TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHY SHOULD WE HAVE COMPUTERS IN OUR SCHOOLS?
WHAT DO WE WANT COMPUTERS TO DO IN OUR SCHOOLS?
II. THE CHALLENGES TO A BROAD-BASED INTRODUCTION OF COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM
WE MUST DEFINE EXACTLY WHAT WE MEAN BY TECHNOLOGY
CAN COMPUTERS IMPROVE ACADEMIC RESULTS
RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO APPROACHES
COMMUNICATING WITH THE PUBLIC - A STORY OF HYPE AND UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
ACCESS TO MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND PRACTICING SCIENTISTS
THE NATURE OF THE COMPUTING INDUSTRY AND MARKET PLACE
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE STABILITY
THE LEARNING CURVE AND EXISTING TEACHER SKILL LEVELS
WHAT SUPPORT LEVELS ARE APPROPRIATE?
TEACHING COMPUTERS RATHER THAN USING COMPUTERS TO TEACH.
INSTRUCTIONAL MANAGEMENT AND TEACHER PRODUCTIVITY.
COST ISSUES MUST BE REALISTICALLY ADDRESSED.
THE GARTNER GROUP COST ESTIMATES
The serious challenges to the introduction of substantive classroom computing need more attention than has been given by the Anchorage School District Technology Plan and by the plans of most other districts as well. Challenges include addressing which teaching techniques are most likely to be effective, lack of good model implementations in most other districts, a dearth of suitable software, critical staff support issues, cost and other matters. The process is complex. The purpose of this paper is to explore those challenges and present specific suggestions for addressing them.
~The cost of bringing computers into our classrooms will be significant. In line with what appears to be the national consensus, our Anchorage School District proposes to ultimately provide computers at a ratio of one machine for every five students plus one for each teacher. This report estimates the total cost of the effort to range from $83 million to $200 million for out of pocket expenditures over a five year period. The total resource commitment, including teacher time consumed, could be twice that amount. The recent addition of 2,500 computers to our District classrooms represents a resource commitment of perhaps $30 to $80 million over the next five years if properly used and supported. All cost estimates are a multiple of the amount requested in the defeated 1996 Technology Bond issue. Hardware is a small part of the cost; support and other continuing components are significant. Our District needs to be very direct about the cost components needed to fund a good implementation of classroom computing and devise a long range plan to fund these costs.
~The purpose of having computers in schools is not to teach students how to use them; the value of having and effectively using computers in our classrooms is that they can enhance academic results. It is wrong to assume that, if computers are not in the schools, then kids won't be able to get jobs in an increasingly computerized world. Learning to use a computer takes no more than a month or so....not 12 years. If our schools are graduating students that are incapable of quickly learning to operate a computer on their own, then they have truly failed. The true benefit of computers is that they can enable our students to realize the same quantum increase in productivity that has been experienced by the working world as a whole. They can reduce the grunt work from the tasks of learning, which - like the outside world - are researching, writing, organization, analysis and presentation of ideas. By enabling these tasks to be done easily and in more depth, computers can enhance learning.
~Although we are beginning to see a few studies of large scale implementations which are purportedly successful, the capacity of classroom computing to improve academic results depends on how effectively they are used. The fact that effectiveness studies show somewhat mixed results is a clear warning that we must plan carefully, implement slowly, assess and evaluate thoroughly, clarify the best models and uses, and support our staff. The crux of success lies in the ability of teachers to capitalize on the educational opportunities offered by this new tool. It will take teachers a number of years to move sufficiently up the learning curve to be able to effectively utilize computers in their classes; therefore the public should not expect measurable results to appear rapidly. It will take five to ten years to see material impact. The District must, however, be able at some point to demonstrate to the public that there are clear and measurable results over time, or support will evaporate.
~School technology is a "work in process" across the nation. There are not many examples of exemplary classroom computing implementations, which suggest that the task of so doing is significant. Examination of both plans and various reports suggests that the educational community as a whole is still grappling with the fundamental issues of classroom computing - how to execute the implementation, how to support it, and how to use it. Plans tend to do a poor job of goal setting, providing for adequate support, explaining how computers will actually be used, and key frameworks and lesson planning guidance remain undone. Clearly, with few good models from which to chose, the Anchorage School District is "on its own".
~Although our Anchorage School District, like others, is under immense pressure to bring computers into the classroom as quickly as possible, the process is not one which can or should be hurried. The speed with which classroom computing can be implemented is chiefly a function of funding, software availability, and the speed with which teachers move up the learning curve necessary to be able to apply the tool. Given these challenges a gradual, stepped implementation seems the most appropriate course.
~Most papers and school district plans speak of terms of "technology" in the schools. Because this term is so broad, it causes planners of lose focus and segue away from computers to such accessories and esoteric uses as hypermedia, video cameras, tape recorders, VCRs, and other devices. This lack of focus contributes to fuzzy goals and places far too great a burden on the teachers and others who must learn how to apply such a broad range of tools. The vision must be kept simple: confined to computers and their basic peripherals. Effective use of these tools alone represents a substantive challenge.
~School computers should be used to build and reinforce basic skills, facilitating analysis and presentation of work, providing simulated hands-on experience and enhancing teacher productivity.
~The educational community seems to be conflicted over whether drill and practice or project-based ("constructivist") teaching techniques should be the focus of computer assisted teaching. There is support in the literature and in at least one large scale implementation for the assertion that drill and practice can improve basic skills. Research on project based or constructivist techniques is less conclusive. It is my opinion that these two approaches are not mutually exclusive and both should be used where appropriate.
~Other than spreadsheet, word processing and similar software, there is a general lack of quality software to support educational needs, particularly that suitable for project-based or "constructivist" techniques.
~The political hype over educational computing has vastly exaggerated the benefits. Terms such as "global village", "information explosion", "information highway", "vast storehouse of information" and suggestions of access to the collections of the world's major libraries and museums have combined in the public discussion to create unrealistic expectations and exacerbated the pressure to hurry the implementation. School computing plans often repeat and attempt to build on these myths. Our district must be extremely cautious, in its public relations, to be realistic and to refute any such expectations as may gain currency. Educators had best be careful with these myths lest they be held accountable for failure to deliver.
~On a national basis, teachers as a group seem ill-prepared to use computers in the classrooms. While it is easy to learn the basics of computing, learning how to teach with them in the classroom is an entirely different matter. Finding and integrating software into classroom work can be difficult unless the teacher has a fairly comprehensive knowledge of what is available and how it works. It is estimated that it will take the typical teacher three to six years to fully incorporate computers into their teaching activities, and the learning curve never completely levels off. There is no reason to suppose that our own Anchorage teachers are any different than the national experience.
~Intensive staff support and development is critical if classroom computing is to be utilized and successful. We need training, technical and pedagogical support both prior to startup and on a continuous basis thereafter. Most support must be available full time at each school site. This report estimates that there needs to be one full time support person at school sites for every 50 computers; if a high level of dedicated support is not provided, the requisite help will either come from the time of other teachers ( often called peer or "underground" support) or computers will simply not be used. To the extent that peer support replaces dedicated staffing, it could have the effect of removing one or two teachers from every elementary school as peers omit their regular duties to help others. It does not appear that the Anchorage School District has adequately provided for the level of on site support that is needed.
~Teacher training should begin one year before they get computers in the classroom. At that time each should receive a laptop with spreadsheet, word processing and other basic software so that they have an opportunity to begin learning on their own. During that year they should prepare a classroom computing plan composed of representative lesson plans showing where computer power will be used. At the end of that year they should be expected to demonstrate basic skills at using computers and justify their plan in order to receive a basic level certification. Teachers should not receive classroom computers until basic certification is earned.
~Most plans speak of computer literacy and seem to emphasize teaching students how to use technology rather than using computers to teach while at the same time denying this intent. Basic computer skills can be learned quickly, and furthermore, the pace of technological change assures that skills learned today will be obsolete tomorrow. The purpose of having computers in our schools is to improve academic results.
~The District should initiate a research and development effort aimed at expanding on the opportunities offered by a computer network. In addition to curricular research, it should look for new, more efficient means of delivering instruction such as support for at home students.(1)Classroom computing offers an opportunity to improve the administrative productivity of teachers, relieving or assisting them with paperwork burdens such as attendance, student record keeping, lesson planning and materials preparation. Administrative functions should be on line and network supported. Students should have mag stripe or bar coded ID cards for example. Every effort must be made to achieve these improvements, thus offsetting some of the extra time that teachers will need to dedicate to using computers to teach.
~Characteristics of the computer industry itself compound teaching challenges and increase the cost of classroom computing and support. These challenges include the pace of technological change, ubiquitous software bugs and hardware instability, and emphasis on marketing of upgrades that compound the learning curve but bring little compensating value added. The cost of installing upgrades over the life of a given hardware setup have been estimated to exceed the cost of the hardware itself. Systems that are unstable and crash frequently are a disincentive for teacher use.
~We appear to have the capacity to fund classroom computing without tapping the taxpayer for monies over and above the Municipal tax cap. Considering that the District has been able to redirect about $10 million in each of the past several years, it should have sufficient options going forward to fund a gradual and viable implementation of classroom computing.
Our District plan has no specific goals for classroom computing other than repeating the general goals for the District as a whole. The following goals are recommended:
We should use computers to:
Improve Reading Skills
Improve Writing Skills
Improve Mathematics Skill.
Use basic skills to gain a broad understanding of the physical, social and creative world in which we live.
We will:
Provide Teacher Training
Build a Model Program
Make a substantive reduction of the difference between minority standardized test scores and those for the District as a whole.
Identify and implement strategies to relieve the teacher paperwork burden.
Initiate a research and development program aimed at expanding the educational productivity of classroom computing, finding most efficient methods of support, developing more cost effective methods of instruction delivery including electronic, and non classroom models, and developing of new educational techniques.
Specific recommendations for strategies to implement these goals are outlined beginning on page 76
Our Anchorage School District, like most other districts in the US, is faced with the need to bring computers into the classroom, and use them effectively. It is under immense political pressure to accomplish this task, yet the challenges in doing so are significant, interrelated and not amenable to hasty solution. Another 2,500 computers have just been added to District schools; the up front cost is the tip of the iceberg. The long term commitment of resources implicit in this acquisition is something like $30 to 80 million if implementation is to be effective.
The challenges are:
We must define exactly what we mean by technology in schools.
Questions about effectiveness of computers in the classroom need to be addressed.
Extensive political hype surrounding the issue of classroom computing has created an atmosphere of unrealistic expectations.
We lack good models to follow for planning and curriculum integration.
Good software is scarce, especially that needed to support project-based instruction.
The nature of the computing industry and market place
The level of staff development and ongoing staff support is crucial.
Instructional management and teacher productivity need to be addressed.
And finally at the end (because it is affected by most of the other challenges):
We must address cost issues realistically.
A good plan needs to be woven around these challenges - addressing and resolving them in an accountable manner.
This report may be perceived as being critical of educators and of our District; that is not its intent. Rather, its purpose is to apply critical thought to the task at hand. When one considers the immense pressure to bring computers into our schools and to get connected to the "information highway", the lack of good models and formulas for success, it is no wonder that our team is struggling.
The purpose of this report is to explore these challenges and make planning
recommendations which address them. Many of these issues have been discussed
from a national perspective in studies and papers, These are surveyed in
this report from the perspective of their impact on our own local planning.
Recommendations and an outline of a potential plan for addressing theses
issues are presented. It is a long paper; therefore those wishing to skip
the extended discussion of challenges and issues will find the recommendations
beginning on page 76.
Our community voted down a computer bond issue of $35 million in 1996. The author, (who was "accused" of leading the opposition) based his criticism on the lack of planning as evidenced chiefly by the inadequacy of staff development funding in the proposal. But the reasons and concerns ran deeper than that.
~One of the participant's in our school district's community planning effort for that bond told me recently that he had been disturbed at the plan's failure to articulate a clear vision of what would happen with computers in the classroom.
~Political leaders wanted simply to be assured that the equipment would be used. Fellow commissioner Robert Green, Mayor Rick Mystrom and I had been on a tour of several schools that spring, looking at those that needed major renovation. There were computers in almost every classroom. Not one was being used.
~One politico told me that he was concerned that students learn to think, and feared that computers could be detrimental.
~The out-of-pocket cost seemed immense; in fact it was understated. The more likely figure could range from $20 to $40 million per year if an adequate staff and technical support network were to be in place.
~The pace of technology was such that any computers purchased would be obsolete in a few years. Furthermore, and although computer capacities have increased many fold in just a few years, new software gobbles up that capacity increase and simply will not run on older machines. The public rightly saw not only a huge cost but a continuing cost.
The pressures to bring computers into our classrooms (and quickly, please) are immense and come from President Clinton, Vice President Gore and others down the chain. Because politics is involved the hype has been unconscionable. For instance, the President and Vice President have been pressing for several years for every classroom in the country to be wired to the information highway by the year 2000. (2) This hype and the attendant mythology about technology have created a set of unrealistic expectations which are, in themselves a challenge to bringing computers in the classroom.
It is the author's concern that the Technology Plan of our District, like those of other districts, either minimizes or does not adequately address and compensate for these challenges. In fairness to the district, review of other plans provides little guidance. Goals are fuzzy, unfocused and as a result one sees no clear ideas on how to reach those goals.
One school district plan lists as a desired student outcome that
"lifelong learners will be fluent in processing and managing information through the skillful use of technology" (3)
as if manipulation of information was the same as or of equal importance to understanding that information.
"There is...evidence in ... some studies that learning technology is less effective when the learning objectives are unclear and the focus of technology use is unclear." (4)
As evidence of fuzzy thinking, consider the overuse of the term "technology" itself. Emphasis on the word "technology" leads many plans to talk not only of computers and directly related peripherals such as printers, but to devolve into discussions about connecting computers to video cameras, VCR's, MIDI's and the like. The issue at hand, is not technologyin the schools, it is computers. Technology has always been in the schools - from film strip and movie projectors to fountain pens to ball point pens to mechanical pencils, calculators, and sticky notes. The term technology is much too broad. Goals that speak about getting technology in the schools are already met.
This paper will focus not on technology, but on computers and their
directly related peripherals as they may be used in our schools. Our District's
planning would be more focused if it spoke in similar terms.
The implicit push to hurry is a problem. As this paper will argue, the process of bringing computers into the classrooms on an educationally effective basis is not one which can be hurried. To do otherwise invites disaster. Given the cost involved, the public will not likely excuse failure. In reality there is little to lose by taking one's time; almost every other district is struggling with the same challenges, and no one is likely to get ahead of the pack.
Rule #1
The speed with which classroom computing can be implemented is chiefly a function of funding, software availability and most importantly the speed with which teachers move up the learning curve necessary to be able to apply the tool.
We have time to do a workman-like job of implementing computer power in our classrooms.Given the numerous challenges and red flags in the literature, the political pressure to hurry is astonishing.
Computing technology has been here for a long time. The fundamental point of technology is to make tasks easier; if in fact computing technology makes work more difficult because learning to use the tools themselves is daunting, then that technology will not survive. Workplace economics will assure that. Technology is all around us, and we seem to have adjusted and survived quite well.
The point of sale terminals at MacDonalds are an example of the technology with which we live daily. If you want a Big Mac, all the clerk has to do is press the Big Mac button. Computer power has made the job of ringing up a sale very simple and easy. Almost anybody can do it. Ditto the grocery store scanner. If these devices were anything but easy to operate, would they be there?
WHY SHOULD WE HAVE COMPUTERS IN OUR SCHOOLS?
We should have computers in our schools. Why? Look at how and why the working world uses them. They are used because word processors and spreadsheets improve our productivity. They make it significantly easier to write, organize ideas, present data and analyze. They enable these jobs to be done much more effectively and efficiently. They remove much of the hassle factor.
One need only scan the help wanted ads in the newspaper to see how often computers are used. Similar demands await our college bound students. My youngest son reported after his college freshman year that, depending on the class:
~Professors post notes, syllabi, assignments and other class information on their web sites.
~Professors post problem worksheets on the Internet, they expect students to access, complete and submit their work via the web.
~Students are expected to use the Internet as an information resource. Requirements for validation include cross-checking for similar data from other sources.
~In some cases professors expected students to participate in on-line discussion groups, although students felt that this did not work well because of lack of eye contact and responsiveness.
The hard fact is that this paper could not have been written in its present form without a computer and the Internet. Word processing and spreadsheet capacity provided the necessary tools, and valuable resources were found on the Internet, particularly from the government, credible research sources such as the Educational Testing Service and others. This is the way the world is working now, and it is more efficient that it was in the days of typewriters.
