increases in the amount and type of available technology, has created changes in teachers' use of technology. In the 1970s and early 1980s the primary goal of instruction was to have students memorize important information and procedures. Instruction was teacher-led and dominated by lectures, followed by practice using worksheets and short-answer tests. Students worked alone to complete assignments, and when help was needed they consulted parents, teachers, or textbooks for assistance. If computers were available in classrooms during this time period, their use mirrored this dominant mode of instruction; that is, they were primarily used to present passages of text and test students' comprehension and memory for information contained in the passages.

Research on learning has demonstrated the shortcomings of this type of instruction. Students often forget memorized information, or they fail to apply it in situations where it would be useful. They need help in connecting new information to what they already know and in extending and applying their knowledge to new problems. Researchers in the early twenty-first century believe that students learn best when they work to combine their own past experience with new information in order to solve problems that are personally meaningful to them.

In addition to changes in the understanding of how students learn, there have been substantial changes in what educators and policymakers believe students should know how to do. The exponential growth in information since 1950 has shifted the purpose of education. Information has become abundant and easily accessible. Rather than reading the unified perspective typically presented by a textbook, students have access to many different points of view. Instead of memorizing, students now need assistance in learning how to find and select relevant information for problems they need to solve. They need to learn how to collaborate with others as they solve these problems and communicate their solutions to their teachers and to the world beyond their classroom.

Along with changes in what students should know and an increased understanding of how they learn, new approaches to instruction are being advocated. Instead of listening to lectures and memorizing facts and procedures, educational reforms suggest that students learn best in the context of solving complex, realistic problems. Traditional computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and many integrated learning systems (ILSs) deliver precisely this form of instruction in a range of subject-matter areas. Typically computers dedicated to ILSs are clustered in computer laboratory settings, rather than being located in individual teacher's classrooms. Students who acquire new information as they solve problems are able to understand its usefulness, remember it, and use it to solve problems in the future. Solving interesting problems is more likely to stimulate a student's interest than memorizing isolated facts, and this interest has been shown to positively affect learning. Students solving real problems view their efforts as real work and have a sense of purpose and value.

Organizing instruction around problem solving makes new demands on teachers, including locating meaningful problems and projects and providing students with the resources and guidance for solving them. Teachers are finding that ICT can help them meet these demands, and they are integrating it into their instruction in many new and exciting ways.

Technology and New Forms of Instruction

Using technology to find and represent educational problems. One major challenge for teachers interested in problem-based learning is locating problems that are appropriate for their students and for the topics that they need to learn. Problems must be complex enough to support sustained exploration and encourage collaboration, and they should have multiple interrelated parts to develop students' ability to break problems down and organize their solutions. Representing and communicating such complex problem situations is an important function of technology. Unlike problems that occur in the real world, technology can incorporate graphics, video, animation, and other tools to create problems that can be explored repeatedly. Multimedia representations are easier to understand than problems presented as text. One example of using technology to present problems is the mathematical problem-solving series, The Adventures of Jasper Woodbury. Each problem in the Jasper series is presented as a video story that ends when the main character experiences a problem that can be solved using math. Using technology that can be easily searched and paused for inspection, students search the video looking for clues to help them understand and solve the problem. In one episode, students explore a variety of transportation methods and routes to rescue a wounded bald eagle. They compare their solution plans and develop ways to determine which plan is best.

Microworlds are another type of technology used to present problems. One example is Thinkertools, a computer-based learning environment that simulates aspects of Newtonian physics. Using the Thinkertools microworld, students can manipulate various aspects of the environment, observe the results, and attempt to discover the rules that govern this simulation.

Internet and videoconferencing technology allow students to participate in projects sponsored by researchers around the world. In the Jason Project, satellite and Internet technology bring classroom students into direct real-time contact with leading scientists, conducting scientific research expeditions around the globe. Each year the project explores a different location in order to help students understand the earth's biological and geological development. Some of the past expeditions have studied deep-sea archaeology, compared shallow and deep ocean habitats, studied plate tectonics and volcanoes, and compared conditions experienced in space and under the oceans. In addition to observing research activities, students are able to ask questions and get immediate answers from the scientists.

Whatever type of technology is used, an important goal is to create problem representations that are interactive and under the learner's control. The student creates a plan for investigating the problem, and the technology creates an environment that makes flexible exploration possible.

Using technology to find educational resources. A second function of technology in problem-based learning environments is locating information needed to solve problems or do other kinds of research. In the past, teachers attempting a problem-based curriculum felt the need to limit problems to those for which they had expertise or the local library had resources. Now the World Wide Web brings a seemingly endless amount of information on almost any subject, and it is possible for students to choose topics based on personal interest rather than availability of resources.

Internet research projects are gaining rapidly in popularity. In the spring of 1998, 30 percent of teachers surveyed (and 70% of those with high-speed Internet connections) reported they had assigned Internet research tasks for their students during the school year. Use of the Internet to gather information for solving problems sometimes resembles a modern version of library research, in which students gather and synthesize information from published reports. Despite the fact that the task seems traditional, the characteristics of this new medium require special skills for students. The sheer volume of information allows students to study almost any topic, but also makes it more difficult to locate precisely the right information from among the thousands, or even millions, of sites that might be located. In addition, the ease of publishing and accessing materials on the Internet increases the likelihood that students will encounter inaccurate or biased information. As a result, students must learn new strategies for conducting searches and evaluating the information that they retrieve.

In addition to its function as a source of information, the Internet's capability for communication and interaction provides many innovative educational opportunities. Many times students are unable to find or understand the available resources. In such cases, teachers are also turning to ICT to link their students with mentors and subject-matter experts. In one such project, fourth-and fifth-grade students in McAllen, Texas, compared the experiences of their families on the Texas La Frontera to colonial life in the original thirteen U.S. colonies, with the help of the director of a historic preservation center and museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Students carrying out scientific investigations can use the Internet to make observations and collect data. For example, fourth and fifth graders in California collected insects and sent them to San Diego State University. Using two-way audio and video connecting the school and the university, scientists guided the students in using an electron microscope to examine their specimens. Technology has made it possible to collect data from places students could never visit. In recent projects, high school students explored the floor of the Monterey bay by studying video from remotely operated robots, and middle school students were given time to use the Hubble telescope.

Students also use technology to collect data in their schools and communities. For example, using handheld computers outfitted with various types of probes, students can monitor the water quality at various locations in nearby streams or lakes. By transmitting their individual readings to a laptop computer in a field laboratory they can quickly graph their data and visually compare readings.

Using technology to summarize and present findings. In the past, students memorized and used formulas and models created by others to solve problems. Students often used these formulas, especially in the early stages of learning, with little understanding. In the early twenty-first century computer tools provide the opportunity for students to construct and test their own models using tools such as spreadsheets or concept maps. This type of instruction deepens students' understanding of abstract concepts and allows these concepts to be taught at an earlier age.

Once students have summarized their data and other information, they typically communicate their findings to others. In the past, this meant writing a report to be read by the teacher. Writing reports is still the most widespread use of ICT, with 61 percent of U.S. teachers assigning students word processing tasks. In addition to text, students also use computer-created graphics, video, and animations to communicate their ideas.

The teacher is not the only audience for students' presentations. Students are frequently expected to present their work and receive feedback from their peers and the world outside their classroom. Whether they are using presentation software to accompany a face-to-face presentation or developing materials to put on the Web, the trend is for students to be able to communicate and defend their work to a broad audience. This increases students' perception that problem-based learning is real work for real audiences.

Using technology for collaboration and distance education. There are many opportunities for individual students to use technology to enhance their learning. These include online courses that provide students in remote locations with opportunities for customized curriculum and advanced placement courses. These courses are conducted entirely online and offer asynchronous interaction among faculty and students. Because they allow students to participate anytime and from anywhere, online courses are becoming increasingly popular among postsecondary students whose job and personal commitments do not allow them to meet a regular class schedule.