This does not imply that the acquisition of computer skills should be a goal; these skills are relatively easy to learn(5). Our students ought to have these computing tools simply because the tasks of learning can be facilitated as colleges are clearly finding. It is wrong to assume that computers must be in the schools, or kids won't be able to get jobs in an increasingly computerized world; learning to use a computer takes no more than a month or so. Computers will enable our students to realize the same quantum increase in productivity that has been experienced by the working world as a whole. They can remove much of the grunt work from the tasks of learning, which - like the outside world are also writing, organization, analysis and presentation of ideas. By enabling these tasks to be done easily and in more depth, computers will enhance learning.
Whether these benefits justify the cost is a matter for the community
to decide.
WHAT DO WE WANT COMPUTERS TO DO IN OUR SCHOOLS?
Mirroring the working world to some extent, I think that computers should do the following things in our schools:
~They should be used to build and reinforce basic skills wherever possible.
~Provide students with data gathering tools such as on-line encyclopedias and the Internet, thus facilitating the collection of information as a preliminary step for the learning process.
~Enhance student productivity by facilitating the tasks of data analysis and presentation through use of word processing, spreadsheet and other software tools as appropriate.
~Provide hands-on experience with training tools such as simulations and demonstration software where appropriate and available.
~Enhance teacher productivity, facilitating the administrative and other paperwork tasks of the job with grade book and other office suite software as appropriate. The functions of student record keeping, attendance and other functions should be on-line, integrated with related systems and network supported. Students should see the same level of technology application to administrative tasks in the classroom that they will see and be expected to use in the workplace.
The challenges to computers in our schools are daunting. The initial and ongoing costs will be a significant part of our education budget. These concerns have been minimized or ignored by those political leaders who have been pressuring districts to use them. Public discussion in our community has centered around only a few of the related issues and has largely ignored many more subtle, yet equally critical issues.
Before making any recommendations, I feel it is appropriate to explore these challenges more thoroughly.
II. THE CHALLENGES TO A BROAD-BASED INTRODUCTION OF COMPUTERS IN THE CLASSROOM
WE MUST DEFINE EXACTLY WHAT WE MEAN BY TECHNOLOGY.
- Old Russian Proverb
As the introduction stated, in its broadest sense technology is already in the classroom and has always been there. When schools talk about technology, most of us think computers and their peripherals. Yet many district plans wander on about VCR,s, MIDI,s, hypermedia, video cameras, etc. This agenda is much too broad and indicates a failure to focus. Without focus, goal setting and execution become much more difficult, and little will be accomplished.
Listen to this desired student outcome from one plan:
[Students will] have exposure to other technology and its various uses, for example film, video, tape recorders (including four track), record players, overhead projectors, still image cameras, typewriters, calculators, CD players, PA systems, hearing aids and glasses."(6)
And another plan says that:
"Students will use a variety of technology (computers, projection devices, camcorders, video editing equipment, scanners, calculators, copiers, laser disks, video and audio equipment, cameras)."(7)
This list of gadgetry is unwieldy. Teachers face enough of a task learning to teach with computers without facing the challenges of a long list of other electronic tools. There is a big difference between knowing how to use a tool and being able to teach with it. The US Office of Technology Assessment (report, Teachers and Technology, stated that:
"Teachers who want to use technology also may find that educating themselves enough to be able to use a particular piece of hardware or software can require considerable extra time and effort. "(8)
The California Technology Assistance Project says:
"Don't attempt to implement two or three things at once. A plan that says we will implement laser disc, video camcorder and computer multimedia in year one is NOT realistic."(9)
One of the "jazzy" software tools often referred to in plans (including that from our own Anchorage School District) is "hypermedia". This term refers to computer documents which are organized like branches of a tree (web pages are frequently organized this way) as opposed to linear documents like books. In reading such a document, the user clicks on various cross references embedded on the page at hand and skips around. The computer links the reader to the selected pages.
Hypermedia reports cannot be read efficiently without a computer; in addition, and unlike a book, one gets the feeling that something has been missed, that not all the relevant pages have been covered. As Using Technology says:
"... hypermedia may be less useful for the person accessing information.... Students will not learn much from hypermedia if they...lose track of where they are within the hypermedia, and do not understand the links created by another hypermedia author...proponents of hypermedia argue that its non-linear format, allowing students access to vast amounts of information with complex links to other information, promotes "rich" learning. Although intriguing, these claims are still speculative."(10)
Unfortunately most of us are linear thinkers. Here is a tool that is confusing and does not communicate. For now it should be left out of planning.
If plans are to be executed they must have clear focus. We must be careful not to overwhelm teachers with gizmos. For most, the task of teaching with computers themselves is daunting. Training and support is going to be very expensive just for computers and basic accessories, as discussed later in this report. Why compound the problem? Clearly our training and planning challenges will be more complex if we include too much.
Keep the vision simple: computers being used in the classrooms. This thought should not preclude use of any element, including video, which the teacher wishes to use and feels is of educational value. It is only to suggest that we not build our plans on such broad brush concepts.
CAN COMPUTERS IMPROVE ACADEMIC RESULTS?
"No one knows if, or when, the debate over technology's effectiveness would force policymakers to scale back funding. But make no mistake, society eventually draws up a balance sheet on its major investments, as it has with spending on defense, health care, and welfare. And school technology is no exception." (11)
Questions about the effectiveness of computers in the classroom abound and are valid. The results of most studies are generally positive, but even advocates note that it is difficult to isolate the effects of other factors and attribute gains purely to computing.
"Assessments of the impact of technology are really assessments of instruction enabled by technology, and the outcomes are highly dependent on the quality of the instructional design."(12)
There are studies which suggest that computers are not effective and that there may be a downside as well.
~One school cited as an effective implementation by the RAND organization and touted by the Clinton Administration is Christopher Columbus Middle School in New Jersey. In fact, test scores at that school turned up before the computers arrived, not after. The reasons were basic: new books, longer class periods, after school programs, etc.(13)
~A study commissioned by the San Jose Mercury-News found "no strong link between technology - or the use of technology in teaching - and superior achievement." The only exception found was in schools serving low income students."(14)
~Computers may stifle creativity, rather than reinforce it. Their ability to support "thinking out of the box" can be software constrained. The Atlantic Monthly referred to "one small, but carefully controlled study [ which] went so far as to claim that Reader Rabbit, a reading program now used in more than 100,000 schools, caused students to suffer a 50% drop in creativity." After use for seven months, students "were no longer able to answer open-ended questions and showed a markedly diminished ability to brainstorm with fluency and originality".(15)
~Computers can be sterile. They only engage two senses - sight and sound - yet children learn with all. One physics teacher said that in order to develop the skills needed to build in the real world, a student "needs to have done it first with Tinkertoys or clay, or carved it out of balsa wood."(16)
~There is a temptation to plagarize from Web sources, or to build written material with "cut and paste" tools without the thought and craftsmanship necessary to link ideas.
It is apparent that there is a real risk that an ill conceived and executed computer implementation can produce diminished or poor results.
The effectiveness of computers relates to the manner in which they are used, and more particularly the overall quality of teaching with them, as common sense would suggest. If computers do add value, it is because they enable more effective instruction on the part of skilled teachers. The crux of success lies in the ability of teachers to capitalize on the educational opportunities offered by this new tool. As this report discusses later on, it will take teachers a number of years to move sufficiently up the learning curve to be able to effectively utilize computers in their classes; therefore the public should not expect measurable results to appear rapidly. It will take five to ten years to see a meaningful impact.
There is some disagreement about what computer teaching techniques are most useful. As one writer noted:
"Research on the impact of technology on learning is in its infancy though we are beginning to see some solid work emerge."(17)
There seem to be two general and conflicting "schools of thought" and techniques:
~Drill and practice
~"Constructivist" or project-based approaches where, in essence, students collect, analyze and report on real world data, thereby "constructing" their own learning. Simulations also fall in this category.(18)
One is scorned by educators as "drill and kill" while the other is mistrusted by the public, as indicated by such terms as "fuzzy math" and "inventive spelling".
There is no room for such "all or none" thinking in an effective implementation of classroom computing. Both approaches have a place in the plan.
STUDIES ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CLASSROOM COMPUTING - THE WEST VIRGINIA EXPERIENCE WITH DRILL AND PRACTICE
One study of particular interest is that conducted by the Milken Exchange on Education Technology of the West Virginia Basic Skills/Computer Education (BS/CE) program. The interesting thing about the West Virginia experience is that it is an actual, broad scale implementation rather than an experimental model or a single classroom experience.
It is evident that the state used older technology that was more focused on "drill and practice" approaches. The Internet was not available. Little use was made of "project-based learning" and "other constructivist curricular approaches that are the leading edge of learning technology today."(19)
This extensive program was initiated in 1990-91 and continued since that time with three components:
~software focusing on that state's basic skills goals in reading, language arts and mathematics.
~enough computers in the schools so that students had ready access,
~professional development for teachers.(20)
The state had a focused plan and they stuck to it. The program was implemented in the earliest grades and moved upwards(21) over the years thereby constraining costs to bite-sized increments.
The report notes significant gains in the areas of focus and opined that
~the program was cost effective compared to other alternatives such as reduction of class size,
~students who had computers in their classrooms did better than those who were taught in labs,
~the neediest children appeared to have been helped most, particularly in the areas of language, reading and vocabulary, and;
~there were no gender differences in gains.(22)
The focus on basic skills, including only two recommended software sources (IBM and Jostens) was a key factor in the results. It should also be noted that the state was making other improvements in its education effort at the same time, although the report says that:
"One interpretation...is that the state's improvement trajectory was sustained and enhanced by BS/CE students.... In terms of per capita income, West Virginia is in 40th place; in achievement, it is in 17th place".(23)
The state had been in 33rd place academically at the outset of the project.(24) Similar improvement in standardized scores was noted.(25)
The West Virginia program cost was about $7 million per year. It is not totally clear on how these costs were allocated, other than noting that 30% was spent on training and that this amount was ten times the national average. (26) Most critically it appears that the analysis either missed or ignored the ongoing post-implementation costs of staff support, noting that training was "coupled with continuous support during the early implementation" (my italics).(27) It would appear that the state funding was chiefly oriented to implementation, and not ongoing support; perhaps that has been left for local districts to fund either directly or by reassignment of existing staff. This most important element is discussed further beginning in page 51 of my report.
Another weakness of the study is that it was not controlled; the State of West Virginia chose a statewide implementation which meant that there were no non-computer groups with which to compare. There were some variations (labs versus classrooms, for example), making possible the measurement procedures used in the study. For this and other reasons the authors conclude that "instructional technology is a powerful assist to children's achievement".(28)
As noted earlier, "constructivist" or project-based teaching is essentially that students collect, analyze and report on real world data, thereby "constructing" their own learning. Simulations also fall in this category. For example, students might write a report describing their city to people in another locale. To prepare this report, they would have to assemble, analyze and present geographic, demographic and economic facts about their city, as well as working on composition skills. Computers would obviously provide the means to do so with spreadsheet and word processing tools.
These tasks are visualized by the education community as "authentic", in that they are simulations of things that are done in the working world as a whole. To some extent they are self-directed, with the teacher as a coach, and they are called "constructivist" because students are thought to construct their own learning. Note that several disciplines - math, writing, social studies - are involved. Computers may be used to simulate, enhance data collection and analysis or assist with various project components.
The reality of these constructivist projects is that they are little different than projects students have been doing for eons. (29)Other than being enhanced by computers, not a lot has changed. The project described above is little more than a group term paper assignment rooted in real world situations. As a similar example, I vividly remember a project in the fifth grade where our class made a sandbox model of the Jamestown, Virginia settlement, thus becoming familiar with not only history but getting a more intuitive feel for the conditions of living in that little community. (30)
One study conducted by Howard Wenglinsky for the Educational Testing Service looked at data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress for 1996 (NAEP) and found positive results for the constructivist approach:
~Eighth graders whose teachers used computers mostly for "simulations and applications"--generally associated with higher-order thinking--performed better on the NAEP than students whose teachers did not.
~Meanwhile, 8th graders whose teachers used computers primarily for "drill and practice"--generally associated with lower-order thinking--performed worse.
~Among 4th graders, students whose teachers used computers mainly for "math/learning games" scored higher than students whose teachers didn't. The research found no association, positive or negative, between 4th graders' scores and either simulations and applications or drill-and-practice.
~In both grades, students whose teachers had professional development in computers outperformed students whose teachers didn't. (31)
Interestingly, the report found a negative correlation between frequency of computer use and results.(32) It is certainly possible to overdo the drill, and create boredom; we also have to know when to stop.
This study is based on analysis of answers to rather broad (and perhaps subjective) questions on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It investigated relationships between results and the extent to which computers were used for "simulations and applications" or "playing mathematical games" ( with the inference that these tasks are a proxy for the constructivist approach versus drill and practice. This report does not give a picture of what students were doing in the classroom that can be replicated; it should not be a surprise that others have found conflicting results.
RECONCILIATION OF THE TWO APPROACHES
The resolution of the apparent conflict between drill and constructivism approaches seems to be the context in which these techniques are used. The reason for drill and practice is to gain fluency. Ted Hasselbring of Vanderbilt University notes that there are three broad steps that are necessary to mastering basic skills-developing the skill initially, becoming fluent at it and being able to apply it across different activities and content areas. Drill and practice addresses the second step.(33)
It is hard to argue against drill and practice as a program component. It is just one piece of the learning process; it is important, but neither all that is needed nor a step that can be omitted. It is like time spent learning a language. One can carry on a rudimentary conversation with a foreigner by using a phrase book and taking a lot of time. One can read a book in a foreign language with some understanding of vocabulary, sentence structure, etc, looking up most words as one goes. Imagine trying to read that way! Only through practice can one gain the fluency needed to read, understand and digest without having to go through the mental step of translating.
On the other hand, it appears that, while the constructivist technique may enhance and perhaps powerfully reinforce basic skills, those skills must be fundamentally in place before advanced techniques are possible.
The pressure to use the constructivist approach seems to have arisen from the valid thought that what is important is not computers per se, but how they are used. From that thought came the idea that the ways of teaching must change. Since "constructivism" was perceived to be a change, popular among educators, and thought to be the new idea of the times, thinking segued down the path to that paradigm. As is outlined below, there is no assurance that this (or any other idea) is the one right path. One author noted that:
"Evidence has consistently shown that drill and practice computer activities can help children develop basic skills... But the picture is murkier for more sophisticated uses of technology in the classroom, especially for the host of applications and methods that support "constructivist" learning, in which students are encouraged to work in rich environments of information and experience, and build their own understandings about them."(34)
The March 1997 Report to the President on the use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States notes that
"the proposition that constructivist techniques, as currently understood, will in fact result in more favorable (in some sense) educational outcomes must still be regarded as largely (though not entirely) a collection of exciting and promising hypotheses that have yet to be rigorously confirmed through extensive, long term, large scale, carefully controlled experimentation involving representative student populations within actual schools."(35) "It is well to remember ...that the history of educational research and practice is replete with examples of compelling...hypotheses that seem to arise "naturally" from well founded theory, but which are ultimately refuted by either rigorous empirical testing or manifest practical failure. Knowledge of the nature of learning and thought is closely related to, but nonetheless distinct from, knowledge of the best ways to cause such learning to take place."(36)
Whole language may be a specific example.
The RAND report adds further:
"individual teachers normally design the projects and must ensure that these projects produce the skills that students need to acquire. Such projects are found in virtually all subject areas, including science, math, history and social studies, and language arts--often in interdisciplinary activities.
While we are strong supporters of project-based learning, we believe that too extensive a reliance on such pedagogy may pose a significant risk for the current school reform movement. Much of the current development of such projects takes place in exceptional schools at the leading edge of school reform. The teachers involved are often among the most qualified in their schools and school systems. When expanded to many more schools, particularly to those with teachers less motivated or less well-prepared, the educational benefits of this pedagogy may prove disappointing to policymakers and parents alike."(37)
From a planning perspective, there are three significant concerns about using the constructivist technique with computers:
~It imposes an additional burden on the teachers at a time when they may not have moved sufficiently up the learning curve.
~supporting software may not be available, and
~assessment tools may not be in place.
The supporting software issue is of particular concern, since it is vital. In many cases software specific to the lesson and task might be required, and as outlined in another section of this report (Page 42), there is a dearth of good curriculum specific software. Goldman, Cole and Syer note the difficulties of using well-tested software in an actual classroom environment, pointing out that students had fun but did not connect with the underlying content. The software had to be revised. (38)In addition, several authors refer to weaker assessment tools for such activities, so the all-important feedback loop may be missing.
There is no argument here for abandonment of the "constructivist" approach,
particularly with regard to use of computers for applications and simulations.
Rather it is simply one of setting priorities, using this approach on an
occasional basis when general curriculum requirements, materials, time
and other resources permit. Try it, just "don't bet the farm". There is
a place for both drill and practice and constructivist approaches provided
that there is adequate planning, training, curriculum and software support.
"Public Support for the substantial continuing investment the new tools require is unlikely to endure unless we can demonstrate that there are clear benefits."(39)
The overall question of effectiveness in the public mind may boil down to the impact on standardized test scores. For several reasons it may be difficult, as noted at the beginning of this section, to isolate the impact of computers from other concurrent factors which also have an impact. In any event, positive results for the District as a whole cannot reasonably be expected for perhaps five to ten years because of the scale of what is being attempted, the length of time it will take teachers to adapt to computers, and other factors.
It is apparent that the West Virginia program had an impact on test scores because the program focused on basic skills. An implementation that does not focus on such skills may not have a clearly discernable effect. Some of the more advanced skills that educators want to enhance with classroom computers, such as analysis, do not show up as clearly and directly in standardized tests as we would wish.
While discussion of assessment tools is outside the scope of this report, this component is critical to success of classroom computing. Not only is it important for communicating with the public, but also it is the feedback loop by which internal corrections can be made to a program as it proceeds. One of the challenges with the constructivist approach is that the assessment tools may be wanting. More development work is needed in this field.
Reading scores are of particular interest to me; it is difficult to
see how one could use a computer without being able to read well. I have
argued for several years that our reading test scores are too low, basing
that argument in part on the fact that our scores dropped precipitously
in the early 1990's and have not recovered since that time.(40)
In the author's view, reading needs significant improvement (and this is being addressed by the District) regardless of whether or not we have a major implementation of classroom computing. If computers help or enhance the result, so be it. The same may be said for other academic areas. We should not get tangled into isolating whether results are caused by computers or because of more effective instruction enabled by computers. We need to improve our academic results; computers are a tool. Let's leave it at that.
COMMUNICATING WITH THE PUBLIC - A STORY OF HYPE AND UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
Hype should not merit an extended discussion; normally it should require only a few paragraphs at most. Unfortunately for the effort to bring computing power into the schools, we are saddled with a company of "true believers" whose hype has been unfettered by the realities of technology, particularly as it can be applied in practice. The hype over classroom computing is so blatant, and in some cases so patently false and misleading, that it has created its own set of problems for our schools. Myths about computing have attained a degree of public currency, often appear in political discourse, and have found their way into many school district "technology" plans. If educators are to effectively plan for and implement classroom computing, the myths need to be understood and refuted wherever possible. Otherwise they risk being held accountable for that which cannot be delivered.
It would seem that no one will survive in the 21st century unless they are computer literate. Consider the following from a "Technology" plan:
"Recognizing that the world is rapidly becoming a global village...[it is necessary] to connect all learners to the world."(41)
Just what is a global village? And what does it mean to be wired to the world? We do not even have a common language.
Hype has become a challenge to planners because:
~It is easily refutable and plays into the hands of those who oppose classroom computing.
~It creates unrealistic expectations in the public mind, which if not met, will destroy credibility to any implementation program. The public will ultimately demand an accounting for the large sums invested in computing; it would be very unfortunate if educators were to be measured against the promises implicit in the nonsense now current.
~It destroys program focus by aiming in too many directions.
~It reinforces a dangerous urge to hurry.
~To the extent that myths and hype appear in plans, they create the public impression that the planners do not understand their subject.
Apparently some people believe that all we need to do is put a bunch of computers in the schools and everything else good will just happen. Here is an example from a newspaper column in the debate over our own 1996 bond issue:
"Sometimes you don't need a detailed map, just a "tall mast and a star to steer her by"...if you must have a plan, here's ours: get more computers into our classrooms and into the hands of children, now. And then stand back and watch them take off, just as surely as that giant Apollo spacecraft took off and landed men on the moon."(42)
We sent men to the moon without a plan? In contrast the Report to the President says:
"The introduction of technology will not in itself improve the quality of American Education."(43)
And another author said:
"Many of the horror stories concerning...computers still in their boxes reflect the unfortunate situation where technologies were purchased for their own sake rather than as a means to an instructional goal."(44)
Based on comments made to me while I was making presentations opposing the bond issue, I am certain that the local hype turned off some of the voters because it was so obviously not credible.
Most of the hype has centered around the Internet. It is a very useful tool which belongs in our schools. However it is far from being some of the things suggested in the discussion of classroom computing. There is a vast difference between a useful tool and being the express lane to an educational miracle.
Let's look at what has been said.
ACCESS TO MUSEUMS, LIBRARIES AND PRACTICING SCIENTISTS
The hype:
A quote from Linda Roberts of the U.S. Department of Education:
"today's telecommunications technologies give these students the passport, the same access to high quality learning tools that are not normally available in their communities. Whether we are talking about scientists online or we're talking about museum materials and resources...it is the connection to a very rich array of resources that is of particular value..."(45)
Sounds wonderful, doesn't it. All of a sudden every child is going to have access to a treasure chest of information, without which his education will be lacking.
Even the Wall Street Journal appears to have fallen victim to technohype. It said recently that:
"The Internet has brought documents and images within the reach of people who might never have had access to the collections of major libraries."(46)
And another example:
"They can experience multi-site instruction through videotapes and satellite transmissions. They can have vast amounts of information and huge libraries at their fingertips." (47)
To the contrary:
The implication of this chatter is that the Internet will bring meaningful resources to communities that were not otherwise available; in fact a "virtual" museum is light years away from bringing the benefits of a real visit.
"They've put out myths such as, 'The great thing about the World Wide Web is it contains all the information stored in the world's great libraries.' But all that's available are catalogs, not to mention problems with copyrights."(48)
Even the President's report warns that
" it seems clear that the realization of [the Internet's] full potential for providing...students and teachers with access to text, images and audio material now held by libraries, museums and other institutions will await the digitization of a much larger fraction of the wealth of information now available in other forms. "(49)
And who will pay for all of this? The fact is that the availability of library materials is constrained by copyrights and the cost of digitizing public domain materials; in most cases there is little more on library websites than card catalogs. If you want to borrow a book, it must be arranged by an interlibrary loan, just as has been the case for many years.
The Library of Congress says on one of its web pages that "only a small portion" of its vast collection is on-line. The probability of finding what a particular student may need is clearly small.
Conversations with scientists? Are there really enough scientists who have the spare time to interface via the web with thousands of students? Perhaps on a rare basis, but not often and not widespread.
How about a "virtual" visit to a museums? Sounds great doesn't it? Yes, you CAN access many great museums, but when you get there, you do not often find significant content. I took a look at the British Museum's website. There is a lot of information about the museum, such as the times it is open and schedules of upcoming exhibits, but not much content. There is some brief commentary about some of the major collections and a few sample pictures, but not much more. The Smithsonian was not much different.
The Carnegie Museum of Natural History website contained nine online exhibits, which were essentially short illustrated picture stories.. This website also contained the ongoing field notes and illustrations from a group trip to Wyoming for a fossil search; while it is an interesting description of the process of searching for fossils, it was not much more than could be obtained from a copy of National Geographic. It is difficult to argue that the immediacy adds any real value.
For any given lesson plan which a teacher might wish to do, there is a low probability of finding a fit between the requirements of that plan and the available materials at museum web sites. (50)Furthermore, any lesson plan or strand that builds in websites for reference carries with it the risk that when the teacher actually goes to use it, the site may be gone or changed. Sites are random, exist at the whim of the owner; and can appear or disappear overnight. It will be a challenge to integrate this material into the curriculum, except to turn students loose with instructions "see what you can find out about..."
There are perhaps a few exceptions: the Vatican website has many photos of its artwork collection on-line. The Williamsburg (VA) site seemed good on brief review. But net speed slows the looking process. The virtual tour or online "visit" is nothing more than an electronic picture book with some words, but far less than can be obtained by leafing through a good library book. And yet... if that book is not available...
The hype:
References to the information highway create the impression that the Internet is the express lane to knowledge and learning. This phrase may have manufactured a baseless fear of being left behind on the part of parents who cannot afford home computers for their children.
To the contrary:
The truth is that the information highway is a dirt road. It cannot get you to every destination and it is often a bumpy ride.
"Even advocates of using the Internet in the classroom agree that the enormous network, which President Clinton called in his second inaugural address 'a commonplace encyclopedia for millions of schoolchildren,' is actually an unwieldy, uneven, and often unreliable information source."(51)
"With some exceptions.. . the Internet offers information that is popular, trendy, fashionable, and cool. Search for something as central to our national experience as Thanksgiving and you are unlikely to find much more than recipes and tourist attractions."(52)
One of the weak points of the web is the search tools. A search counting the number of "hits" on famous names using the "HotBot" engine found that:
"While God came in first, Bill Gates outscored Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Buddha, and Socrates. Elvis Presley beat Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Nelson Mandela. The amount of attention devoted to a particular individual seems more a function of their celebrity than their importance to society, their contributions to knowledge, or their good works. The coverage of an idea, a topic, or an issue seems to be shaped more by fashion and fad than significance."(53)
For a busy teacher, trying to find material to fit a given lesson plan could consume a significant amount of time. Despite assurances from the online community that these will improve, there is nothing yet available that is as efficient as the old fashioned indexing of dictionaries and encyclopedias.
What is available on the web? Tons of commercial brochures and public
relations material, advocacy group papers and the like comprise much of
the Internet fabric. The valuable materials seem to come from governmental
agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, cabinet departments,
state governments, some universities, foundations and the like. Local governmental
material seems to border on the promotional. There is good material out
there, but its academic value is, in many cases, limited. Yes there is
some "stuff" to see on the web, but it is neither vast nor deep. A miracle
has not happened..
Possibly the biggest exaggeration of all is the so called "information explosion". It is nothing new; business has been talking about it for many years. One person noted many years ago that what business needed was better filters.
Consider the following:
True information content is not created by computers, but by people. What computers have enabled us to do is perhaps access that information more readily (provided we can find the right website) and manipulate it more easily.
More information does not necessarily mean a better decision. In recent research on the health care industry, I noted that of 16 companies on a Standard and Poor's list of companies in that field, eight had lost money last year. The company under analysis was barely profitable. A more comprehensive list of thirty companies showed that 2/3 of that group had lost money. Both samples really say the same thing - the analyzed company was marginally profitable compared to the group as a whole and the industry was having obvious difficulties. To reach further on the basis of the broader sample and state that the company in question had performed in the top third would be tenuous, because each company has differences (eg. region, number of facilities, market segment, unrelated business components, etc.) which make comparisons imperfect. It is rare that perfectly comparable data sets can be obtained. In fact, the data sampling techniques used in business quality control are a means of decision-making with less rather than more information.
~The human mind can only digest a constrained information set at any one time.
~Life as a whole consists of decision-making from imperfect information. At some point we have to stop analyzing and move on. We cannot sift forever.
~Flooding students with information may be inappropriate academic strategy. Teaching more appropriately selects and feeds students digestible sets of information which they can work with in order to understand underlying principles and methods. Floods are overwhelming, and the signal can get lost in the noise.
Yes there is a ton of information out there, only some of which can be used by an individual. But how much does a person need? Our public library is full of information, carefully culled and accumulated by competent staff. How many people go there to mine the treasure? And yet we survive and thrive. The same is true of the world and the Internet; the "library" is growing and filling with information, almost all of which we can get along without or will be able to obtain from other sources.
Hype is clearly sourced from those who want to sell the idea of school computers. The obvious reason for hype is that there is a lot of noise in the public arena, the cost is high, and those with an issue to push feel the need to speak loudly and dramatically in order to get attention. The problem with computers is that the subject is quite complicated and does not lend itself to such puffery.
Given the numerous challenges that are faced in bringing computers into the classroom in an educationally beneficial manner, plus the fact that there are so many unknowns, the degree of "hurry up" pressure exerted by political leaders and certain members of the public is simply wrong. The White House wants all classrooms to be wired to the web by the year 2000. It is particularly inexcusable that the Vice President continues to articulate and press these goals of this nature, given the numerous red flags, learning curves, problems with software availability and other concerns discussed in the Report to the President (54). It is equally surprising that the report itself endorsed the same goals; it seems that politics got the better of judgement.
Our District can do little to control the flood of what others say. Unfortunately it is faced with a very real risk of being held accountable for the vague promises implicit in the hype. The District will need to take care in its planning and public relations to be circumspect in its imagery. It should proceed with caution and due diligence, rather than rushing headlong to an unknown destination. Our local press could be similarly helpful. The District should:
Set reasonable expectations for results and the timetable for their accomplishment,
It should address and discuss costs and the degree of effort required as discussed later in this report.
When example classrooms are publicized, care should be taken to discuss the extent to which they are or are not typical, and the degree of difficulty in replicating what technology-skilled teachers can do into other classrooms where other teachers have no such skill set.
Otherwise, hype will ultimately be costly; when the day of reckoning comes it will be ugly. Public education is already under fierce pressure, and it makes no sense for proponents of computers to indulge in hype in the attempt to pry money away from the taxpayers.
School technology is a "work in progress" across the entire nation. There appear to be very few good implementations. According to RAND:
"While these few examples of schools providing technology-rich learning environments are, in our view, encouraging, they are scant... Means and Olson note...that the difficulty...experienced in finding schools with large numbers of classrooms incorporating technology-supported constructivist teaching and learning approaches is in itself a significant finding. The scarcity of these classrooms testifies to the magnitude of the change we are looking for and the challenges-- individual, organizational, and logistical--to making it happen."(55)
School News Online reported that the Clinton administration is " calling for long term studies to research the impact of technology on today's learners" to find out what works and what doesn't. " Much of the evidence of success...is anecdotal, not empirical." (56)
Likewise there seem to be very few examples of good plans. When the 1996 Bond Issue was floated, I looked at a number of "Technology" Plans from other school districts that had been posted on the web. Most were full of vacuous nonsense and soft goals about "lifelong learners".
The general pattern of district plans was to talk about:
~how technology is changing and increasing its role in our lives at a very rapid pace.
~how students need to be able to use technology to function in the 21st century.
~how students must be connected to the "information highway" or risk living without the tools necessary to thrive and learn, and therefore
~how technology should be used in all areas of school curriculum to teach our students.
~meaningless references to the "global village", "lifelong learners", "technology rich environments", and other similar cliches.
~infrastructure, its contents and timetable for installation; these sections generally seemed to be adequate but overemphasized, and
~the implied need to hurry.
Plans did a poor job of explaining how computers will actually be used. One got the impression that districts planed to figure this out as they proceeded,.
As of this report, there seem to be fewer plans posted on the web, and the general quality seems, in some instances to be somewhat improved. The nonsense about global villages and lifelong learners continues, but some of the plans do attempt to set goals, contain interesting ideas, and deal with such open issues as how to "integrate technology into the curriculum". Few, however, seem to address all the pieces.
One plan, touted as "exemplary" by the California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP) contains no academic goals and confines itself to infrastructure and support issues. It says:
"The explosion of information and the ability to communicate instantly with any place on the globe has changed perceptions."(57)
As if telegraph, radio and telephone accomplished nothing! The Internet uses telephone lines, and its response is hardly instantaneous even after initial connection is established with a desired website.
The same plan continues:
"The information explosion has rendered technology mandatory...Teachers can no longer teach students all they need to learn."(58)
And after those dire warnings, we get a plan to buy boxes with not a clue as to how they are going to be used!
Another plan states that:(59)
"Students' growth in technological literacy will parallel their growth in communication skills ensuring school and career success, and promoting lifelong learning...The integration of instructional technology throughout the curriculum will provide multiple opportunities for all learners to be in control of their own learning, creativity and discovery."
If these are goals, how will anyone know when they have been accomplished? Later the plan announces that
"The district curriculum committees need to investigate and disseminate the information necessary to provide teachers with new methodologies in order to successfullly integrate technology into the curriculum."(60)
And for staff support:
"The district administration needs to investigate how best to meet the need for curriculum support in technology at all grade levels."(61)
Clearly these are not plans; when the above planning agenda is done and codified, then the beginnings of a plan are in place.