Opportunities for interaction with peers from other countries can also contribute to knowledge and understanding of other cultures. ICT makes this type of communication possible for anyone with Internet access. For example, the KIDLINK project encourages students up to age fifteen to use the Internet to build a global network of friends. KIDLINK participants discuss issues ranging from how to make and keep friends to war and peace.

Teachers' Integration of Technology in Instruction

Although ICT is creating opportunities for fundamental changes in the way teachers teach and the way students learn, a recent survey indicated that only one-third of teachers feel prepared to use it effectively. This includes being able to use word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and Internet browsing software. Such tools help teachers increase their productivity by preparing reports or lesson plans, taking notes, and communicating with colleagues and parents. These basic skills are necessary, but not sufficient, for creating changes in instruction. Changes require that teachers are familiar with ICT tools and materials in the subjects they teach. They must also be able to incorporate these resources into classroom activities that accomplish important learning goals.

Research has shown that learning to incorporate technology into instruction occurs over time and follows a pattern. Initially, teachers incorporate new technologies into the things that they traditionally do. Then, after observing changes in their studentsincluding improvements in behavior, absenteeism, collaboration, and independent learningteachers gradually begin to experiment and use technology to teach in new ways. It often takes four years or more from initial attempts until changes in student learning can be observed.

Research indicates that change at all levels will be necessary to bring about widespread and effective use of technology. Successful programs must devote a substantial portion of their budget to extensive professional development and technical support; they must encourage a culture of collaboration in which teachers work together to explore more effective uses of technology; and they must modify their assessment systems to measure changes, such as deeper understanding and improved problem solving, that result from effective technology use.

Future Trends

Advances in hardware and software have the potential to bring about fundamental changes in how technology is integrated and even in education itself. Computers formerly tethered to desktops by cables are being rapidly replaced by wireless laptop and palmtop models that free students to move about the school; collect, share, and graph data on field trips; and communicate their whereabouts and progress to teachers and parents.

Monitoring students' independent learning in these flexible environments will be supported by sophisticated new assessment technologies that will help teachers collect and analyze student data and make instructional decisions. These tools will continually assess students' work and provide feedback to them and their teachers. Such assessment has the potential to make time-consuming standardized testing unnecessary and to personalize the curriculum for every student. Ubiquitous, well-integrated technology tools will bring educators closer to redefining the educational enterprise and providing customized, just-in-time solutions for the learning needs of adults and children.

See also: Assessment Tools, subentry on Technology Based; International Assessments, subentry on IEA Study of Technology in the Classroom; International Gap in Technology, The; Mathematics Learning, subentry on Learning Tools; Science Learning, subentry on Tools; Technology Education.

bibliography

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Birchard, Karen. 2001. "Distance Education: European Commission Adopts $13.3-Billion Plan That Is Expected to Promote Online Education." Chronicle of Higher Education April 16.

Bransford, John D.; Brown, Ann L.; and Cocking, Rodney R. 1999. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. 1997. The Jasper Project: Lessons in Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, and Professional Development. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Means, Barbara. 2000. Accountability in Preparing Teachers to Use Technology. Paper prepared for the Educational Technology Leadership Conference, Washington, DC, January 13-14.

Pellegrino, James W.; Chudowsky, Naomi; and Glaser, Robert, eds. 2001. Knowing What Students Know: The Science and Design of Educational Assessment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Reil, Margaret., and Becker, Henry Jay. 2000. The Beliefs, Practices, and Computer Use of Teacher Leaders. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, LA, April.

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Susan M. Williams

SCHOOL

The term educational technology refers to the use of technology in educational settings, whether it be elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, corporate training sites, or independent study at home. This discussion, however, will focus on educational technology in grades K12.

Educational technology has both general and specialized meanings. To the lay public and to a majority of educators, the term refers to the instructional use of computers, television, and other kinds of electronic hardware and software. Specialists in educational technology, in particular college and university faculty who conduct research and teach courses on educational technology, prefer the term instructional technology because it draws attention to the instructional use of educational technology. This term represents both a process and the particular devices that teachers employ in their classrooms. According to the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, one of the principal professional associations representing educational technologists, "Instructional Technology is a complex, integrated process involving people, procedures, ideas, devices, and organization for analyzing problems, and devising, implementing evaluating, and managing solutions to these problems, in situations in which learning is purposive and controlled."(p. 4). Educational technologists often employ the term instructional media to represent all of the devices that teachers and learners use to support learning. However, for many educators the terms educational technology, instructional media, and instructional technology are used interchangeably, and they are used so here. In addition, the principal focus will be upon the most modern computational and communication devices used in schools today.

History of Educational Technology

The history of educational technology is marked by the increasing complexity and sophistication of devices, exaggerated claims of effectiveness by technology advocates, sporadic implementation by classroom teachers, and little evidence that the technology employed has made a difference in student learning. Although technology proponents have from time to time claimed that technology will replace teachers, this has not occurred. The typical view among educators is that technology can be used effectively to supplement instruction by providing instructional variety, by helping to make abstract concepts concrete, and by stimulating interest among students.

The terms visual education and visual instruction were used originally because many of the media available to teachers, such as three-dimensional objects, photographs, and silent films, depended upon sight. Later, when sound was added to film and audio recordings became popular, the terms audiovisual education, audiovisual instruction, and audiovisual devices were used to represent the variety of media employed to supplement instruction. These were the principal terms used to describe educational technology until about 1970.

The first administrative organizations in schools to manage instructional media were school museums. The first school museum was established in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1905. Its purpose was to collect and loan portable museum exhibits, films, photographs, charts, stereographic slides, and other materials to teachers for use in their classrooms. District-wide media centers, common in school systems today, are descendants of school museums.

By the first decade of the twentieth century, silent films were being produced for instructional use. In 1910 George Kleine published the Catalogue of Educational Motion Pictures, which listed more than 1,000 titles of films that could be rented by schools. In 1913 Thomas A. Edison asserted, "Books will soon be obsolete in schools . Our school system will be completely changed in the next ten years" (Saettler 1968, p. 98). In 1917 the Chicago public schools established a visual education department to take responsibility for the ordering and management of films, and by 1931, thirty-one state departments of education had created administrative units to take charge of films and related media. Despite these efforts, films never reached the level of influence in schools that Edison had predicted. From evidence of film use, it appears that teachers used films only sparingly. Some of the reasons cited for infrequent use were teachers' lack of skill in using equipment and film; the cost of films, equipment, and upkeep; inaccessibility of equipment when it was needed; and the time involved in finding the right film for each class.

Radio was the next technology to gain attention. Benjamin Darrow, founder and first director of the Ohio School of the Air, imagined that radio would provide "schools of the air" (Saettler 1990, p. 199). In 1920 the Radio Division of the U.S. Department of Commerce began to license commercial and educational stations. Soon schools, colleges, departments of education, and commercial stations were providing radio programming to schools. Haaren High School in New York City is credited with being the first to teach classes by radio, broadcasting accounting classes in 1923. Peak activity for radio use occurred during the decade between 1925 and 1935, although some radio instruction continued through the 1940s. Nevertheless, radio did not have the impact on schools its advocates had hoped. In the beginning, poor audio reception and the cost of equipment were cited as obstacles to use. When these problems were overcome in later years, the lack of fit between the broadcasts and teachers' instructional agendas became more important factors. Ultimately, efforts to promote radio instruction in schools were abandoned when television became available.