Some plans list no goals at all, or at least not explicitly so. Our ASD plan contains the overall district goals, but no specific, high level goals for classroom computing per se.
What defines a good plan? Like a cookbook recipe, plans must be written so that they provide a clear guide for execution. One author suggests that:
"The school must identify measurable goals for the use of computers, determine what will be learned, provide training and time for teachers to understand how best to reach these established goals, and then provide the support to carry out the plan...If the goals - verifiable, demonstrative (sic) goals - with measurable indicators of achievement, [are clear] then it can be determined how the computers make a difference and make appropriate changes as the program is monitored."(62)
~It is challenging, yet attainable,
~There is a clear cut way to determine when and if the goal can be met, and/or
~There is a way to measure progress toward the goal.(63)
Evidently West Virginia did just that. Their goals, as listed on the state website(64) are most explicit:
Improve Reading Skills
Improve Writing Skills
Improve Mathematics Skills
Improve Computer Literacy Skills
Provide Teacher Training
Build a Model Program
Teachers and Technology says bluntly that::
"A well defined instructional vision should precede the technological one; teacher involvement in defining this vision is essential."(65)
An "in-between example" is the Claremont, CA Unified School District goal set. What is interesting about this plan is that each goal is subdivided into components and developed to include specific student activities at each grade level. For example, the second goal in this plan states:
"All students will have access to technology to support academic objectives as defined by School Board approved district curriculum goals." (66)
One specific component of the goal is:
"Expand basic skills".
Sample teaching activities include:
"Use a variety of programs to reinforce basic skills such as math and reading readiness (K-3)
and
"Skills in math strands of geometry and logic can be applied using The Math Factory in which the students are shopkeepers employing various math techniques to keep their shops operating.(4-6)"(67)
Plans almost invariably confuse access to and manipulation of information with knowledge and learning. Even the highly praised Bellingham (WA) plan says:
"It is essential for all learners, including educators, to process and manage information through the skillful use of technology."(68)
No it is NOT essential; it makes no sense to process information unless it is used for some purpose - analyzed, synthesized, compared, understood, and/or applied to some useful task. From those processes, we learn.
Fortunately, Bellingham does not stop there. Elsewhere in the document, goals are translated into specific steps. After a number of grade-specific goals talking about using technology to "access and retrieve information", they say that "Students will use information to support learning in all content areas". Even so, this plan talks far too much about learning how to use the boxes, and too little about what academic results are to be achieved. (69)
Just about every plan, paper and article talks about the importance of curriculum integration, but it is a struggle to get a clear definition, much less a clear idea of what steps should be taken to achieve the optimal level.
Teachers and Technology says:
"Teachers still struggle with curriculum integration, which is central if technology is to become a truly effective educational resource."
Yet I have been unable to find any plan or paper that paints a clear picture of curriculum integration and/or tells how to know when an adequate level of integration is reached.
One plan states quite bluntly that
"there are no models of curriculum integration. There are no best practices"(70)
Another addressed the integration issue by including the following goal:
"Develop a comprehensive plan to integrate technology into the curriculum."(71)
Another plan refers to an earlier goal:
"to provide the resources necessary to begin the development of a comprehensive instructional plan for the integration of technology resources into all disciplines."(72)
As of the current plan, the status of that integration activity is that it is:
"Begun and still in progress. We have put together a scope and sequence based on our instructional experiences and have developed some related curriculum (sic)."(73)
Even Computers and Classrooms is of little help:
"the process involves the development of a classroom level Technology Integration Plan (TIP) whereby the teacher individually or as a part of a team develops a detailed plan for the integration and use of technology within the context of classroom curriculum and instruction... "In general, the TIP process identifies needs and desired outcomes for students and teachers and describes a plan that supports district and local school improvement priorities. The TIP also identifies materials and staff development resources needed and an evaluation plan to determine ongoing changes needed to adjust the plan. The completed TIP provides a carefully developed set of individual staff development needs for teachers.... The TIP can be viewed as a separate mini-project."(74)
In other words, this most important component has not been addressed yet.
To a certain degree, elaboration and development of some components of a classroom computing plan can be left open as a part of the process. However, key components should not be developed on the fly. Those that cannot be postponed are those that drive other components. The curriculum integration issue seems to be one of those core components. The work of curriculum integration should be complete before those classrooms get computers, at least to the point that both guidelines have been developed and the individual teachers have completed their classroom computing plans.
"Technology" plans seem to leave the problem of fleshing out the concept and execution of curriculum integration to teachers, who as a group are ill-prepared to do so (see the Staff Development section of this report on page 51 ). Teachers and Technology says:
"Finding and integrating software...can be difficult without a fairly comprehensive knowledge of available software."
This statement implies that, not only is basic computer training required, but also a high fluency level of computer literacy. Teachers have to be a long way up the learning curve before they can effectively cope with the curriculum integration issue.
Perhaps the concept of curriculum integration is much too broad. One must admit that there is a possibility of overreaction to an ill-defined but cool-sounding concept articulated years ago by an unknown party. Simple measurement of student time spent on computers may effectively be a valid measurement of the degree of curriculum integration, particularly if we can categorize that time in some manner.
I visualize curriculum integration as possibly being quite simple:
Computer resources are used at every opportunity and in every lesson unit where there is a logical fit and where they can provide meaningful enhancement.
Computer tools used will include demonstrations, simulations, drill and practice, writing, organization, analysis and general preparation of written reports, presentations, research with web or CD ROM resources and similar projects wherever practical and wherever software support exists.
All course outlines will specify instances where computer resources can and should be used together with listings of available supporting software and sample lesson plans.
Our District should consider developing an instructional design model to guide teachers so that every lesson and unit has the same components, if the current AppleWebsite Learning Quests are not sufficient. Some of the components are assessment/evaluation, benchmarks and standards as well as technology integration strategies. This model can serve as a guide to teachers as they prepare their own classroom computing plan. As standards are written by teachers, post them on the District website.(75)
After reading through various plans, and in some cases synopses provided by advocacy groups, it is evident that the educational community is still grappling with the fundamental questions of what to accomplish with computer technology and how best to do it.
Clearly we are on our own, and since there seem to be few good models, criticism of our Anchorage School District (and others) needs to be muffled. It appears that the entire educational industry is feeling its way through the task of implementing computers.
If there are good model districts out there, we need to be making some field trips to assess them. A trip to West Virginia certainly seems in order. Given that the cost of classroom computing is in the tens of millions annually, such on-site examination seems to be only the most basic of due diligence.
Specific recommendations for content and organization of our ASD plan begin on page 87.
There appears to be a substantive lack of quality educational software, particularly that which could potentially support constructivist techniques. Office productivity software such as spreadsheets and data bases are the chief exception.
The President's report discussed this problem at some length:
"There is widespread agreement that one of the principal factors now limiting the extensive and effective use of technology within American schools is the relative dearth of high quality computer software... the commercial availability of software and information resources designed to support student-centered, constructivist approaches to education is even more limited, and there is little evidence to date of large-scale, well-funded efforts by either traditional educational software vendors, multimedia developers, or textbook publishers to develop such content." (76)
A number of reasons are given for lack of specific software, including a lack of modern equipment in schools, and the fact that the market is very fragmented.
Not only does software have to match the curriculum, but it has to match the knowledge and experience of the student group. It is more than just curriculum specific, it is likely to be unit and lesson plan specific. Clearly basic skills must be in place first. Consider as an example of curriculum specific software:
"The immensely popular Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? and related programs in the series require students to track a fugitive by looking for clues and gathering information not only from the software but from outside reference sources, to make predictions, and to confirm hypotheses. In addition to teaching geography, by requiring students to explore, experiment, evaluate, and revise, these self-contained worlds facilitate student collaboration in the higher-order thinking skills of deduction, inference, synthesis, and evaluation."(77)
But the same author refers to
" the abysmal failure of the Carmen Sandiego program with a class of inner-city students who were not fluent in English and knew little about geography, American culture, or how to use reference materials. Lacking the needed background, they could not engage in the kind of problem solving the game was designed to evoke. Only when the teacher developed an instructional program around the software, having students work in small groups rather than individually and [taught the] skills and knowledge needed to play the game, were students able to profit from it."(78)
If software is not well-matched to the lesson and to the audience, it will not be effective. The teacher's task of selecting software is multi-dimensional. If the project is multidisciplinary, the matching challenge becomes even more complex.
It is apparent that a vast number of specific software needs (and opportunities) must exist. Not all of them can be met by general productivity programs, given the sheer number of teachers and the multitude of various units which they might or might not teach in order to meet their academic goals. To get a feel for the extent of the software needed if computers are to be fully integrated across all areas of the curriculum, consider the following thought problem:
Assume that in every grade there are five teaching opportunities per week where some demonstration, simulation or other specific computer task might be applied. Assuming 40 school weeks per year, this means as a guess that there might be 2600 potentially unique software needs in a given year.
In contrast:
The Claremont Unified School District plan lists seven general productivity software packages it will support, plus 87 titles of more specific content. They have not scratched the surface.
"We repeatedly heard that despite the voluminous listings of educational software titles, there was a shortage of software that teachers and others viewed as needed in schools. (79)
According to Computers and Classrooms(80), the California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse (CITC) was the only source of information and analysis of courseware based on educational standards. CITC has evaluated most commercially developed courseware. Of software evaluated in 1995 for Math, Science, English/Language Arts or History/Social Studies, 637 titles were accepted, but only 121 were rated as exemplary. CITC rejected about 58% of titles submitted. When the software not meeting the first "cut" is considered, it appears that only a small part of the available software is truly valuable. The report notes that more software is needed.
This situation is not likely to change, at least in the near future. Lack of software places severe constraints on the general goal of broad curriculum integration and limits the extent to which constructivism and other "advanced" educational techniques can be applied.
The lack of available software also means that we can afford to take our time in any implementation; again, there is no need to hurry.
THE NATURE OF THE COMPUTING INDUSTRY AND MARKET PLACE
The computing industry is characterized by:
~A torrid pace of technological change
~Software that is unstable and arguably shoddy.
~Both of these factors create problems for classroom computing and add to its cost.
The pace of hardware change is not news to anyone.
What may seem surprising to some is that the effective speed
of accomplishing many tasks has really not changed much at all. In part
this is because developers seem to work at the edge of the envelope as
far as cost/ benefit and consumer tolerance will accept. Rather than spending
labor time to optimize software performance in terms of speed and capacity
requirements, it is cheaper to just to solve such challenges by taking
advantage of hardware speed and capacity improvements. As a result, new
software eats up memory, disk space and processor speed. Software seems
to be designed right at the edge of customer tolerance for error and delays.
Twenty years ago I was involved in a project to connect a local bank's VISA processing department to a computer system in Columbus, GA, which would provide record keeping services and on-line information. Modems and computers moved at a snail's pace then; the telephone line hookup ran every way but by dogsled. There was no fiber cable at that time. Yet the system response time was not noticeably different than the speed of Internet downloads today. It took less than a minute to download a screen. Crashes and cutoffs were rare.
Over the years, processor and network speeds have increased many fold, but the increase has been consumed by rising traffic volume and because people stuff more and bigger files across the wire.
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE STABILITY
If there was ever an impediment to classroom use, unstable, shoddy and confusing software is it.
"Without...an assurance that each machine is up and running every day for every class minute, then schools might as well buy softballs. (81)
The Alice in Wonderland world of software is characterized by
~Bugs,
~A continuing diet of upgrades,
~Semantics changes,
~Menu scramble,
~Network crashes (perhaps not always a software problem).
~Internet logjams or slow responses.
Two horror stories from my own experience as I was writing this paper:
My wife wanted to scan about two dozen pictures and embed them in a letter to our families (much as students will do with illustrated reports prepared with scanning and word processing software). We had no trouble with embedding them all, but upon paging through the completed document and adding comments with the word processor, we found that some pictures began to move around. When we attempted to "drag" them back with the mouse (normally not a problem), other pictures would disappear, nowhere to be found in the document. Fortunately we had saved a backup. The second time around we tried to use cut and paste, rather than dragging. But when we selected a picture and clicked on "cut", the selected picture would remain while the picture above disappeared. Only by splitting the document into two sections were we able to overcome the problem. Professionals in the industry have told me that they, too, have had problems making embedded objects "stay put".
My word processing software, for some unknown reason, will reformat a document to some degree when it is printed. Page breaks will change, phrases and footnotes will move a bit, etc. The view on the screen will change as well. Efforts to "put it back" are frustrated as the machine undoes the fix.
Lotus (DOS) never crashed. Windows, and the software that runs on it, crashes so often that there are safety routines as a workaround. I encounter daily crashes with Windows 95, and more frequent crashes with 98. (82)
Plans often refer to physical access to computing facilities as a requirement for all students, speaking in demographic and economic terms. But there is an equally critical component of access - the computers must be functional. Teachers and Technology says:
"Access also requires keeping hardware and software in up-to-date working order."(83)
Computer and software failures will cause busy teachers and impatient youngsters to lose interest. What is a teacher to do when students encounter these problems?
"If a teacher has planned a science curriculum using technology and the system crashes, she doesn't have time to figure out what's wrong--particularly when she has 30 kids bouncing off the wall. The system only needs to crash a few times before the teacher isn't willing to spend any more time on it."(84)
But technology is moving so fast that bugs are being finessed. It is difficult to imagine the customers of any other industry tolerating the degree of problems that we all cope with in software. Would you have a car whose engine locked up at some random point every day or so? On the freeway? Not likely.
Technology problems do get acknowledged, but often are minimized. On June 21st, 1999 the Wall Street Journal reported that better search engines were on the way and described two approaches that were in the research phase. "They are working on it, the fix is coming." This line is so common in the computer industry that users have coined a term for it - "vaporware". The problems persist.
As one author noted, this is an industry that is far more focused on the next upgrade release than on fixing the bugs (85)The reason is quite simple: upgrades are where the money is made. The upgrade treadmill has continued for some time. A continuous diet of new (and quite possibly useless or unnecessary) features absorbs capacity to such an extent that the new term "bloatware" was coined to describe the problem. A few useful features get added. Some bugs get fixed, but even more take their place. If ever this industry needed to hear a message, it is "stop the new features, fix the bugs and give us stable software". Yet the industry seems to have the attitude that putting up with such nonsense is the price we pay for products at the cutting edge. We should be so grateful.
Unfortunately users cannot ignore upgrades for long. What really drives users to upgrades is the need to share files and interconnect with other users. Files created by upgrades usually cannot be read by older software versions. As others adopt new software releases or obtain them on new hardware, an environment is created whereby the rest of the world is gradually forced to upgrade to keep up. As a guess, this process is a bit slower than the rate of capacity change - perhaps every 36 months.
Upgrades come at a big cost to the user. The Gartner Group estimates that "over a five year period, [distributing and installing application updates] typically accounts for about 55% of a desktop system's total cost, whereas the initial purchase and support account for only 45%".(86)With each new upgrade comes a new learning curve for users to scale.(87) For example, some vendors play the "menu scramble" game. Features that were formerly located in one area on the menu tree get moved to another. Could you imagine trying to find your way around Anchorage if the Assembly suddenly interchanged some (but not all) of the street names? Suddenly you find that Spenard no longer crosses Minnesota, it crosses Tudor where Lake Otis used to be. Suppose you had to give directions to a newcomer? Welcome to your new software "upgrade".
Even the semantics change. Does anyone recall that folders used to be called directories? After everyone became adjusted to the older term, some bright soul decided the new one was less confusing, but those of us that were accustomed to the older term were left wondering if the change in name implied a functionality change that might haunt us in some way.
In March of 1999 the International Electrotechnical Commission decreed that, instead of kilobyte, megabyte, etc., the terminology will henceforth be kibibyte, mebibyte, etc because a kilobyte doesn't exactly contain 1000 bytes, it contains 1024.(88)
Who cares? A 2 x 4 doesn't measure 2 inches by 4, either, and we have yet to see the Federal Trade Commission get concerned. It wasn't too many years ago that we had to give up the intuitively obvious terms of cycle, kilocycle, megacycle etc. for hertz, kilohertz and megahertz because some similar group so decreed.
The problem with this manufactured nonsense is that it compounds the problem of ongoing staff support.
Whether or not this paradigm will change depends on the marketplace. The speed with which technology is changing and the speed with which the general community can absorb that change are two different things.