World War II provided a boost for audiovisual education. The federal government and American industry were faced with the challenging task of providing training for large numbers of military recruits and for new industrial workers. Ways had to be found to train people swiftly and effectively. The U.S. government alone purchased 55,000 film projectors and spent $1 billion on training films. In addition to films, the military used overhead projectors to support lectures, slide projectors to support training in ship and aircraft recognition, and audio equipment for teaching foreign languages. Experience gained from the wartime use of these media fueled their subsequent use in schools in the decades to follow.

Instructional television was the focus of attention during the 1950s and the 1960s. This attention was stimulated by two factors. First, the 1952 decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to set aside 242 television channels for educational purposes led to a rapid development of educational (now called public) television stations. A portion of their mission was to provide instructional programs to school systems in their viewing area. The second factor was the substantial investment by the Ford Foundation. It has been estimated that during the 1950s and the 1960s the Ford Foundation and its related agencies invested more than $170 million in educational television. One of the most innovative efforts at this time was the Midwest Program on Airborne Television Instruction (MPATI) which employed airplanes to transmit televised lessons over a six-state area.

By the 1970s much of the enthusiasm for instructional television had been exhausted. Educational television stations continued to provide some programming, and school systems and state departments of education formed consortia to pool funds to provide for the cost of program development. Congress also provided funds to support instructional television via satellite transmission in an effort to help rural schools, in particular, to obtain courses that might not otherwise be available to their students. However, instructional television appeared to prosper only where there was substantial public, corporate, or commercial support. Schools found it difficult to meet the substantial costs incurred for program development and the purchase and maintenance of equipment. Moreover, despite repeated efforts, it proved nearly impossible to broadcast instruction when individual teachers needed it.

The next technology to capture the interest of educators was the computer. Some of the earliest work on instructional applications of computing took place in the 1950s and the 1960s, but these efforts had little impact on schools. It was not until the 1980s, and the appearance of microcomputers, that many educators and public officials became enthusiastic about computers. By January 1983, computers were being used for instructional purposes in 40 percent of all elementary schools and 75 percent of all secondary schools in the United States. These percentages can be misleading, however. In most cases, students had only limited access to computers, often in a computer laboratory and only for an hour or so a week. In 1995 the Office of Technology Assessment estimated that the optimum ratio of computers to students was five to one, and by the year 2000 the National Center for Educational Statistics reported that there was, in fact, an average of one computer for every five students, with 97 percent of schools having Internet connections.

Technology and Learning

A primary purpose for employing instructional technology in schools is to enhance student learning. Has technology been successful in helping students learn more effectively and efficiently? Much research has been done on this question, but the answer is far from certain. Most research on educational technology has consisted of media comparison studies. After assigning comparable students to control groups or to experimental groups, the researcher presents the experimental group of students with instruction that employs the new media, while the control group experiences the same content without the new media. The researcher then compares the achievement of the two groups.

After reviewing hundreds of such studies, educational technologist Richard Clark concluded that "there are no learning benefits to be gained from employing any specific medium to deliver instruction," and that "media do not influence learning under any conditions," but are "mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition" (1983, p. 445). According to Clark, any positive results that were gained by experimental groups over the control groups were easily accounted for by differences in instructional strategy.

Clark's findings were controversial and have been disputed by other reputable scholars. Nevertheless, Clark's opinions are useful in clarifying technology's role in instruction. Technology is neutral; there is nothing inherent about the media that assures learning. A poorly designed computer program is unlikely to advance learning and may even hinder it.

This relationship between learning and technology is further complicated by disagreements over what constitutes learning. During the first half of the twentieth century, transfer-of-learning theories were popular among classroom teachers. According to these theories, the principal task of the teacher was to transfer the teacher's knowledge and textbook content to the students' minds and, through periodic examinations, determine if the transfer occurred. The task of instructional media was to assist in that transfer process by means of accurate and compelling presentations of content.

During the second half of the century, educators embraced other theories of learning. At least two of these theories have influenced the development of instructional media for schools. One of these theories is behaviorism; the other is constructivism.

Although the intellectual roots of behaviorism can be traced to the beginning of the twentieth century, behaviorism did not have much impact on education until the 1960s. Drawing upon B. F. Skinner's concepts, educators promoting behaviorism emphasized the importance of providing clear statements of what learners should be able to do following instruction. These educators also sought to break complex units of knowledge and skills into smaller and simpler units, sequencing them in ways that would lead to mastering the more complex skills and content. Frequently, their goal was also to individualize instruction as much as possible. Thus, the focus of instruction shifted from presentation of content knowledge before a group of students to a focus on the behavior of individual learners, an analysis of the steps needed to ensure learning, and the reinforcement of desirable behavior when it occurred.

The interest in behaviorism occurred about the same time that the first computer-assisted programs (CAI) were being developed. It is not surprising that the first CAI programs were essentially computer applications of printed, programmed learning books. Computers appeared to offer a good solution. Students could be assigned to a computer to work at their own pace, and the computer would keep track of students' work and provide a record of each student's progress for the teacher. Such programs evolved into what were later called individualized learning systems (ILS). ILS software and hardware were installed in school computer laboratories; they provided drill and practice exercises that were judged valuable, especially for students with learning difficulties. The behavioral movement also had an impact on the educational technology profession. The belief that it was possible to design instruction so that all students could learn led to an interest in the design of learning materials and in a systems approach to instruction.

During the last half of the twentieth century, cognitive theories of learning gained ascendancy over behaviorism among psychologists, and some of the views of cognitive psychologists, represented by the term constructivism, began to influence education. Constructivists argued that learners must construct their own understanding of whatever is being taught. According to this perspective, the teacher's task is not primarily one of promoting knowledge transfer, nor is it one of ensuring that students perform consistently according to a predetermined description of knowledge and skills. The teacher's role is to create an environment in which students are able to arrive at their own interpretations of knowledge while becoming ever more skillful in directing their own learning.

Many constructivists were initially critical of the use of computers in schools because they equated the use of computers with behaviorist theories of learning. Other constructivists recognized the computer as a potential ally and designed programs that took advantage of constructivist beliefs. The result has been computer-based programs that promote higher-level thinking and encourage collaborative learning.

Current Technologies Used in Schools

Whatever learning theory a teacher may embrace, many technologies exist in schools to enhance instruction and to support student learning. While teachers vary greatly in their use of these technologies, teachers select media they believe will promote their instructional goals. Following are a few examples of computers being used to support four goals: building student capacity for research, making student inquiry more realistic, enabling students to present information in appealing forms, and offering students access to learning resources within and beyond the school.

Student research. Students once relied upon local and school libraries and their printed reference materials to research topics. Now, however, computer technologies provide access to digital versions of these referencesand to libraries worldwide. Encyclopedias on CD-ROMs provide information, digital images, video, and audio, and also provide links to websites where students access tools such as live web cameras and global positioning satellites. Dictionaries and thesauruses are built into word processors. Through the Internet students can gain access to a wide variety of primary and secondary sources, including government documents, photographs, and diaries.

Student inquiry. Educational reformers believe education needs to be real and authentic for students. Technology can engage students in real-world activities. In the sciences, electronic probes allow science students to collect precise weather or chemical reaction data and digitally trace trends and answer hypotheses. Graphing calculators, spreadsheets, and graphing software provide mathematics students with the ability to visualize difficult mathematical concepts. In the social sciences, electronic communication tools (e.g. Internet conferencing, e-mail, electronic discussion groups) allow students to communicate with their peers from many parts of the world. In the language arts, students use handheld computers and wireless networks to create joint writing exercises and read electronic books that allow them to explore related topics. Concept-mapping software provides all students with the opportunity to build the framework for a story or report and to map out linkages among complex characters, such as those in a play by Shakespeare. In the arts, students can explore images of original artwork through the Internet; with appropriate software they can create original digital artwork or musical compositions. Physical education students can use electronic probes to learn about the relationship between the impact of physical movement and physiological changes.

Authentic student inquiry extends beyond data collection. It also implies the opportunity for students to investigate questions or issues that concern them. Communications technology allows students to contact experts such as scientists, book authors, and political leaders. Electronic communication tools support interactions and increase the probability of prompt responses. Students who want to learn more about a current event, such as an experiment on an international space station, scientific endeavors in the Antarctic, an international meeting of environmentalists, or a musher during the Iditarod dogsled race in Alaska, can use the Internet to investigate the topic, participate in a virtual field trip to the event, and watch the event as it unfolds through a web camera. In this manner, instructional technology assists students who wish to investigate their own questions and concerns.

Constructing new knowledge. James Pellegrino and Janice Altman (1997) believe the penultimate use of technology occurs when students use technology to move from being knowledge consumers to being knowledge producers. Results of original student inquiry usually take the form of printed reports or oral presentations. With advanced technologies, students can present their original data or newly interpreted data by integrating digital video, audio, and text into word-processed documents, multimedia presentations, videos, or web-based documents. Local, state, national, and international media fairs provide opportunities for students to demonstrate the new knowledge representations that students are capable of creating when given the opportunity. Media fairs showcase photographs, original digital images, overheads, videos, and interactive multimedia projects from students of all ages.

In the past, award-winning projects have included a video created by fourth graders that demonstrates their feelings regarding acceptance, diversity, and compassion; an interactive, multimedia presentation by second graders about the water cycle; and an interactive multimedia project by a high school student depicting the history of war experienced by one family. Each of these projects illustrates student-generated knowledge that could have been demonstrated through a traditional paper or research report. However, the instructional technology tools provided students with a way to express their knowledge in a more interesting manner.

Access to learning resources. Some schools lack the resources to provide all of the courses that students may need or want. Advanced placement and foreign language courses can be particularly expensive for a school system to offer when there is not a high level of student demand. A variety of technologies (e.g. interactive television, Internet videoconferencing) provide students the opportunity to participate in a class that is located in a different school, in a different town, and even in a different state or country. Instructional technologies can also serve the instructional needs of students who may be unable to attend classes in the school building. Students who are homebound, home schooled, or who may be forced to drop out of school can take advantage of course-work offered over the Internet. Virtual high schools, online college credit courses, and for-profit companies all make courses available to students through the Internet. Through an online program, students can obtain their high school diplomas or GED without attending a particular school.

Instructional technologies also provide some students important access to traditional classroom instruction. Students who have physical or learning disabilities can use a variety of assistive technologies in order to be an active member of a mainstreamed class. Braille writers and screen readers allow students with sight limitations to use a computer for work and communication. Various switches allow students with limited mobility to use a computer to speak for them and complete assignments. Switches, similar to a computer mouse, manipulate the computer through a touch pad, by head or eye movement, or even by breath. Handheld computing devices and specialized software allow students with learning disabilities to function in traditional classrooms by helping them organize thoughts, structure writing, and manage time. Instructional technology is also used to provide alternative forms of assessment for disabled students, including digital portfolios that electronically capture the accomplishments of students who are not able to complete traditional assessments.

Approaches to Computer Use in Schools

The function of computers in schools differs from that of other educational technologies. In the case of films, radio, instructional television, overhead projectors, and other instructional media, educational technology is used to support and enhance the teacher's role as instructor. Teacher support has also been one of the justifications for the introduction of computers in schools, but it has not been the only, nor the most important, justification. Computers are also promoted as an important part of the school curriculum. Learning about computers and acquiring computer skills have been accepted by educators and the lay public as a necessary curricular requirement because they give students tools needed to function effectively in modern American society. The role and function of computers in schools can be classified according to three categories: (1) computer literacy, (2) computers as tools, and (3) computers as a catalyst for school transformation.

Computer literacy. Beginning in the 1980s it was assumed that all children should become computer literate. While the meaning of the term computer literacy has changed over time, all children are expected to graduate with knowledge about the role of computers in society and essential skills in their operation. Educators continue to debate what skills are essential and when and how they are best learned, but there is little controversy about whether students should be competent in the use of computers. No such discussion surrounds the school use of film, radio, and instructional television.

Computers as tools. With the continuing increase in computer power and the decline in cost, schools have steadily increased the numbers of computers in schools and their use by students. Rather than place computers in specialized laboratories where students have access to them for only a limited period each week, computers have increasingly been placed in libraries and in classrooms. Beginning in the 1990s the goal became to make computers ubiquitous and to integrate them across the curriculum. Computers had become something more that a curriculum topic; they had become a tool that students needed in order to perform their work. Students were expected to use the Internet to gather information and to use word processing and multimedia software to produce their reports. While other instructional media were seen as tools for teachers, computers are accepted as tools for both teachers and students.

Computers as a catalyst for school reform. Throughout the twentieth century, technology zealots have heralded one technology or another as having the capacity to transform schools, but such transformations have not occurred. Film, radio, television, and other instructional media have enriched the classroom resources available to teachers. However, rather than challenging traditional classroom practices, they were used to maintain traditional practices. The culture of schooling, with teachers in charge of instruction before a class of students, has remained relatively constant. Some proponents believe that computers have the power to transform schools because they empower learners in ways that previous technologies were unable to, because they challenge the authority of teachers to be the sole source of information, and because they encourage an active, rather than a passive, learner. Computers may eventually provide the catalyst that will result in school transformation.

Current Issues Relating to the Use of Educational Technology

The effective use of technology in schools involves more than the purchase of educational technologies and their integration into the curriculum. The existence of technology within a school can create special concernsparticularly regarding legal issues, ethical issues, media literacy, and fundingthat must be addressed.

Legal issues. Software piracy (the installation of nonlicensed software) is an important legal concern. When software is purchased, generally the buyer obtains one license, which allows that software to be installed on only one computer. Schools may purchase site licenses that permit the software to be installed on multiple computer stations. While the practice of loading software without licenses onto multiple computers (piracy) may seem benign to school officials, it is a form of theft that results in billions of dollars in lost revenue to vendors, and it can result in fines to school corporations.

Technology also raises important legal issues regarding copyright and privacy. Technology allows for easy duplication of many types of media. With a videocassette recorder, a teacher can record a television program for reuse in the classroom. Artwork, photos, and articles can be scanned and reproduced digitally. The Internet provides easy access to digital images, movies, music, and written works from all over the world; these can be downloaded and used in multiple formats, raising not only questions about copyright, but also plagiarism.

When a student or a teacher uses a piece of media that is not in the public domain (copyright-free), they must be certain that they have not violated the doctrine of Fair Use. Fair Use (Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act) considers the purpose of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount used in comparison to the entire piece, and the impact of classroom use on the work's commercial value. Therefore, while showing videotape in a classroom to illustrate a point of history may be permissible, the downloading of images from the Internet into a calendar for the student council to sell is probably not.

The right to privacy and free speech is considered an essential American ideal. However, with computer technologies and the Internet, there is little actual privacy. All electronic communications (e-mail, web forums, etc.) pass through multiple computer sites before arriving at a destination. During that process, information is saved that can be read by anyone who has the knowledge to do so. In order to ensure the safety and security of everyone, students and teachers need to be informed that electronic communications from their school are not private and can be accessed. In 2000 Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and the Neighborhood Children's Internet Protection Act (NCIPA), which require all schools and libraries that receive federal technology funds to have an Internet safety policy to protect children from visual depictions that are obscene, contain child pornography, or are otherwise harmful to children. An adequate technology protection measure can be an Internet block or filtering software that prevents the objectionable material from being displayed. However, blocking software and other practices to eliminate access to websites raises issues relating to rights of free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The conflict about free speech, privacy, and the obligation of schools to protect children make this issue quite controversial within some school systems.