Do schools need to "ride this horse"? I think the West Virginia experience may have shown that it is possible to achieve significant results with older computer equipment; basic word processing has not changed for years. However the pace of technological change will force any district to keep up to a certain extent. As noted above, new software development tends to keep pace with hardware changes. After two or perhaps three hardware cycles, a district that does not keep its hardware up to date may find that its new software choices of any type are constrained by the old equipment. At the same time, support for the older hardware and software will have evaporated.(89) One viable solution is to make sure computer placement is governed by software needs; place the newest and most powerful machines in those places where pedagogical demands require sophisticated software. Feed the older machines down the "food chain" to support less demanding(but still effective) applications.
We are on a technological treadmill, and until that changes we must play in the game to some extent or sit in the stands. The best any district can do is to take care in their evaluation of software, limit software installations to pre approved software and monitor network performance on a proactive basis. These factors assure that training and staff support is needed not only at startup but continually.
Teachers as a group face a long and steep learning curve before they will be able to effectively and optimally incorporate computing technology in their classrooms. This steep curve is due to such factors as
~a general lack of computer experience,
~the difficulty of translating an understanding of basic computer useage into methods of using computers to teach,
~a need to have a broad understanding of available software tools in order to identify teaching opportunities and appropriate supporting software, and
~a requirement for a modest level of technical understanding if they are to perform basic troubleshooting.
Learning to use computers and software is different than learning to teach with the same tools. Everyone agrees that this challenge is critical; where we differ is on the level of support that is adequate. Adequate support is a major challenge, and in order to meet it teachers must have substantive and multi-dimensional help:
Two types of support are needed
Pedagogical support
Technical support.
At two different times:
Implementation support
Ongoing support
All of these components are crucial; what is disturbing is that plans (including the Anchorage School District Plan) place the most emphasis on implementation and basic skills training, while ongoing support gets less consideration. Neither one can be neglected, but the most extensive need is for ongoing support.
To understand the critical nature of staff support, consider the following quote from the RAND report, which notes:
" a long history of trying to reform education through the use of technologies
such as radio, motion pictures, and television." These reforms were generally
unsuccessful due to failure of "proper Implementation". In particular "teachers
were provided inadequate assistance in using the technology, and the technology
itself was often unreliable. As a consequence, the technology was not used
by teachers or became very marginal to the schools' instructional activities."(91)
THE LEARNING CURVE AND EXISTING TEACHER SKILL LEVELS
Teachers face a relatively steep learning curve as they progress toward the elusive goal of "full integration" of computers in the curriculum, and many have not begun the climb. The critical path to implementing computers in the classroom is not the speed of hardware and infrastructure acquisition and installation. It is the speed with which teachers move up that learning curve, get comfortable with computers and determine how best to use them. If teachers are not comfortable with computers and cannot see them as helpful, they will not use computers.
The in-depth understanding required to effectively teach with software is very different than just being able to use it. Some software lends itself to teaching models, others do not. Teachers need to be able to distinguish between the two. It is not always possible to turn students loose with a program and let them "run". Instead, the teacher might be nearby, directing the student to specific tasks in the program, asking provocative questions to tie into the course content, suggesting that students try various options, look for others, and assessing whether the students are understanding the content being taught.
An acquaintance who has been a computer consultant for 15 years noted that, of the people he had worked with, those with the lowest level of computer knowledge were doctors and teachers. (He excluded librarians). In no way did he mean that teachers were incapable. He simply meant that they were too immersed in the pressures of their jobs to fool with anything that did not solve their immediate needs, that consumed rather than freed up their time, that did not make them more productive. Librarians were the exception because computers are uniquely fitted to maintaining and accessing the databases of information that are at the core of library organization.
Teachers and Technology says much the same thing, with a bit less bite:
"Teachers, like others who use technology, fall along a bell curve in which there is a small percentage of innovators and visionaries eager to try new things, a larger number of those who follow the lead of others, and a small group who are skeptical of change."(92)
The innovative teachers that have successfully used computers in their classroom tend to be technically adept "superusers" to begin with, according to another source. They already know how to use the tool.
The three learning steps noted earlier in this report describe the learning curve that teachers face:
~First teachers must understand the concepts and the basics of how to use hardware and key softwere. Training addresses this step.
~Second, they must practice until they become fluent in the use of computers. Much of this step would be focused on fluency with core software such as word processing, Internet engines, and teacher productivity software.
~Once the previous two steps are complete, the teacher will have developed the understanding, feel and vision necessary to begin the classroom implementation process. At this point, much of the work involves developing a broader understanding of educational software in detail ( what is out there, how it works and what it can do), fitting choices into curriculum and tailoring the software options to individual student needs. Every choice has its own learning curve.
Another perspective on teacher skill levels is provided in a study by McKenzie and Company:(93)By their estimate only half the national teacher corps is ready to use technology at the most basic level, and only 25 percent at any significant level. Only 5 percent of teachers are estimated to be at the mastery level An estimated two years of practical experience is needed to reach the mastery level. It is difficult to believe that our Anchorage teachers are significantly different than the national experience.
| TECHNOLOGY SKILL STAGES FOR TEACHERS | |||
| Skill Stage | Description | Professional
development needed |
Percent of Current Teachers at this level |
| Entry | Teachers struggle to cope with technology and new learning environment, or have no experience at all. | ----- | 50% |
| Adoption | Teacher moves from initial struggle to successful use of technology at a basic level (e.g. can use drill and practice software) | 30 hours training | 25% |
| Adaptation | Teacher moves from basic use to discovery of potential in a variety of applications. Teacher has good operational knowledge of hardware and can perform basic troubleshooting. | 45 + hours training
3 months experience Just in time support |
20% |
| Appropriation | Teacher has mastery over the technology and can use it to accomplish a variety of instructional and classroom management goals. Teacher has strong knowledge of hardware, local area networks, and wide area networks. | 60 + hours training
2 years experience Just in time support |
5% |
| Invention | Teacher actively develops entirely new learning techniques that utilize technology as a flexible learning tool. | 80 + hours training
4 -5 years experience Just in time support |
0 |
| Source: Office of Technology Assessment: Teaching Matters as quoted by McKenzie & Company | |||
Just in time support refers to availability at a moment's notice; problems won't wait. This support level is further discussed on page 57. While I am uncomfortable with the technical competency needs implied in the table, this work shows not only the magnitude of the task ahead but also that the length of time necessary to reach proficiency is significant. There is no reason to suppose that the teachers in our district are any different than the national experience.
The President's Report says much the same thing:
" estimates formulated by various researchers suggest that it will take the typical teacher between three and six years to fully integrate information technologies into his or her teaching activities, and ongoing technological changes are likely to insure that the learning curve never levels off completely."(94)
Teachers and Technology hits this point several times:
"Learning to use the hardware and master software tools is not enough; learning how to teach with technology - harnessing tools for instructional ends - is a much more complex and lengthy task."(95)
"Technology tools take time to master. Hardware and software, no matter how "user friendly" are complicated and constantly changing. In any profession, time must be invested in learning how to use a particular piece of software to accomplish work related goals; furthermore keeping up with upgrades or new software requires ongoing investments of time."(96)
"Even experienced technology-using teachers can find themselves preoccupied with troubleshooting hardware and software problems, rather than assisting students in their learning activities."(97)
The basics are very easy to learn; many adults need no more than some hands-on, practice with a tutorial and time with an instruction book to do basic tasks. The real time consumer is development of fluency. You can learn to use a paintbrush in a hour; it takes years to learn how to paint a good picture. Teachers will have to spend significant time in this process, and that time will come at the cost of not doing some of the other tasks in the multitude that teachers are asked to do.
In spite of this steep learning curve, the support that teachers often get is different as Teachers and Technology suggests:
"There seems to be a focus on basic training in the mechanics of operating the machines, with little training about integrating technology into various subjects or learning to use it as a pedagogical tool." Teachers needed help "with two fundamental issues... what software was available to assist in accomplishing their educational objectives and how to organize the class to make efficient and effective use of students' time when there were a small number of computers in the classroom."(98)
And the RAND report:
"However, for... technology-enabled learning environments... many additional skills are required. In such environments, teachers would be expected to recurrently assess student progress, create learning opportunities appropriate to the student, access resources needed for projects, and relate diverse instructional activities to the school's educational goals. By the testimony of school reformers and the individuals who attended the RAND workshops, comparatively few teachers have been prepared to perform these functions. Successful implementation of technology-enabled schools depends upon the capability to help existing teachers, as well as new entrants to the profession, to develop the skills required to perform these functions effectively."(99)
Use of more complex teaching techniques such as the "constructivism" discussed earlier adds a dimension of complexity to the training and support equation: Another author says
"... constructivist methods themselves are new to many teachers. And when a teacher is struggling to do two things--learn to use the technology and learn to incorporate new practices into their repertoires--results don't appear quickly." (100)
WHAT SUPPORT LEVELS ARE APPROPRIATE?
Training at startup is not the same as ongoing staff support; both are critical. Neither one is a substitute for the other, and there appears to be very little indication that more of one means less of the other. Training as a guess might be 40 hours per teacher a year or more (at a cost of $11 million over five years) using the McKinsey numbers with an extra margin.
How do these factors translate into actual levels of required ongoing support? I estimate that approximately one on-site support person is needed for every 50 computers. The Learning Connection refers to a ratio of one person for every 60 computers in the business world, a ratio which is not meaningfully different.(101) In our District this support level would cost about $68 million(102) over five years, assuming 12,000 computers (including those for teachers); for the computers we have just bought, we should be committing about $14 million. (103) I view this site support staff as being roughly split between technical and pedagogical support assignments.
I have emphasized on site support as opposed to on call support or support which rotates from school to school. The support demand is just too great and constant to be satisfied in any other way.
Teachers and Technology says
"Teachers consistently report that having a person at the school site who can help them makes all the difference in the likelihood of their going forward with technology. The inevitable technical and logistical problems that arise with technology are one reason many teachers feel the need for on site assistance....Even experienced technology-using teachers can find themselves preoccupied with troubleshooting hardware and software problems, rather than assisting students in their learning activities."(104)
Offsite support is of less value:
"As do most individuals dealing with new technologies, teachers also need informal assistance - often with the kind of immediacy that does not lend itself to afterschool telephone calls."(105)
In an elementary school with (typically) 500 students and one computer for every 5 (as is our plan), the recommended support level translates into two FTE support positions. At least one of these persons would serve for tech support, while the other would provide pedagogical assistance. While it might be possible to reduce this to, say 1.5 positions by some means or another, I believe we are better off starting well-supported and backing off rather than risking disillusionment with inadequate resource commitment.
Anecdotal support for the suggested support level comes from my own recent experience. I am aware of two large networks where the staff support requirements approximate 1 FTE for every 50 computers. These people stay busy with such requests as:
" I saved that file but can't find it."
" It was printing yesterday, but today it won't."
"How do I copy this table from my spreadsheet to my report?"
"My computer keeps crashing when I click here."
"What does this error message mean? What am I doing wrong?"
Teachers and Technology says that in schools where there is a full time support person on-site, that person spends an average of 38 hours a week on computer coordination tasks, of which only about 10 percent is spent on teacher assistance. (106) According to Forbes magazine, the Gartner Group recommends one tech support person for every 100 computers. At one computer for every five students in a 500 student elementary school, this translates into one person per elementary school (107) (108) On-site technical support is clearly not a part time job, and other than the most basic needs, it seems unwise and inefficient for teachers to attempt diagnostics and fixes.
Pedagogical support is a separate job from technical support. I view the tech support person's job as being a nuts and bolts level of hardware and software support; making sure the school's network is functioning properly, dealing with the multitude of hardware problems that crop up, etc. In contrast, pedagogical site support involves working with teachers on techniques for using computers in the context of specific lesson plans, including identification of software or software capabilities that will support a particular lesson plan, identification of opportunities for use of computers, problem-solving assistance with the actual use of software, helping them write a classroom computing plan, helping manage those children who are not on the computer at those times when the teacher is occupied with the computers, and the like. (109)
Just as we need one tech support person for every 100 computers, we also need an equivalent number of on-site staff dedicated to pedagogical support. While this pedagogical support level may sound high, it translates into roughly two hours weekly of support time available for practicing teachers... hardly overkill. If a high level of support is not provided, then teachers are likely to obtain that support from their peers, diverting resources to the detriment of those students not the focus of attention. This will come at an academic cost that will offset any benefit from computer-aided instruction. The impact of using peer support versus independent onsite staffing for that function would be much the same as removing one teacher from every elementary school.
The RAND report elaborates:
"Both workshop participants and teachers in the NASDC schools strongly emphasized the limitations of traditional approaches to in-service activities that do not effectively meet the needs of teachers and school staff in a timely way when those needs arise. Some believe that technology, in the form of interactive media or a network of practitioner experts, can be effective in providing timely and relevant assistance. However, aside from the numerous on-line networks that enable practitioners to ask for and provide advice, we have found no extensive examples of such activities. While wide-band communications and multimedia materials may be able to provide timely support to teachers at some time in the future, perhaps more practical approaches involve development of the capabilities and ethos to allow teachers to support one another in a school."(110)
Our own district plan is particularly deficient in this regard; it proposes one site coordinator for every five schools - only 10% of what is needed.
It is evident that failure to provide adequate staff support will mean less time devoted to teaching, to the detriment of our students. Adequate support simply must be a component of our planning.
TEACHING COMPUTERS RATHER THAN USING COMPUTERS TO TEACH.
"Using Computers does not take from pre-K to 12th grade to learn. Automobiles also changed an era and schools now offer driving courses. But the classes last one semester and come in high school."(111)
We continually see comments about the need for our students to be "computer literate", as if such a skill is at the same level as reading. This unfortunate perception is a product of the hype over computer technology. While it is intuitively obvious that we want our children to be able to use computers, the reason for doing so is the benefit that they may provide. The goal is not to acquire skill at using a tool, the goal is to obtain the product of that tool. Our education system is in deep trouble if it is turning out graduates without the skills and motivation needed to sit down and learn to use a computer on their own.
Plans invariably deny that learning to use technology is a goal, yet they continue to encompass such thoughts as:
"Have students use paper keyboards to locate and learn commonly used keys including Home, Command key, page Up, Escape, Arrow keys, Control Key."
"Be aware of the basic underlying operations on the computer for example, CPU, Bit/byte, memory, storage, input/output, communications."(112)
The core competencies that kids need to use computers of the future are reading, logical thinking and ability to follow instructions. We need students who are undaunted by change and who can sit down with an instruction manual and do the job that needs to be done, even if those manuals remain challenging.
"If you put the Internet in the hands of somebody who can neither read, write, nor think ...., you aren't giving them much."(113)
The speed of technological change assures that the computers and software that our kids will use in the workplace ten and twenty years from now will be vastly different from those in use today.It follows from the above that learning how to use the current computer technology and its various appurtenances is not a core competency, because these skills will become rapidly obsolescent.
Core competencies are skills that are needed over a lifetime; skill in using today's computers will become rapidly obsolete.
Computers should be focused in those areas where it most enhances the learning of other core competencies.
Obviously teachers have to know how to use computers in order to teach with them, and our children need to know the same things. Although these skills do not belong in the master plan (at least not in any detail) there is no harm in including them in the framework for teacher certification at the most basic level and the rubric for assessing such achievement. If teachers need this list as a guide for what to teach their students, then they are in no way prepared to implement computing in their classroom.
Yes, our kids do have to be able to use computers, but that challenge is not difficult to solve. We have four potential and not mutually exclusive ways to accomplish this task:
~Use the computers themselves to teach computer skills. In many cases, computers and software come with built-in tutorials that show how to use them. Almost all software now comes with on-line help that is indexed and available with the <F1> key.
~Short classroom sessions conducted by staff.
~Subcontract with computer training consultants to teach students and teachers. This has the advantage of moving some of the burden of staying current in the field out of the District.
~Have the students sit down with the user manuals and learn what they need (subject to grade level considerations, of course). This has the advantage of mirroring what the working world often has to do.
None of these are difficult; they should not be overemphasized.
INSTRUCTIONAL MANAGEMENT AND TEACHER PRODUCTIVITY.
Classroom computing power offers an opportunity to improve the administrative productivity of teachers and our district as a whole. We need to get a trade-off for teacher time and effort. The effort to bring computers in the classroom will be frustrating, will take time and compromise the primary task of teaching. We continue to hear how other tasks have been laid on our teachers and have taken time away from direct teaching effort. If we are to accept this as a consequence of computers, then we must make an effort to provide some offsetting technological help to our teachers.
Teachers must want to use computers: they must believe that it will ultimately provide an educational benefit worthy of the time invested.