Ethical issues. Ethical issues often relate to whether schools are providing students with equal access to technology. Gender-equity issues arise when girls are treated differently than boys in terms of the use of, and encouragement to use, technology. Girls tend to enroll in fewer computer classes, spend fewer hours on the computer either at home or at school, and are less likely to choose majors in computer-related fields than do boys. For example, in 2000 only 15 percent of the students who took the Advanced Placement Computer Science exam were girls. There are a number of factors that contribute to this gender difference, including the limited number of female role models in computer-related fields, adults who especially encourage boys to use the computer and computer games, and software that tends to targets boys' interests more than that of girls.

The digital divide is the division that exists between the information rich and the information poor. Advanced technologies, and the Internet in particular, provide easy access to vast amounts of information. Digital inequities can exist along racial, economic, academic achievement (low-achieving versus high-achieving classes), and geographic (rural, urban, and suburban) lines. A student in a rural school that lacks fast Internet connections does not have the same access to information as a student near a major city.

The digital divide also extends beyond the school. More economically advantaged children usually have access to information sources through Internet connections and microcomputers at home. Those who are more disadvantaged must rely upon limited school and public library resources. Minority students may be discouraged from accessing online content because of an absence of exposure to computers in general or because of a lack of racially and ethnically diverse information on the Internet. Finally, computers are often used as a reward for high achieving students, leaving out those students with poorer academic records, while some students are simply not encouraged to use technology to fuel their interest in academics.

Media literacy. Media literacy is the ability to access, evaluate, and produce information. Teachers themselves not only need to be media literate, but they must also ensure that their students are able to access the information they need, are capable of determining the relative merits of the information obtained, and are able to represent the information they have gathered in new ways using the different forms of media available to them (print, video, audio, digital). The concept of media literacy is not unique to computer technology. For decades, child advocates have expressed concern about the impact of movies and television on children and about whether children can distinguish the illusion presented to them from what is real. Media literacy has become an even greater teaching responsibility for educators, as the Internet provides access to vast quantities of information, much of which is inaccurate or represents biased views.

Adequate funding. The Office of Technology Assessment described four barriers to technology integration in instruction: inadequate teacher training, a lack of vision of technology's potential, a lack of time to experiment, and inadequate technical support. Each of these obstacles stems in part from weak or inconsistent financial support for technology. Much of the money used to support technology in schools has been provided through special governmental appropriations or by private funds. Technology funds have rarely become a part of the regular, operating budget of school systems. For technology to achieve its potential, funds are needed to provide adequate training for teachers, to keep equipment repaired and up-to-date, and to provide the time necessary for teachers and administrators to plan ways to use technology effectively. Only then will the schools be able to experience the advantages afforded by technology.

See also: Assessment Tools, subentry on Technology Based; Instructional Design; Media and Learning; School Reform; Technology Education.

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Howard D. Mehlinger

Susan M. Powers

HIGHER EDUCATION

Colleges and universities have generally been quick to adopt new technologies, often even before their educational value has been proven. Throughout its history, higher education has experimented with technological advances as diverse as the blackboard and the personal computer. Some technologies have become permanent parts of the higher education enterprise. Others, such as the slide rule and the 16-millimeter movie projector, have been replaced as more sophisticated or more cost-effective technologies have emerged to take their place.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, new and rapidly improving technologies are in the process of transforming higher education. Each year since 1994, the Campus Computing Survey has shown increased use in college classrooms of technology-dependent resources such as e-mail, the Internet, course web pages, and computer simulations. Technology has the potential to revolutionize the traditional teaching and learning process. It can eliminate the barriers to education imposed by space and time and dramatically expand access to lifelong learning. Students no longer have to meet in the same place at the same time to learn together from an instructor. Fundamentally, modern technologies have the ability to change the conception of a higher education institution. No longer is a higher education institution necessarily a physical place with classrooms and residence halls where students come to pursue an advanced education. Thanks to recent developments in technology, the standard American image of a college or university as a collection of ivycovered buildings may need to be revised for the first time since the founding of Harvard in 1636.

Computers and telecommunications are the principal technologies reshaping higher education. Due to advances in each of these domains, electronic mail, fax machines, the World Wide Web, CDROMs, and commercially developed simulations and courseware are altering the daily operations and expanding the missions of colleges and universities.

Forces Promoting and Inhibiting Technology Use

Powerful forces are promoting higher education's adoption of new technologies. The rapid advance of globalization that is lowering international barriers and transforming the business world is also expanding the potential reach of colleges and universities. With sophisticated communication technologies, institutions of higher education are no longer limited to student markets or educational resources in their geographic regions. Likewise, the growing need for lifelong learning opportunities to keep pace with social, economic, and technological changes fuels demand for accessible alternatives to traditional real-time, campus-based instruction. In addition, competition among higher education institutions contributes to technology's advance within colleges and universities. Not wishing to be outpaced by competitors, many institutions are active participants in a technology "arms race" that requires the rapid adoption of new technological innovations as soon as they become available. The alternative is to fall behind other schools that are attempting to recruit the same students, faculty, and donors.

In spite of technology's promise, its integration throughout higher education has not been rapid or painless. Many barriers to technology-based innovations exist within colleges and universities. Academic traditions, such as the faculty-centered lecture, make many professors reluctant to adopt alternative instructional strategies using the computer or telecommunication devices. The cost of many technological applications also prohibits their easy adoption at many resource-limited institutions. Before technology became such a central part of institutional operations, many colleges paid for new or improved technologies from funds left over at the end of their annual budget cycle. Now that technology has become an essential and recurring investment, most schools must locate additional funds to meet their increasing needs for technology resources.

Limited support to help faculty and staff members learn how to take full advantage of technology is another factor inhibiting more widespread use of technology in colleges and universities. According to the 2000 Campus Computing Survey, the single most important educational technology challenge facing colleges and universities is helping faculty integrate information technology into their teaching. The second most important challenge is providing adequate user support. According to Kenneth Green, director of the Campus Computing Project, higher education's investment in technology hardware is, by itself, not sufficient to reap the full benefits of new technology advances. Green concludes that "the real [information technology] challenge is people, not products" (p. 1). Technology will neither reap its full potential nor revolutionize higher education if these barriers to its adoption are not resolved satisfactorily by individual institutions or the educational system as a whole.

Impact on Teaching and Learning

No aspect of higher education remains untouched by the technological developments of the 1980s and 1990s. Academic administration, as well as the instructional process, has been dramatically altered by new technologies. When compared to other college and university operations such as student services, housing, and administration, however, the teaching and learning process probably is being changed most dramatically by technology.

Traditionally, professors have used much of their class time with students to disseminate information through lectures and follow-up discussion. This was especially the case in introductory-level courses, where students lack a foundation in the basic concepts and principles of a field. In an era of advanced technology, this approach to instruction seems archaic and inefficient. Computers, especially web-based resources, can disseminate basic information more efficiently and more cost effectively than human beings can. For example, Gregory Farrington recommends that instructors use the web to do what it can do well. This includes presenting information to students in a variety of formats, twenty-four hours per day. Students can access course material when it is most convenient for them and return to it as often as they need to achieve basic comprehension, competence, or mastery.

This approach to information dissemination can save precious class time "for the intellectual interactions that only humans can provide" (Farrington, p. 87). Following this revised method of facilitating learning, traditional lectures can be replaced or pared down. In their place, classes can be more informal, seminar-like sessions with more free flowing discussion structured by students' interests, questions, and concerns. In other words, appropriate use of technology applications can help instructors to structure more active learning opportunities. Research shows that active engagement in the learning process helps to motivate students and enhance their learning outcomes. New technologies can facilitate active engagement in learning by reducing the amount of class time where students sit passively listening to lectures.

Technology can also help to make education a much more interactive and collaborative process. Email, course-based websites, and computer-based chat rooms are some of the technology-enabled resources that facilitate communication and teamwork among students. Research by education scholars has shown that collaborative learning opportunities enhance recall, understanding, and problem solving. Technology can greatly ease the work of collaborative design teams, peer writing groups, and other types of collaborative learning groups, even among students who do not live in the same geographic area and who cannot meet face to face.

While technology helps to promote collaborative learning, it also helps to personalize and individualize education. By reducing the need to deliver vast amounts of information, technology can free an instructor to devote more time to individual students. With more time to interact and get acquainted, professors can adapt their teaching strategies and assignments to bring them more in line with the interests and needs of the students in their classes. Technology's capacity to deliver large quantities of information over networks also expands the potential for tailoring educational programs to the specific needs of each learner. Dewayne Matthews argues that technology-enhanced programs "can be custom-designed around the needs and interests of the recipient instead of around the scheduling and resource needs of the provider" (p. 3). With the help of technology, educational programseven full degreescan be structured around flexible course modules that students can combine in a variety of forms to meet their personal and professional objectives. Matthews suggests that technology-mediated education makes traditional academic calendars and rigid curriculum structures obsolete because it can adapt education so well to individual learning interests and needs.

If education's goal is to help the learner reach his or her full potential, why should education be designed for the convenience of the instructor or the educational institution? Essentially, technology is empowering learners to take more control of their education than ever before. The expanded reach that technology affords educational institutions has encouraged many new providers to offer educational services. This increased competition enables consumers to choose the learning opportunities that best meet their needs within the constraints of their life circumstances. As technology transforms the educational marketplace, the balance of power is shifting from the education provider to the education consumer. Education consumers are now freer to pick and choose, from a variety of sources, the learning opportunities that meet their goals. In this fluid educational environment, the old system of accumulating credits from one or two nearby institutions becomes too restrictive for many students who are balancing a variety of personal and professional roles.

There is a related shift underway as technology transforms the teaching and learning process. The traditional higher education measure of educational achievement, the credit hour, is also being questioned. Matthews argues that "learning outcomes, as measured by student competencies [rather than course credits], is the quality measure that makes the most sense to consumers" (p. 4). In the new educational environment defined by technology, innovative institutions such as Western Governors University award degrees by certifying that students have achieved certain required competencies, regardless of where those competencies were acquired. Such a dramatic shift in the way educational achievement is documented would have been unthinkable before the advent of the free market educational system stimulated by the technology advances of the late twentieth century. Measuring competencies rather than credit hours represents another shift in favor of the consumer. As long as a student can document competence in a subject or skill area, it makes no difference where or how the learning occurred.

Technology's potential to lower the cost of education has been one of its principal appeals. The ability of computers and telecommunications to reach large audiences with the same high-quality educational programs has raised hopes for economies of scale never possible in the very labor-intensive traditional forms of instruction. To date, technology's promise to lower instructional costs has not been realized. Developing the infrastructure to support technology-mediated teaching and learning has been a very expensive proposition. The possibility remains, however, that new, advanced technologies may eventually lower the costs of higher education as researchers and educators learn how to blend technology-delivered and traditional instruction in a more cost-effective manner.

Impact on Professors' Roles

Technology has already changed the lives of college professors in significant ways. As the twenty-first century unfolds, professors' roles will most likely evolve further as computers and telecommunications media are more fully integrated into higher education. Professors can now use technology to prepare for classes, conduct research, deliver instruction, and keep in touch with their students and colleagues in far away places. Electronic mail, fax machines, computerized databases and search engines, and high-tech classrooms are some of the technologies that have transformed the work of college professors. Many experts on teaching and learning and instructional technology are suggesting that a fundamental shift in faculty duties is underway as more technology applications are adopted in higher education. Because technology calls into question the professor's role as a knowledge transmitter, educational reformers such as James Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan, suggest that professors should become "designers of learning experiences, processes, and environments" (p. 7).

Rather than serving primarily as a subject expert who shares specialized knowledge with students, this new type of professor acts more as a consultant or coach. With the aid of technology, his primary instructional role is to inspire and motivate students, to construct an environment that promotes learning, and ultimately to manage an active learning process. Ideally, in this carefully designed context, students take more responsibility for their learning and construct meaning themselves, rather than passively absorbing information from a professor. According to conventional wisdom in contemporary higher education, the professor has moved from being "a sage on the stage to a guide on the side." This individual knows his subject deeply, but is also skilled at constructing situations conducive to learning. Effective utilization of instructional technology is part of the twenty-first-century professor's redefined duties.

There has been some discussion that technology may eventually make many instructional positions obsolete, the same way it eliminated the need for telephone operators or police to direct traffic at busy intersections. Why employ undistinguished professors to lecture in classes when sophisticated telecommunications technology can bring world-renowned authorities into classrooms via satellite or the World Wide Web to inspire students and share the latest information in their fields? Critics of this proposal counter by arguing that big academic "stars" do not hold office hours, grade papers, construct exams, or counsel troubled students. They believe that professors should not lose their jobs to automation. According to this view, there will always be a need for many of the conventional faculty functions, such as designing learning opportunities, motivating students, and evaluating performance.

The future probably lies somewhere between these two contrasting options. Higher education will undoubtedly supplement its local talent with other human resources that have become easily accessible through technology. Yet it will also continue to employ professional staff members to design curriculum, manage academic programs, and work closely with students.

Technology is loosening professors' control of the curriculum. Faculty and academic administrators once wielded nearly absolute power over the academic programs their institutions offered. However, technology has now made it possibleand commercially viablefor publishers, software companies, and other providers to design and distribute a wide variety of courseware and instructional modules. This alternative to "in-house" production of courses and academic programs is appealing for financial as well as educational reasons. Spreading the development costs of technology-enhanced educational products permits the integration of sophisticated instructional strategies, such as gaming and simulations, into educational programs. On the other hand, moving the design of educational programs further from those who know an institution's students best causes many educators some concern. Technological advances usually lead to trade-offs. In this case, the benefit of being able to integrate high-tech elements into courses is counterbalanced by the reduction in local control of the curriculum.

Rethinking the Concept of College

Since higher education institutions first emerged, they have been physical places where people gather together to learn. Although higher education institutions have grown and become more complex over time, their basic essence has remained constant. Technology now calls into question the very idea of a college or university. Some accredited institutions of higher education, such as Jones International University, now exist entirely in cyberspace with no campus, classrooms, or athletic teams to tie together the academic community. The traditional campus-based institutions that have served the United States so well are being challenged in the early twenty-first century by a host of nontraditional competitors that offer education at a distance. Many of these entrepreneurial institutions are aided by an assortment of technologies, including computers, satellites, and electronic streaming video. Technology has vastly expanded the demand for education over the course of a lifetime. It has also released education from the confines of the conventional classroom. It has even removed the restrictions imposed by the clock by enabling people who have access to Internet technology to convene for the purpose of shared learning.

The multipurpose American university was so successful because it brought together the array of facilities, experts, students, and funding needed to educate the masses and expand the boundaries of knowledge in service to humanity. The university assembled the critical mass of talent and resources necessary to meet the knowledge needs of a dynamic society. Although this formula worked throughout the twentieth century, technology is challenging this comfortable arrangement. It has enabled many other organizations, such as corporate colleges and for-profit firms, to provide educational services such as degree programs, professional certificate programs, and a host of outreach services that were once monopolized by the higher education community.