Teachers and Technology quotes one researcher as saying that:
"Data gathered indicate that we are in an awkward transition period in which the benefit of teaching and learning with technology does not necessarily outweigh the costs. While teachers are increasingly citing the benefits that students derive from computer use, they must weigh the costs in terms of their time and the difficulties of managing to find appropriate software and then get adequate computer access for their students."(114)
Unless every student has a computer, a teacher must supervise both those on-line and those working at other tasks. While it may be possible to plan for both activities, the need to monitor and guide two different groups can be challenging, especially with younger children having shorter attention spans.
The fact that we are in a transition underscores the need for continuting efforts to identify and implement ways to lighten the administrative workload on teachers. As an example, if students had bar coded or magnetic stripe ID cards, attendance could be taken by swiping the cards at the classroom door, electronically recorded, and passed by network to the administration.(115) All student and classroom recordkeeping should be on-line and networked. Progress reports could be e-mailed to parents, class assignments could be posted on the teacher web pages, and student workpapers electronically submitted.
The President's report(116) says:
A major obstacle to obtaining the benefits of computers in the classroom is the "lack of sufficient time in [teacher] schedules to become familiar with available hardware, software and content, to prepare technology related material for use in the classroom, software, and content."
"Information technology may ... help teachers to recover at least some of the time they have invested in deploying technology on behalf of their students. Some (though certainly not all) types of educational software, for example, may ultimately enable students to spend part of the school day learning with less continuous attention from the teacher. Computing and network technologies also have the potential to streamline many aspects of a teacher's daily responsibilities, facilitating the development of instructional materials, the recording and assessment of student progress, and access to various forms of informational resources."
"Most teachers find it extremely difficult to reshape their teaching on an ongoing basis around a rapid series of technological changes. While ...application packages designed to provide assistance with various administrative, record keeping, and student assessment tasks, for example, may free up a certain amount of time, this effect is unlikely to offset the additional time required to effectively utilize computers on an ongoing basis."(117)
This is not to say that an effort should not be made to accomplish such productivity goals; it simply says that the perfect trade-off is not in place.
An important consideration, beyond the scope of this report, is exploration of completely new ideas for changing the total way in which education is delivered, obviating much of the present infrastructure. Why could not course material be delivered over the Internet to students at home or elsewhere? Clearly colleges and universities are moving in this direction.
Given the large cost of classroom computing, I believe the public has
every right to expect some offsetting productivity benefits in addition
to educational benefits.
COST ISSUES MUST BE REALISTICALLY ADDRESSED.
The biggest challenge to effective implementation of classroom computing is that of cost. A realistic identification of the total resource commitment, including both startup and ongoing costs, is essential to convincing the public that the effort is justified and that proper planning considerations have been addressed.
The current plan for the Anchorage School District calls for one computer for every five students and a computer for each teacher. This translates into 12,000 workstations for our district and means that the average elementary school would have about 120 computers.
The components of cost are:
~Hardware
~Software and supplies
~User support
~Technical and administrative support
~User time.
The President's Report emphasized that hardware cost is only the beginning:
"The acquisition of computing and networking hardware, often the principal focus of efforts to bring technology into the schools, will in fact account for only a minority of expense incurred over time."
"In the absence of realistic budgeting, schools and school districts are prone to overspending on the initial acquisition of hardware, and may find themselves with inadequate funding for upgrading and replacement...maintenance, professional development...and the hiring and retention of necessary technical support personnel. If we do not wish to turn our schools into junkyards for expensive, but unused, computer equipment, a scenario that is, unfortunately, far from uncommon at present, it is important that budgetary constraints and wishful thinking not lead us to buy the educational equivalent of a fancy automobile without allocating funds for gasoline, repairs or a driver education class."(118)
A recent article in Forbes Magazine tells the story of how Century High School in Santa Anna had been heralded as one of the most technologically advanced schools in the nation. Within a year after startup, "Century found itself struggling to keep the equipment going". After about eight years, the technology is not working well; few of the computers or the network hold up. The principal said "there was a vision to create a high tech school. There was no vision to support the technology". Another school's network was so overburdened that students have not been able to access the Internet in the school lab and in many classrooms for several years. Breakdowns are frequent. At yet another school, a teacher noted that information from the web was "wonderful when you could get it to work" but she had to spend a lot of time on the phone to Apple's help desk to try to get the computers going. While some schools are using students to help keep the computers going, and while this may be of certain benefit to specific students, it can hardly be argued that this approach is of educational benefit in producing well-rounded citizens. (119)
The consequences of inadequate funding are failure of the computer implementation and loss of public confidence; there will not be a second chance.
What might be the total cost of computers in our schools be? With about 50,000 students in the Anchorage School District we would need about 12,000 units to reach District standard. Assuming that we could obtain optimal equipment for $1,500 per student unit (laptops cost a bit more), that would mean a cost of $18 million for just that part. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Network servers, routers, bridges, printers and other "boxes" are required and that is just the hardware.(120)
The Report to the President says:
"It has been estimated that the purchase price of a computer system represents only 20 to 25 per cent of the cost of its operation over the period of its useful life within a typical business; the largest part of the life cycle cost of such a system is actually represented by the cost of installation, training, systems administration, user support and hardware and software maintenance. While the panel was unable to find any systemic differences between the operating costs reported in industry and those experienced by the typical elementary or secondary school, it seems likely that the effective life cycle cost of operating a computer within a school environment is in fact an integer multiple of its original acquisition cost...Portions of this effective expense may in many schools be incurred in the form of staff time diverted from other, often unrelated functions...Of particular relevance to schools is the fact that the cost of maintaining a given computer system tends to increase over time."(121)
To put a range on the total, let's look at several different five year cost estimates.
Information on the McKinsey & Company study was contained in the Report to the President. They studied existing costs and extrapolated to derive an estimate of the nationwide cost of providing classroom computing at a ratio of one computer for every five students. I used their data to estimate per student costs and to project a five year cost for Anchorage.(122)
| Cost of Classroom
Computing
Based on McKinsey & Company Data |
|||
|
McKinsey Per Student Costs |
Total Cost
Anchorage 5 - Year Million $$ |
||
| Startup | Annual Operating Cost | ||
| Hardware | $545 | $45 | $38.5 |
| Software | $150 | $67 | $24.3 |
| Local Networking | $139 | $13 | $10.2 |
| Wide Area Networking | $43 | $22 | $7.7 |
| Professional Development | $150 | $130 | $40.0 |
| System Operations | $43 | $41 | $12.4 |
| Total | $1,070 | $318 | $133.0 |
| Assumes 50,000 students in the Anchorage School District | |||
Based on 50,000 students, the resulting cost estimate is $133 million
over a five year time period or $26 million per year.
The second study, cited in the Report to the President, is by the RAND Organization. (123)It looks at eight school level implementations which were "nominated by experts as examples of schools that were effectively using technology".
| Cost of Classroom
Computing
RAND Study |
||
| RAND Avg
Annual Cost Per Workstation |
Anchorage
5 year Cost Million $ |
|
| Hardware | $612 | $36.7 |
| Software | $109 | $6.5 |
| Infrastructure | $65 | $3.9 |
| Staff Development | $128 | $7.7 |
| Personnel | $416 | $25.0 |
| Materials | $54 | $3.2 |
| Total | $1,384 | $83.0 |
Since the schools had different student/computer ratios, I converted the RAND data into cost per workstation in order to make the schools comparable and to compute a meaningful average.(124)
RAND spread most one time costs (except for network infrastructure) over five years. The table presents the RAND costs on a per workstation basis and translates them into comparable levels for Anchorage. Translating the RAND numbers to Anchorage gives a total estimated five year cost of $83 million.
The President's report states that none of these projections "were prepared with an eye towards estimating the cost of deploying and using technology in a manner that would be optimal..."(125). Furthermore the RAND study, and probably the McKinsey data were based on existing implementations. If the Forbes article and the preceding comment are indicative, these estimates may be too low.
THE GARTNER GROUP COST ESTIMATES
A study by the Gartner Group of the five year cost of a networked computer work station gives an entirely different dimension than those studies cited by the Report to the President. This study focused on businesses, not schools. It arrives at a significantly higher number than any estimate from the educational community. Gartner estimated that the total cost of owning a networked computer was about $36,000 spread over 5 years.(126) About half of this cost was the value of time spent by the end-user.
The elements of end-user time cited by Gartner included time spent in the following tasks:
~File management, including copying, moving, printing, finding, etc. (14% of end-user time),
~Application development; this might be setting up a small task such as a small data base or macro driven spreadsheet to manage personal office functions. One rough educational parallel might be lesson planning using computers or setting up a data base to manage certain teacher records. (15% of end-user time)
~Formal learning such as short training classes. (12% of end-user time)
~Casual learning. This would mean using software tutorials and manuals to figure out how to use the product. For teachers, this would not only include learning to use the basics such as word processing; each piece of curriculum specific software would have to be mastered and understood before being used in the classroom. (18% of end-user time)
~Peer support time. When users have a problem, the first thing they do is to ask a peer for help, before calling the Help Desk. This is called "Hey, Joe" support, as in "Hey, Joe can you help me with this." Sometimes Joe compounds the problem. Gartner found that in many organizations, for every full time support person in the Information Systems department there were three end-user full time equivalents providing "underground" support; there is a certain level of support demand, and if it is not filled by persons directly assigned to that task, it will be filled by other means. (127)The cost factor remains. (4% of end-user time)
~The "Futz" factor. According to Gartner, this is time wasted just fooling around with the computer, including playing games. (30% of end-user time)
Other miscellaneous items accounted for the remainder.
Here are the Gartner study numbers extrapolated to Anchorage for a Windows 95 environment::
| Cost of Network Computing
Gartner Group Study |
|||
| Per Workstation | Anchorage | ||
| 5 Year | Per Year | 5 year Cost
Million $ |
|
| Capital Costs | $5,994 | $1,199 | $71.9 |
| Support Costs | $6,277 | $1,255 | $75.3 |
| Administration | $4,896 | 979 | $58.8 |
| End-user Cost | $18,692 | $3,738 | $224.3 |
| Total Cost | $35,859 | $7,172 | $430.3 |
The school environment is not the same as a business, of course. Furthermore, Gartner numbers measure total resource costs, including both incremental (out of pocket costs) and costs that are otherwise paid for but simply redirected from other function (soft costs). End-user time (a soft cost) spent doing productive tasks still comes at a cost to business, that cost just happens to be offset by revenue or some other value added. The school corollary would be to some extent, student time doing tasks of educational value. It is likely, however, that educators will need to perform certain tasks not common to the business community. The cost of teacher time to learn how to implement classroom computing as well as incremental planning time necessary for curricular incorporation would logically be a part of end-user costs, although such costs may in fact be hard dollar items for schools. That the two environments differ does not mean that the Gartner findings are irrelevant.
While not directly comparable, it is apparent that the value of teacher time absorbed by computer management is likely to be a multiple of the hardware cost itself. Examination of the Gartner numbers suggests that this cost is in addition to the cost of support. The district plan itself as much as acknowledges this fact, noting on page 11 that teachers should obtain such skills as "basic operations, saving, printing, simple maintenance and troubleshooting, recognizing and solving common problems" etc.
We are already paying for the teacher time. However, diversion of teacher time away from direct educational effort has an impact one way or the other. We will pay this cost in several ways:
~Other important tasks will simply not be done,
~we will have to hire more resources to get them done, or
~the teacher will avoid using the computer.
Reduction of staff support efforts means that the burden on teachers (and end-user computing costs) will correspondingly increase. There will be no saving if we do not provide adequate support and/or the educational program will be compromised. Truly, the lesson is "pay me one way or another".
The Report to the President as much as acknowledges this argument, stating that using teachers to help other teachers "will take time away from the other responsibilities of these teachers, an implicit cost that should be realistically assessed."(128)
In this context, it is critical that computers ultimately provide an overall increase in educational productivity by enhancing results and/or providing offsetting time savings to teachers in other tasks such as record-keeping, assessment, etc.
In order to produce my own assessment of Anchorage costs, I synthesized estimates contained elsewhere in this report for staff support and drew what seems reasonable from the RAND and McKinsey studies. The result (excluding Gartner's end-user costs) gives the following estimates for Anchorage:
| Cost of Classroom
Computing - Anchorage
Author's Estimate |
|||||
| Startup Cost
Million $ |
Ongoing
Annual Cost Million $ |
Five Year Cost
Million $ |
5 Year Cost
per Workstation |
||
| 10,000 Workstations | $15.0 | $15.0 | $1,500 | ||
| 2,000 Teacher Laptops | $4.0 | $4.0 | $2,000 | ||
| Other Infrastructure | $0 | ||||
| 100 Servers | $0.6 | $0.6 | $50 | ||
| Printers @1:5 Wkstns | $1.0 | $1.0 | $83 | ||
| Networking Hardware | $1.0 | $1.0 | $83 | ||
| Ongoing Capital Expenditures | $2.2 | $11.0 | $917 | ||
| Total Hardware | $21.6 | $2.2 | $32.6 | $2,717 | |
| Site Support - Pedagogical | $6.8 | $34.0 | $2,833 | ||
| Site Support - Technical | $6.8 | $34.0 | $2,833 | ||
| Total Site Support | $13.6 | $68.0 | $5,667 | ||
| Admin & Offsite Backup | $2.1 | $10.3 | $858 | ||
| Software (RAND) | $1.5 | $1.0 | $6.5 | $542 | |
| Materials (RAND) | $0.5 | $0.5 | $3.2 | $267 | |
| Training (40 hrs/Year) | $1.9 | $1.9 | $11.4 | $950 | |
| Total out of Pocket | $25.5 | $21.3 | $132.0 | $11,000 | |
My estimated total five year out of pocket program cost for our community is about $132 million, or four times the 1996 bond issue. They are close to the estimates based on McKinsey but higher than RAND.(129)
The Gartner study suggests that the out of pocket costs in all these estimates is too low, particularly the hardware and administrative components, and that total resource costs including end-user time would be more than twice the total out of pocket. Given that the President's report states that the costs cited therein are based on less than optimal installations, the Gartner numbers constitute a huge word of caution .
Summing up all four cost estimates up for Anchorage gives the following comparison:
| Anchorage Classroom
Computing - Cost Comparison
Five Year Total - Million $$ |
||
| Based on | Out of Pocket | Total Resources |
| McKinsey | $133 | $266 |
| RAND | $83 | $166 |
| Gartner | $206 | $430 |
| Author's Estimate | $132 | $264 |
I have often heard the argument that hardware costs will decrease; system configuration and other choices will impact hardware cost. However, as is evident from above, hardware cost is a small part of the overall picture, especially when total resource costs are considered. Tweaking hardware costs will not significantly impact the total.
The bottom line to the cost issue has several components:
The District must be upfront and realistic about the real magnitude of cost and its components. The public needs to know. It is the district's task to convince the public that the expenditure is worthwhile.
Lowball estimates leave the District vulnerable to severe criticism, both before and after implementation. The low cost estimates in the original bond issue cost made it an easy target for criticism. Secondly, implementation "on the cheap" presents a high probability of failure as both the President's report and the Forbes article state.
Even as it is now proposed, our current budgetary allocation is skimpy. The press is going to continue to drag up horror stories like the Forbes article. We need to be ahead of the media on this issue. It would add immeasurably to the credibility of our District if they could state that "we have allowed what the article says is needed" rather than minimizing concerns.
The RAND report discusses political considerations in funding, noting that the significant cost makes it difficult to obtain incremental tax money. It notes that internal budget reallocations may be needed to fund much of the cost, but cites the political challenge of doing so, since said funds would come out of other constituency supported programs. It should be evident, however, that failure to fund simply will force a defacto reallocation of teacher time or compromise the computing program. Some hard choices may have to be made.
One must consider that lower support cost might be possible and effective in a more mundane agenda of drill and practice, emphasizing basic skills, and enhanced in a few places with more constructivist activities as teachers gain their own comfort level.
A gradual implementation is important. Circumstances are in fact forcing this choice on our district. This has the benefit of allowing us time to develop staff, test our practices and devise specific planning in curriculum areas. It also gives the added benefit of permitting us time to search for cost efficiencies where practical.
The district should prepare a long range plan for funding its classroom computing program and communicate that plan to the public. We appear to have the capacity to fund classroom computing without tapping the taxpayer for monies over and above the Municipal tax cap.Considering that the District has been able to redirect about $10 million in each of the past several years, it should have sufficient options going forward to fund a gradual and viable implementation of classroom computing. In any event, we should move forward no faster than we can fund appropriately, including the necessary allocation to staff support. The myth of getting left behind could turn into a perverse reality should an ill conceived implementation prove detrimental. The funding constraint may have the added benefit of retarding the impulse to scatter computers through every curricular area and force some genuine cost/benefit consideration.