The result of this "unbundling" of higher education roles remains in doubt. Technology has led to a vast expansion of the postsecondary education market, and it is calling into question conventional views of what a higher education institution is or should be. However, no one knows precisely what a college or university (physical or virtual) will look like once the other side of the technology revolution is reached. In the past, when higher education adopted technological innovations, the educational system became more open, more complex, and more dynamic. If the past history of higher education can serve as a guide to its future, the technologies now working their way into the system will lead to a more diverse and responsive educational enterprise. How that enterprise resembles the system that functioned throughout the 1900s remains to be seen.

Special Challenges of Technology

In spite of its nearly irresistible appeal, technology presents higher education with difficult challenges. Systematic planning of technological enhancements to educational programs is difficult when technology changes so quickly and unpredictably. Academic planners are continually playing catch-up to implement new technology applications that appear more quickly than a careful planning process can anticipate. Similarly, paying for new technologies with exciting educational applications remains troublesome for institutions with more needs than resources. Authors who wrestle with the funding issues raised by technology argue that new budgeting strategies are necessary to keep institutions from lurching from one technology-funding crisis to the next. Institutions must view technology as a routine expense, not an exceptional special expenditure.

Training faculty and staff members to utilize technology effectively remains a challenge that many colleges and universities have not resolved satisfactorily. It seems clear that building a physical technological infrastructure is not enough. It is also necessary to build a human resource infrastructure for technology to fulfill its promise to higher education.

Finally, adequate evaluation of technology's contribution to higher education remains a challenge. For example, in Teaching with Technology, Wake Forest University vice president David Brown concludes that "the case for computers [in collegiate education] rests on scant amounts of hard evidence"(p. 5). Much of the immense investment in technology that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s was to a large extent an act of faith. Brown argues that the logic in favor of using technology in higher education is compelling, however. He believes that "more choice leads to more learning" (p. 4), and that technology greatly enhances the "box of tools" a professor can employ to reach diverse students. According to Brown, most of the evidence that supports using computers in education is indirect. In his view, research demonstrates that repetition, dialog (question and answer, point and counterpoint), collaborative learning, and visualization and animation (using pictures to support learning) enhance learning. Because computers and other technologies can support these proven educational strategies, Brown concludes that the weight of logic comes down firmly on the side of technology use in colleges and universities. Although Brown makes a strong case for technology, more empirical evidence is needed to justify higher education's massive investment in computers, high-tech classrooms, distancelearning programs, and other technology-based initiatives.

An Emerging New System

Duderstadt asserts that the United States needs a new educational paradigm in order to deliver educational opportunity to a broader spectrum of humanity. The advanced technologies available at the beginning of the twenty-first century are laying the foundation of a new higher education system, better equipped to meet the needs of a complex and rapidly changing society. The outlines of this system, transformed by technology, have begun to appear. The educational system that George Connick believes will eventually result from the current technology revolution has four defining attributes. First, it is easier to access than the old campus-based system. Second, it is unconstrained by the barriers of time and space because technology can liberate education from the restrictions imposed both by the clock and geography. Third, it is student-centered because technology can increase students' learning options. Fourth, it is cost-effective because technology can reduce the labor-intensive nature of higher education and permit the reorganization necessary to make institutions more responsive and competitive.

No one knows what higher education will look like in 2025 or 2100. It is certain, however, that colleges and universities will be very different places than they were in the year 2000. Many factors will contribute to the changes that will occur as the higher education system moves into the future. There is no doubt that technology will be one of the driving forces contributing to the educational transformation that is already well underway.

See also: Distance Learning in Higher Education; Faculty Roles and Responsibilities; Media and Learning.

bibliography

Brown, David G. 2000. "The Jury Is In!" In Teaching with Technology, ed. David G. Brown. Bolton, MA: Anker.

Connick, George P. 1997. "Issues and Trends to Take Us into the Twenty-First Century." In Teaching and Learning at a Distance, ed. Thomas E. Cyrs. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Duderstadt, James J. 1999. "Can Colleges and Universities Survive in the Information Age?" In Dancing with the Devil, ed. Richard N. Katz. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Farrington, Gregory C. 1999. "The New Technologies and the Future of Residential Undergraduate Education." In Dancing with the Devil ed. Richard N. Katz. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Hanna, Donald E. 2000. Higher Education in an Era of Digital Competition: Choices and Challenges. Madison, WI: Atwood Publishing.

Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American Higher Education. 1984. Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of American Higher Education. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Education.

internet resources

Claremont Graduate University. 1996. "Use of Instructional Technology Jumps on College Campuses." < www.ksu.edu/committees/citac/references/claremont.html>.

Green, Kenneth C. 1999. "The Real IT Challenge: People, Not Products." Converge Magazine. <www.convergemag.com/Publications/CNVGJan00/DigitalTweed/DigitalTweed.shtm>.

Green, Kenneth C. 2000. "Campus Computing, 2000: The 2000 National Survey of Information Technology in U.S. Higher Education." < www.campuscomputing.net>.

Matthews, Dewayne. 1998. "The Transformation of Higher Education Through Information Technology." <www.educase.edu/nlii/keydocs/finance.html>.

McCollum, Kelley. 1999. "Colleges Struggle to Manage Technology's Rising Costs." Chronicle of Higher Education <http://chronicle.com/free/v45/i24/24a00101.htm>.

Roger G. Baldwin

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TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION current trendssusan m. williams schoolhoward d. mehlingersusan m. powers higher educationroger g. baldwin CURRENT TRENDS Computers and Internet [1] connections are becoming widely available in schools and classrooms.

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"Technology is becoming part of everything." Ashley Wainwright

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There's no denying it, technology is everywhere and a part of just about everything we do and education is no exception. Today's generation is full of tech-savvy digital natives. The use of mobile devices as learning tools in the classroom is now becoming widely accepted. Programs like BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and 1:1 are spreading like wildfire throughout school wireless networks all over the United States.

So we know wireless technology in education is the present and future of education , but how is all this mobile technology affecting education? This infographic below gives us a pretty good peak. It's based on results from a study by CourseSmart and Wakefield Research which focused on more than 500 currently enrolled college students.

Here are some of the most surprising study results, for more check out the great infographic below.

Professors are also relying more on technology for delivering class announcements and assignments: 84% of students have had professors post a class syllabus online and 78% of students have received class news and updates from their professors via campus systems, such as learning management systems or student portals.

A majority (67%) can't go more than one hour without using some sort of digital technology.

Digital devices also allow for on-the-go reference to information with 79% of college students reporting they have done a quick search on a mobile device or tablet to verify something right before a test or a quiz.

The survey revealed that technology has become a significant part of students' everyday lives with the average using three devices daily.

Online courses are gaining popularity with 58% of students reporting they have taken an online course, motivated primarily by being able to take the class on their own time (63%), not having to physically be in a class (48%) and being able to learn at their own pace (47%).

Nearly all (96%) college students have had online components to a course: a majority of students (79%) have submitted assignments or papers online and 71% have taken online tests and quizzes.

Communication between faculty and students is becoming more social with nearly one in five (18%) students having received materials from their professor via Facebook.

If your school hasn't prepared your wireless network infrastructure for mobile devices in the classroom yet, we are here to help, and yes you need help, because, you can't stop them. So go ahead and embrace these fabulous learning tools that have everyone's attention already. Contact us here with any questions or for a free consultation. We have worked with over 250 schools all over the country implement solutions like BYOD and 1:1 to help successfully integrate these mobile devices into the classroom. We are always happy to help! Good luck!

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How Technology in the Classroom is Affecting Education [Infographic]

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There's no denying it, technology is everywhere and a part of just about everything we do and education is no exception. Today's generation is full of tech-savvy digital natives. The use of mobile devices as learning tools in the classroom is now becoming widely accepted.

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Purdue University's perspective on the pros and cons of technology influencing education

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Technology has impacted almost every aspect of life today, and education is no exception. Or is it? In some ways, education seems much the same as it has been for many years. A 14th century illustration by Laurentius de Voltolina depicts a university lecture in medieval Italy. The scene is easily recognizable because of its parallels to the modern day. The teacher lectures from a podium at the front of the room while the students sit in rows and listen. Some of the students have books open in front of them and appear to be following along. A few look bored. Some are talking to their neighbors. One appears to be sleeping. Classrooms today do not look much different, though you might find modern students looking at their laptops, tablets, or smart phones instead of books (though probably open to Facebook). A cynic would say that technology has done nothing to change education.

However, in many ways, technology has profoundly changed education. For one, technology has greatly expanded access to education. In medieval times, books were rare and only an elite few had access to educational opportunities. Individuals had to travel to centers of learning to get an education. Today, massive amounts of information (books, audio, images, videos) are available at one's fingertips through the Internet, and opportunities for formal learning are available online worldwide through the Khan Academy, MOOCs, podcasts, traditional online degree programs, and more. Access to learning opportunities today is unprecedented in scope thanks to technology.

Opportunities for communication and collaboration have also been expanded by technology. Traditionally, classrooms have been relatively isolated, and collaboration has been limited to other students in the same classroom or building. Today, technology enables forms of communication and collaboration undreamt of in the past. Students in a classroom in the rural U.S., for example, can learn about the Arctic by following the expedition of a team of scientists in the region, read scientists' blog posting, view photos, e-mail questions to the scientists, and even talk live with the scientists via a videoconference. Students can share what they are learning with students in other classrooms in other states who are tracking the same expedition. Students can collaborate on group projects using technology-based tools such as wikis and Google docs. The walls of the classrooms are no longer a barrier as technology enables new ways of learning, communicating, and working collaboratively.

Technology has also begun to change the roles of teachers and learners. In the traditional classroom, such as what we see depicted in de Voltolina's illustration, the teacher is the primary source of information, and the learners passively receive it. This model of the teacher as the "sage on the stage" has been in education for a long time, and it is still very much in evidence today. However, because of the access to information and educational opportunity that technology has enabled, in many classrooms today we see the teacher's role shifting to the "guide on the side" as students take more responsibility for their own learning using technology to gather relevant information. Schools and universities across the country are beginning to redesign learning spaces to enable this new model of education, foster more interaction and small group work, and use technology as an enabler.

Technology is a powerful tool that can support and transform education in many ways, from making it easier for teachers to create instructional materials to enabling new ways for people to learn and work together. With the worldwide reach of the Internet and the ubiquity of smart devices that can connect to it, a new age of anytime anywhere education is dawning. It will be up to instructional designers and educational technologies to make the most of the opportunities provided by technology to change education so that effective and efficient education is available to everyone everywhere.

You can help shape the influence of technology in education with an Online Master of Science in Education in Learning Design and Technology from Purdue University Online. This accredited program offers studies in exciting new technologies that are shaping education and offers students the opportunity to take part in the future of innovation.

Learn more about the online MSEd in Learning Design and Technology at Purdue University today and help redefine the way in which individuals learn. Call (877) 497-5851 to speak with an admissions advisor or click here to request more information.

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How Has Technology Changed Education | Purdue Online

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Technology has impacted almost every aspect of life today, and education is no exception. Or is it? In some ways, education seems much the same as it has been for many years. A 14th century illustration by Laurentius de Voltolina depicts a university lecture in medieval Italy.

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How technology effects the classroom

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Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils' performance, says a global study from the OECD.

The think tank says frequent use of computers in schools is more likely to be associated with lower results.

Tom Bennett, the government's expert on pupil behaviour, said teachers had been "dazzled" by school computers.

The report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development examines the impact of school technology on international test results, such as the Pisa tests taken in more than 70 countries and tests measuring digital skills.

It says education systems which have invested heavily in information and communications technology have seen "no noticeable improvement" in Pisa test results for reading, mathematics or science.

"If you look at the best-performing education systems, such as those in East Asia, they've been very cautious about using technology in their classrooms," said Mr Schleicher.

"Those students who use tablets and computers very often tend to do worse than those who use them moderately."

Annual global spending on educational technology in schools has been valued at £17.5bn, by technology analysts Gartner. In the UK, the spending on technology in schools is £900m.

The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) says schools have £619m in budgets for ICT, with £95m spent on software and digital content.

But Mr Schleicher says the "impact on student performance is mixed at best".

Students who use computers very frequently at school get worse results

Students who use computers moderately at school, such as once or twice a week, have "somewhat better learning outcomes" than students who use computers rarely

The results show "no appreciable improvements" in reading, mathematics or science in the countries that had invested heavily in information technology

High achieving school systems such as South Korea and Shanghai in China have lower levels of computer use in school

Singapore, with only a moderate use of technology in school, is top for digital skills

"One of the most disappointing findings of the report is that the socio-economic divide between students is not narrowed by technology, perhaps even amplified," said Mr Schleicher.

He said making sure all children have a good grasp of reading and maths is a more effective way to close the gap than "access to hi-tech devices"

He warned classroom technology can be a distraction and result in pupils cutting and pasting "prefabricated" homework answers from the internet.

The study shows "there is no single country in which the internet is used frequently at school by a majority of students and where students' performance improved".

Among the seven countries with the highest level of internet use in school, it found three experienced "significant declines" in reading performance - Australia, New Zealand and Sweden - and three more had results that had "stagnated" - Spain, Norway and Denmark.

The countries and cities with the lowest use of the internet in school - South Korea, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Japan - are among the top performers in international tests.

The study did not gather a figure for the UK's internet time in class, but the UK has among the highest levels of computers per pupil.

But Mr Schleicher says the findings of the report should not be used as an "excuse" not to use technology, but as a spur to finding a more effective approach.

He gave the example of digital textbooks which can be updated as an example of how online technology could be better than traditional methods.

Mark Chambers, chief executive of Naace, the body supporting the use of computers in schools, said it was unrealistic to think schools should reduce their use of technology.

"It is endemic in society now, at home young people will be using technology, there's no way that we should take technology out of schools, schools should be leading not following."

1.3m desktop computers

840,000 laptops

730,000 tablets (expected to rise to 939,000 next year)

22% are "ineffective"

Microsoft spokesman Hugh Milward said: "The internet gives any student access to the sum of human knowledge, 3D printing brings advanced manufacturing capabilities to your desktop, and the next FTSE 100 business might just as well be built in a bedroom in Coventry as in the City."

Head teacher John Morris also strongly rejected the idea.

"We're preparing our children for jobs that don't yet exist," said Mr Morris, head of Ardleigh Green junior school in the London Borough of Havering.

"We're training them to use technology which hasn't yet been invented. So how can you possibly divorce technology from industry or from teaching and learning?

"When people say too much money is being spent on technology in school, my response is 'Nonsense'. What we need is more money, more investment."

The government's behaviour expert Tom Bennett said there might have been unrealistic expectations, but the "adoption of technology in the classroom can't be turned back".

England's schools minister Nick Gibb said: "We want all schools to consider the needs of their pupils to determine how technology can complement the foundations of good teaching and a rigorous curriculum, so that every pupil is able to achieve their potential."

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Computers 'do not improve' pupil results, says OECD

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Investing heavily in school computers and classroom technology does not improve pupils' performance, according to a global study from the OECD.

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Video Conference: a conference in which participants in different locations are able to communicate with each other in sound and vision.

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Technology's impact on education, especially middle school

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What is the Impact of Technology on Learning? | Education.com

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Computer technology provides abundant opportunities for students to build or modify their own knowledge through the rich experiences that technology affords.

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Books turn into eBooks