There really is no hurry. Most other districts face the same challenge. If they are rushing, it is hard to see that many would have laid the proper groundwork, prepared their staff and developed the funding to truly cover costs, and thus may not finish the race.
"Pick reasonable goals, measure your success against those goals, communicate the results to the public, and build slowly as everyone on the staff learns new skills and applies them in the classroom. School district personnel also must assess and reassess every year to keep what works and improve on it, while getting rid of those strategies and practices that do not work." (130)
When plans of other districts are reviewed, it is apparent that few other districts have a clear cut plan or direction. After reading the various reports that provided the foundation for this paper, I could not help but get an impression that everybody is citing each other and tending to say the same thing. There appears to be some risk of inbred thinking... and this leads to a concern that something may have been missed. Given the lack of good models, it is not totally fair to expect our own District to have a better plan. We are truly on our own. In proposing specifics, the author recognizes that he is in uncharted waters as well. There may be practical problems to their implementation, as well. To the extent that is true, however, the concepts behind the suggestions may still provide some help and guidance.
The challenges faced in effectively implementing school computing are clearly significant. The various reports cited in this paper all contain a multitude of caution flags and make it clear that a number of issues remain open and unresolved.
In essence what we have is
~teachers who are generally inexperienced with computers,
~trying to implement newer educational approaches for which software may not be available in many cases,
~where that software which is available tends to be unstable.
Teachers are expected to do this
~with inadequate training in some cases and inadequate ongoing support in most cases,
~before they have had a solid opportunity necessary to move sufficiently up the learning curve, and
~without good models and best practices to guide them.
in addition to all the other things they are expected to do. Clearly the message is that we must proceed slowly.
I like the West Virginia goals as a starter;
We should use computers to:
Improve Reading Skills
Improve Writing Skills
Improve Mathematics Skills
We will:
Provide Teacher Training
Build a Model Program(131)
I deleted computer literacy skills for reasons discussed earlier.
I would add the following:
Use basic skills to gain a broad understanding of the physical, social and creative world in which we live.
Make a substantive reduction of the difference between minority standardized test scores and those for the District as a whole.
Identify and implement strategies to relieve the teacher paperwork burden.
Initiate a research and development program aimed at
expanding the educational productivity of classroom computing, encompassing definition of classroom best practices;
finding most efficient methods of support,
developing more cost effective methods of instruction delivery including electronic, and non-classroom models,
developing new educational techniques aimed at so called "higher order thinking skills", and assessment techniques.
eliminating paper administrative recordkeeping at the classroom level, including class lists, attendance, gradebooks, atc.
I think the following should be the elements of a strategy for reaching these goals. These elements (and the suggested tactics that follow) may or may not be practical to implement in exactly the form suggested; however one would hope that our District would be able visualize and take steps which would accomplish the essential purposes in most cases.
Concentrate on use of word processing and spreadsheets. This is what most people do with computers. We should promote as many opportunities to write and analyze as possible. One school district, for example, conducted a student focus group and found that word processing was the most frequent activity, followed by research and Internet use. (132)
Students should write using word processing software, and submit reports electronically and in hard copy format. Every student should post a brief written report on a classroom web page at least once a month. Reports can be reviewed and evaluated by either teachers or administration.(133)
One would expect that the assessment tools now in the District's hands are capable of measuring the impact of this strategy.
Every classroom (or homeroom) should prepare a monthly newsletter to be sent home using the computer.
As an example, the Rockburn Elementary School website has posted some student writings:(134)
Each computer workstation should be used 20 hours a week; each student
should use the computer resource a minimum of two hours a week.
This can be directly measured by using software tools and student logons,
provided that computers are networked.
Fold the more complex "constructivist" projects into the curriculum as teachers get comfortable, as a library of ideas gets built up, acceptable software comes available, assessment techniques develop and as the whole program matures.
Students should collect data from real world experiments and resources such as the Internet, present them in tabular and graphic format using spreadsheet software. Some coaching will be needed to help students make effective web searches.
Use drill and practice software where appropriate to increase fluency, thus assuring parents that their kids WILL learn to do math and spell correctly while at the same time accomplishing a valid educational objective.
Limit software choices, particularly in the areas of support for drill and practice, word processing, spreadsheets and data bases.(135) The West Virginia report notes that:
"The choice of software from a fixed set of two vendors departs from the conventional ceding of choice among hundreds of vendors to hundreds of schools (and often, to thousands of teachers). We believe that part of the explanation for BS/CE's success is the defined focus of its implementation."(136)
There are several reasons why this is helpful:
~Software will be more consistent from school to school, thus reducing the impact of student mobility.
~Consistent software makes it easier for teachers to help and reinforce each other.
~Vendors could help with curriculum integration by providing map or cross references to text materials.
Constrained software choices are less practical for curriculum specific materials such as those which support constructivist techniques, as would be expected. The master library approach below addresses this concern however.
Assessment must line up with both goals and what we teach.
Every school and classroom should be required to prepare and maintain its own computing plan as a condition to receiving computers or upgraded facilities. (School level plans are encompassed in the ASD plan on page 21. Classroom plans should be prepared on a relatively simple level covering perhaps a review of the prior year's lesson plans and identifying where and how computing facilities would be used.
On this point Teachers and Technology says:
"Often states or districts require individual schools or classrooms to develop a technology plan. The planning process requires people to think through the reasons for the technology before they buy it. It also helps to assure that sound educational reasons guide the technology decisions instead of technology driving the education process. Furthermore the planning process brings people together and requires them to consider technological and instructional priorities. Although the resulting written plan affords a useful guide, it should be seen as a starting point, subject to revision over time. Nonetheless it is the process itself that animates individuals, focuses their attention on the instructional goals and technology's role in meeting them, and supports cultural changes in technology use."(137)
All Plans should contain a provision for periodic review and update based on program assessment and results.
Provide an extensive support network composed of:
On-site support consisting of technical and pedagogical support at a ratio of one FTE per 50 computer workstations. We will need a substantive cadre of skilled teachers who are well up the learning curve to function as pedagogical support component. For the 2500 computers we are just now installing, we need a support staff of about 50 people
Administrative resources composed of a help desk, trainers and other back up staff as appropriate.
Provide (if possible) student access to district computer facilities after school hours. This strategy is intended to support those who do not have computers at home.
A field trip to West Virginia (as well as other exemplary sites) certainly seems in order. Particular attention should be paid to the method(s) by which the program was executed at a school and district level, cost issues, support techniques, and whether or not there were flaws in the study of results.(138)
Provide a materials library available preferably on the network, but also in hard copy or CD ROM where appropriate, composed of the following:
Basic research material such as CD-ROM encyclopedias, maps, magazines such as National Geographic and similar. Network availability is preferable because of the relative ease with which materials can be kept up to date.
A library of recommended courseware. Deliver the material only via the network; it is not efficient to ask teachers to install software whenever they need it.
A library of lesson plans using computers and courseware. These lesson plans should be cross referenced to software available in the library or at the classroom level. Make this material available on the network. When practical, plans should be developed which encompass multiple subject areas, particularly at the elementary level, thus relieving some of the "compacting" burden on teachers who otherwise have insufficient time to cover all subject areas in a day.
An instructional design model so that every lesson and unit has the same components, perhaps based on development and expansion of the formats and guidelines contained in the District's current AppleWebsite Learning Quests. Some of the components are assessment/evaluation, benchmarks and standards as well as technology integration strategies. This model can serve as a guide to teachers as they prepare their own classroom computing plan. As plans are written by teachers, post them on the District website.(139)
Frameworks that are cross referenced to the library and the courseware. Prepare maps that cross reference frameworks to available software.
In the specific case of constructivist projects, we should have detailed "project plans", goals, materials lists and assessment plans.
Every teacher who wants a computer and will use it should have a laptop as soon as possible so they can start up the learning curve. The Anchorage plan calls for each teacher to have a computer. I think that computer should be a laptop that they can take home at least a year before they get machines in their classroom. They can use it at home and at school, gain fluency and understanding and comfort with its use. One project for that year could be preparation of the individual classroom computer plan. Load that computer with productivity software such as a gradebook program, an office suite and Internet capability to lighten their workload and permit them to get comfortable. Teachers have more than enough to do on their own time as is; the District should insure relief of other teacher burdens sufficient to free up time necessary for advance planning, preparation and training.
Teachers and Technology notes that this is a rare strategy, but that it is based on the assumption that while training is important,
" the real learning is believed to come from giving teachers unlimited access to the technology (and potentially more time on the equipment), new motivation for learning to use it, and a community of peers who are trying to master the same tools. Because teachers do much of their planning and paperwork at home, some sites allow teachers to take their computers home routinely or keep them there; others provide laptop computers they can carry back and forth."(140)
Increase teaching time by using networked management programs to streamline grades, attendance, lunch count, etc. Utilize report card programs, built in software assessment tools, data bases, and spreadsheets for management of student data and preparation of teaching materials.(141)
Certify teachers for computer skills, much as Microsoft, Oracle, Novell and others certify people in the industry as qualified instructors, installers, programmers, etc. This would require basic training for the initial level, and other demonstrations of skill and fluency to reach higher levels of certifications. Distribute classroom computers (or upgrades) to those who have attained certification. Certification would be based on completion of a classroom computing plan, demonstrated understanding of key software products,(142) how they can be used in the classroom, ability to develop lesson plans using such software, and to a reasonable extent, understanding of hardware basics. The District should insure that sufficient teacher time is freed up to accomplish these goals; the cost of this time is part of the overall cost of implementing classroom computing.
As an example of intent to implement a similar process, the Coronado Unified School District plan says it will:
"Establish various levels of competencies and direct the design of training programs to bring teachers to higher levels."
and that it will design a rubric for teachers which will :
"Specify what is to be accomplished in skills and knowledge and what is required to obtain computer fluency".
Another district required that:
"In order to qualify for a computer... teachers had to complete a comprehensive program of training" ...and were "also required to complete a portfolio of computer generated materials."(143)
Use network software to measure and monitor computer use. Student logons should be structured so as to indicate the purpose of use for assessment data collection. Teachers who are not using computers should receive help in their application. If those efforts are not successful, the computers should be removed and redistributed to those classrooms which use them more intensively.
Use built in tutorials to teach kids how to use computers and software. Windows has a good one. Consider outsourcing more intensive training, or using teacher experts, rather than placing the burden on classroom teachers.
Allocate newer computers to those certified teachers and classrooms that use them the most or demonstrate willingness to do so (with the exception of a laptop to each teacher, to insure that they have the opportunity to learn). Start in the early grades first because that is where the basic academic skills are developed. While this is likely to be somewhat controversial, it makes no sense to put the strongest horsepower in the hands of those who do not utilize it. Business learned this long ago. A second area of focus might be underachieving schools, since there seems to be some evidence in studies that low income students may get the most benefit from computer assisted instruction.
Provide a reasonable set of teacher incentives for developing their computer skills and classroom use.. Suggestions for design of incentives are beyond the scope of this paper, but they need to be considered by those qualified to do so. One possibility might be to add continuing education credits for certified expert level teachers.
Obtain software to support remote network diagnostics and troubleshooting,
reducing the burden on-site support personnel.
There must be numerous ways in which to scale up and implement classroom computing. Here are my general suggestions in rough sequence:
Allocate computers not by school but first to those teachers who have completed basic certification, classroom plans and who want to use them - particularly those for whom personal computing is new (at least in the beginning stages). Emphasize implementation in the early grades first.
Teachers get laptops and start one year "apprenticeship".
Schools and teachers develop their classroom computing plans.
Select teachers for assignment to the pedagogical site support team. Refer to the teacher learning curve discussion on page 54; select from those that already have the highest level of expertise in this depiction. If Anchorage is typical, we should have about 100 teachers already at the top level, enough to staff a support effort. Preparing the first cohort may impact the timeline.
Train the teachers who will form the pedagogical site support team. They will need to have some preparation and formulate their own work plans.
During the year that teachers work independently with laptops, they should receive specific training, participate in group worksessions with the pedagogical site support team, observe existing implementations and pilot tests, prepare a classroom computing plan, and in generalprepare for the upcoming year.
Conduct basic level certification testing at the end of the year.
Hire tech support personnel. These people are not inexpensive, and may have to be hired outside of the district, or alternatively we may have to subcontract for this service.
In parallel with the teacher and support staff training effort, the ASD should:
Assess the current implementations in the district and evaluate them with an eye to replication.
Based on information from existing implementations, the district should then design several pilot programs to be implemented at appropriate grade levels and in selected classrooms. While it may seem that the existing experience would be adequate, it may be more of a challenge than expected to replicate the efforts of a computer sophisticated teacher in another classroom where the teacher may have had little experience with computers.
"While several of these studies found evidence that technology can improve student achievement, researchers have been wary of presuming that the same results could be replicated in other classrooms where teachers might be less motivated or knowledgeable about computers." (144)
We need to understand the nature of that challenge, identify the problems and plan for their solution.
Assess the pilot projects and report results. Involve the teachers under training and the site support personnel in the assessment. Use these results to assist the teachers with their classroom planning efforts. Assess what was done with computers, what problems did the "novices" face, how were these problems solved, what should be changed, how much were computers used and other benchmarks as appropriate.
Initiate a curriculum development project to provide teachers
with sample lesson plans, an instructional design model and other support
materials.
PROPOSED PLAN IN OUTLINE FORM.
The following plan outline and components are intended as a suggested guide; contents may not necessarily be limited to the items listed herein.
1. Vision Statement
2. Goals & Objectives.
~Set clear and reasonable expectations
~Itemize the high level goals for computing
~How will we know when each goal has been met?
~Relate goals to State and District goals.
~Link to tactical (grade and curriculum specific) goals.
~Include a short reality check; comment on what computers cannot do and explain the magnitude to the implementation task. Address the contrast between the vision, where we are now and what is truly possible.
3. Current Situation of the Anchorage School District.
~ What is the current level of hardware implementation.
~ What is the current level of computer useage.
~ How are computers used currently.
~ What is the current level of staff development. Recommend assessment along the scale of the learning curve table on page 65. A confidential survey might be a good start.
~ What are the demands on staff time imposed by the existing computer setup?
4. Specific outline of how computers will be used.
~ What they will do now.
~ Where the District will be in five years.
5. Timeline for Implementation.
~ Multi year perspective.
~ Diagram(s)
~ Show how the program scale- up will work.
6. Plan for staff development.
~Explain the current level of staff skills.
~Formal training program.
~Who gets what training, when.
~Skill level certification process.
~Relate to the implementation timeline.
~Assessment feedback loop to measure utility of the program.
7. Plan for pedagogical staff support.
~How many people?
~How will these people be chosen, trained, and managed?
~What will their work plan be?
8. Plan for tech support.
~How many people
~How will these people be chosen, trained, and managed?
~What will their work plan be?
9. Goals for integration into the curriculum.
~ When and how will frameworks, scope and sequence be adopted.
~Instructional design model?
~Put an outline and a sample in the appendix.
10. Research and development plan.
11. Assessment plan.
~Insert a plan for measuring progress towards the high level goals.
~How will replication of classroom models be evaluated?
~Plan for assessing the effectiveness of the implementation model as feedback loop for plan revisions.
12. Infrastructure design and standards.
13. Plan for hardware placement and replacement.
~Who gets what and when,
~Relate to academic goals. Define trade-offs between cost, configuration, goals, support requirements and other factors as appropriate.
14. Funding requirement.
~Multi-year projection of program costs by component.
~Discuss how expenditures will be funded. Fit to the budget and long-range
financial projections.
CITATIONS
Archer, Jeff, "The Link to Higher Scores", Technology Counts '98. The Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, 1998. www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98
Bronner, E. : "Video Games and Teaching Tools: Overselling the Wired School". New YorkTimes Week in Review,November 30, 1997
Coley, R. J., Cradler, J., and and Engel, P. Computers and Classrooms: The Status of Technology in U.S. Schools. Princeton, N.J. Educational Testing Service
Desktop Computing: Management Strategies to Control the Rapidly Escalating Cost of Ownership; The Gartner Group, Stanford, CT 1995.
Glennan, T. K., and Melmed; A. Fostering The Use of Educational Technology: Elements of a National Strategy. The RAND Organization, Santa Monica, CA, 1996
Goldman, Cole and Syer: The Technology/Content Dilemma July 1999. Www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf1999/white papers/paper.html
The Learning Connection: Schools in the Information Age. Washington DC. 1997. The Benton Foundation.
Mann, D., Shakeshaft, C., Becker, J., & Kottkamp, R. (1999), West Virginia's Basic Skills/Computer Education Program: An Analysis of Student Achievement. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Family Foundation. Website is www.milkenexchange.org
Means, B., et al. Using Technology to Support Education Reform. US Department of Education, Washington, DC 1993.
Mintz, D. "Technology's Promise: responding to the LA Times ", From Now On, Vol 7 No 1 Sept 1997 www.fromnowon.org/sept97/latimes.html
Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection(Washington D.C. 1995)
Oppenheimer, Todd, "The Computer Delusion", The Atlantic Monthly, July 1997.
Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States; Presidents Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Education Technology. March, 1997
Schacter, J. (1999) The Impact of Education Technology on Student Achievement: What the Most Current Research Has to Say. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Family Foundation. www.milkenexchange.org
Schmitt, C and Slonaker, L , "Computers in school: Do students improve? High Technology doesn't always equal high achievement", San Jose Mercury News, January 14, 1996.
Shenk, D. Data Smog, HarperCollins, New York, 1998.
Steinfeldt, R., excerpts from Guide to Educational Technologies for Site-Based teams as published on Website of New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education. (ww3.servtech.com/nyscate/rws.html
Trotter, A.., "A Question of Effectiveness", Technology Counts '98, The Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, 1998. www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98
Trotter, A.., "Teaching the Basics", Technology Counts '98, The Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, 1998. www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98/cs/csl.htm
Wenglinsky, H., Does It Compute: The Relationship Between Educational Technology and Student Achievement in Mathematics. Princeton, NJ, 1998. Educational Testing Service.
Zehr, M. A., "Changing the way Teachers Teach", Technology Counts '98, The Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, 1998. www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98/cs/csl.htm
1. The Galena City School District's efforts to provide such delivery have been "rewarded" by a state funding cut; it is difficult to imagine a more egregious and short-sighted move on the part of a government that purports to be seeking improvement in its own efficiency.
2. As of this writing in the summer of 1999, it is obvious that this goal will not be met.
3. Coronado Unified School District Technology Plan. Other outcomes refer to critical thinking; it is the elevation of data manipulation to the same level of importance that is of concern here.
4. John Schacter (1999) The Impact of Education Technology on Student Achievement: What the Most Current Research Has to Say. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Family Foundation. Website is www.milkenexchange.org.
5. My son had no computer classes in high school, and used our home computer on infrequent occasions; we had no Internet access at home. He learned how to use the computer by puttering around on his own and with peer help; he had no difficulties adjusting to college expectations and did quite well his first year.
6. Claremont Unified School District Educational Technology Master Plan.
8. Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection(Washington D.C. 1995)
9. Http://www.rims.k12.ca.us/ctap/techplan/7.html
10. Means, et al. Using Technology to Support Education Reform. US Department of Education, Washington, DC 1993.(Chapter 2) The reader will note that page numbers are often missing from citations in this paper; that is because Internet documents often have no page numbers - particularly hypermedia - or the numbering is by page within chapter.
11. Andrew Trotter , " A Question of Effectiveness" , Technology Counts 98, Education Week 1998 (www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98)
12. Thomas K. Glennan and Arthur Melmed; Fostering The Use of Educational Technology: Elements of a National Strategy. The RAND Organization, Santa Monica, CA, 1996
13. Todd Oppenheimer, "The Computer Delusion", The Atlantic Monthly, July 1997.
14. Christopher Schmitt and Larry Slonaker, "Computers in school: Do students improve? High Technology doesn't always equal high achievement", San Jose Mercury News, January 14, 1996.
17. John Schacter (1999) The Impact of Education Technology on Student Achievement: What the Most Current Research Has to Say. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Family Foundation. www.milkenexchange.org
18. This approach has gotten a bad name, being associated with such ideas as fuzzy math ( we don't care if you get the right answer as long as your problem-solving method was correct) and grading of individuals based on group performance. The educational community has made a substantive mistake by letting these concerns play out unchallenged; I cannot think of any teacher who would want to fly in an aircraft or drive over a bridge designed by an engineer schooled in "fuzzy math".
19. West Virginia Report, Comments by Milken Exchange Executive Director, page 3.
20. Mann, D., Shakeshaft, C., Becker, J., & Kottkamp, R. (1999) West Virginia's Basic Skills/Computer Education Program: An Analysis of Student Achievement. Page 11. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Family Foundation. Website is www.milkenexchange.org.
24. Ibid, page 29. I did not find a reference to the ranking source.
25. Ibid, page 11. If, as often claimed, standardized tests are really basic skills test, this result could reflect the (appropriate) alignment of testing techniques with teaching objectives!
29. Part of the public fear has also been concern that there may be group grades; the concern is that often a small part of the group does most of the work. In part the answer to this criticism is that, not only is this an old and familiar approach with a new name, but - as has been true in the past - only a small part of the curriculum is likely to be taught in this manner. Educators, for their part need to understand that, while group projects are sometimes a part of the business experience, it is individuals who get raises and promotions, not groups.
30. The townsfolk also had a big problem with mosquitos - a challenge with which any Alaskan will empathize!
31. Harold Wenglinsky, Does It Compute: The Relationship Between Educational Technology and Student Achievement in Mathematics. Princeton, NJ, 1998. Educational Testing Service. Page 30.
32. The frequency categories measured in the survey range from "never", and "hardly ever" to "Almost every day". These are subjective and less than precise. Coupling this factor with lack of understanding of how the computers were actually used suggests that one should take care in drawing conclusions from this data.
33. As reported by Andrew Trotter, "Teaching the Basics", Technology Counts, '98, The Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, 1998. www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98/cs/csl.htm.
34. Trotter, "A Question of Effectiveness", Op Cit.
35. Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States; Presidents Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Education Technology. March, 1997 page 18-19.
36. Presidents Report, page 42. Italics mine.
37. Glennan and Melmed, op cit.
38. Goldman, Cole and Syer: The Technology/Content Dilemma July 1999. Www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf1999/white papers/paper.html
39. The Learning Connection: Schools in the Information Age. Washington DC. 1997. The Benton Foundation.
40. The Anchorage School District changed from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills to the California Achievement test in 1995-96 school year. At that time they gave the ITBS to a sufficient number of students to enable comparison of the two; the CAT reading results were seven points higher in grade 4, four points higher in grade 8 and two points higher in grade 11. The adjustments made to the old ITBS scores to make them comparable to the CAT test are estimated, but none the less do not alter the fact of the decline.
41. Spring Branch Independent School District plan.
42. Anchorage Daily News (Voice of the Times guest editorial by Red Boucher and Arliss Sturgulewski). April 10, 1996.Page B8.
43. President's Report, op cit, page 10.
45. Interview with Ms. Linda Roberts, Director of the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology, www.4teachers.org/keynotes/roberts/
46. Wall Street Journal, June 21, 1999, page R4.
47. Richard Steinfeldt - excerpts from Guide to Educational Technologies for Site-Based teams as published on Website of New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education ww3.servtech.com/nyscate/rws.html
48. William L. Rukeyser, quoted by Andrew Trotter, "A Question of Effectiveness", Technology Counts 98. The Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, 1998.
49. President's Report, op cit, page 22.
50. Museum materials have at least the imprimatur of credibility and educational charisma; other websites may have supporting materials, but unlike museum materials they may engender questions of validity.
51. The Learning Connection, op cit.
52. Jamieson McKenzie, director of technology and library/media services for the Bellingham (WA) public schools, quoted in The Learning Connection.
53. McKenzie in The Learning Connection, op cit
54. While the subject report seems to support these goals, the year 2000 is months away and, if the problems cited by Forbes and the comments in various district tech plans are at all indicative, it would appear that we are no closer to reaching these goals - in a practical sense - than we were in 1997.
55. Glennan and Melmed, op cit.
56. School News Online July 26, 1999. Www.eschoolnews.org
57. Gateway Unified School District Technology Plan.
59. Lincoln CA Unified School District Technology Plan 1994-98.
62. Dave Mintz, "Technology's Promise: Responding to the Los Angeles Times" From Now On, September 1997. www.fromnowon.org/sept97/latimes.html
63. Not all planning goals are measurable, but most should certainly be.
64. http://access.k12.wv.us/bsce/index.htm
65. Teachers and Technology, op cit page 158.
66. The first goal in this plan, technology awareness, is weakened by overemphasis on learning about technology rather than using it as a tool. For example, on page 12, it states that "students will be able to use and identify parts of a computer" such as CPU, bit/byte. As noted in this report the term kilobyte (etc) may already be changing to kibibyte!
67. Claremont Unified School District Plan page 13
68. Bellingham (WA) School District technology Plan of November 1997.
69. Bellingham has been cited as a successful implementation; our district should assess why this may be true.
70. Spring Branch Independent School District.
71. Coronado Unified School District Technology Plan
72. Putnam Valley Central Schools (New York) Technology Plan submitted to the Board of Education February 23, 1998.
74. Computers and Classrooms, op cit, Page 54
75. This idea was lifted almost verbatim from the East Detroit Public Schools plan. We should try to obtain copies of their work. The guidelines on the Apple Learning Quest website might well be developed further.
76. President's Report page 27.
79. (Glennan and Melmed, Chapter 4)
80. Computers and Classrooms, op cit, page 52-53.
82. By the time this paper reached its final drafts, it would crash an average of three or four times a session. The Wall Street Journal's technical columist, Walter Mossberg made this point most clearly in his September 30, 1999 column (page B1). Commenting that we erroneously tend to overlook these bugs as being normal, he added that "they constitute defective behavior, pure and simple, the kind of behavior we'd never take for granted in other products." Mr. Mossberg had kept a diary for one week, noting every time Windows "either crashed, froze or exhibited other unexpected or puzzling behavior." He recorded 23 incidents during that week on six different PC's.
83. Teachers and Technology, op cit page 155.
84. Learning Connection, op cit
85. .David Shenk, Data Smog, HarperCollins, New York, 1998. page 80
86. Desktop Computing: Management Strategies to Control the Rapidly Escalating Cost of Ownership; The Gartner Group, Stanford, CT 1995. Page 34.
87. The exceptions to this argument seem to be spreadsheets and wordprocessors. It is the author's experience that these are so similar that , if you can operate one brand, you can very quickly learn another, and moving from one upgrade to another is not particularly difficult. The menu scramble is annoying, but surmountable.
88. Anchorage Daily News, March 21, 1999
89. This does not mean that older equipment cannot and should not be used; new software choices may be constrained by old hardware, but some classrooms and subjects may do just fine with older, basic software such as word processing.
90. Anchorage teacher in letter to Anchorage Daily News, September 12, 1999
91. Glennan and Melmed, Chapter 2, op cit
92. Teachers and Technology, op cit page 132.
93. Office of Technology Assessment: Teaching Matters as quoted by Mackenzie and Company. Estimates of teacher population in each category by McKenzie & Co.
94. President's Report, op cit page 26.
95. Teachers and Technology, op cit, page 161.
98. Schofield, quoted in Teachers and Technology, page 137.
99. Glennan and Melmed, op cit Chapter 4
100. Trotter, "A Question of Effectiveness", op cit.
101. The Learning Connection, op cit
102. This is 240 positions at average salary and benefits of $57,000 per year.
103. As a comparison, the California Technology Assistance Project recommends $2 or $3 in training and support for every dollar spent on hardware. Based on an estimated cost of $32 million for hardware elsewhere in this report, we should expect to spend at least $64 million on support over a five year period, or $13 million per year.
104. Teachers and Technology, op cit. Chapter 4
106. Ibid page 141. The report does not specify elementary or secondary.
107. Forbes; "Johnny's Computer Won't Boot". The Gartner Group's work on networked computer workstation cost is discussed below on page 69
108. The Learning Connection reports that businesses generally assume that computer networks require one technology specialist for every 60 users; it translates that support level into one FTE for every two classrooms; the problem with this extrapolation is that the business time commitment is rooted in the number of workstations, with each user having his/her own. Classrooms are not likely to have 30 computers each. Furthermore, that business technology specialist likely performs both hardware support and software support functions, paralleling the pedagogical and tech support functions portrayed in this report.
109. See the Report to the President, page 23 - 24. As computer professionals may recognize the division of duties between these two functions may get blurred to some degree, as it is not unlikely that a pedagogical staff member might help with a printer problem.
110. Glennan and Melmed, op cit Chapter 4
111. Ethan Bronner: "Video Games and Teaching Tools: Overselling the Wired School." New York Times Week in Review, November 30, 1997
112. Claremont Unified School District, op cit.
113. The Learning Connection, op cit
114. Strudler cited in Teachers and Technology, op cit page 147. This is one more good reason not to hurry.
115. Such cards may be more suited to middle and high schools; for elementary schools point and click data base software may be a satisfactory alternative.
116. President's Report, op cit
117. President's Report op cit.
118. President's Report, op cit, page 31.
119. In fact this is clearly NOT recommended in the Report to the President. See Footnote 106 in that report says "we can no more expect the problem of technology maintenance and support to be solved exclusively through the use of student technicians than we can expect the problem of school security to be solved exclusively through the use of student hall monitors."
120. While our school district is currently planning to lease computers, this decision has little effect other than on timing of payments and interest cost.
121. Report to the President, op cit page 16.
122. The McKinsey numbers are presented on the basis of total expenditures nationwide. These were converted to a per student basis using 44 million students nationwide as a divisor - again based on data in the report.
123. Glennan and Melmed, , op cit. I was only able to find this report on the Internet after much crashing around, hunting with search engines, etc. on many different days; I found it quite by accident in a link buried way down in the hyperlinked pages of the California Technology Assistance Project. So much for the value of search engines. Direct access to the RAND website produced only an abstract. Surely someone will say I didn't search quite correctly; but what busy teacher will put up with this game of hide and seek for long?
124. This resulted in a remarkably consistent data set comparing school to school; total costs for six out of eight schools fell within a range of $1453 to $1726 per work station per year, whereas per student costs for the same six ranged from $142 to $490 per annum - a range of more than 2:1. Lower costs per workstation in the other two schools pulled the average down to $1384 per year.
The RAND data is presented on an annual basis and assumed five year amortization of most capital and upfront costs. My Anchorage projection assumes 12,000 workstations.
125. Report to the President, op cit, page 30.
126. Gartner 1995. Desktop Computing: Management Strategies to control the Rapidly Escalating Cost of Ownership. These numbers are for a Windows 95 environment; Mackintosh numbers were not meaningfully different.
128. President's Report, op cit page 25.
129. The estimate for Administrative support is a guess, but Gartner suggests that this number is not small. Similarly the ongoing capital expenditures are assumed to include cost of installing upgrades (at a lower level than Gartner would suggest) plus the myriad of other accessories that seem to follow on computer purchases.
132. Putnam Valley School District Plan.
133. Exemplary reports and papers should be recognized and applauded.
134. www.howard.k12.md.us/res/default.html
135. I believe our School District is already following this precept; my intent is to reinforce that direction.
136. West Virginia Report, op cit, page 14.
137. Teachers and Technology, op cit, page 158.
138. Some sites which claim success include Cherry Creek Schools in Colorado, Bellingham, Washington and Boston Public Schools, MA. The Evergreen School District in Washington claims to use a return on investment model for evaluating the comparative cost benefits of programs.
139. This idea, was lifted almost verbatim from the East Detroit Public Schools plan. We should look for copies of their work. Contrary to this policy, I found no teacher standards posted on the web as of August, 1999. The Anchorage School District's Apple Website has planning guidelines and about 150 plans after allowing for those that appear in several categories. They are concentrated in the Intermediate grades and English, Math, Science and Social Studies. See http://tech.asd.k12.ak.us/
140. Teachers and Technology, op cit, page 152.
141. Bellingham Public Schools Technology Plan, November 1997.
142. As an example, the certification testing could include an assignment to write a short paper including embedded spreadsheets and tables on an assigned subject (all necessary facts outlined in the test question) using the laptop. In addition, the teacher could be expected to demonstrate to the examiner the ability to navigate menus and accomplish a list of designated tasks fluidly.
143. Teachers and Technology, page 153. Also the Boston Public Schools says that its "teachers are awarded computers for their classrooms once they have completed competencies at each level".
144. Jeff Archer, "The Link to Higher Scores", Technology Counts '98, The Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, 1998.