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You've probably heard the questions: Does educational technology
really work? Is it worth the cost? Do kids learn better with it
or without it?
The debate about the value of educational technology is aired
at school board meetings, in teacher lounges, at education conferences,
and in the national media. Learning experts on one side tout technology
as the savior of public education. Still others see it as an expensive
frill that does little, if anything, to improve learning.
Somewhere in between are educators like me. No, I do not believe
technology is the savior of public education. Nor do I believe
it is an expensive frill. Used wisely, I believe, technology is
a powerful learning tool.
As school leaders, you have to sort through the plethora of
opinions about educational technology to make important decisions
that sometimes cost lots of money and ultimately change the way
we think kids should learn. These are not easy decisions. But
they are decisions that must be made in the context of the profound
impact technology is having on our culture.
To help you sort through the debate, I'd like to take you on
a little journey through my experiences at University Park Elementary
School in Dallas, Texas. I used to be a regular fourth-grade teacher
there, but now I serve as the school's technology teacher. That
means I am a jack-of-all-trades, infusing the use of technology
into the teaching of art, social studies, math, science, and language
arts. What I've found is that using multimedia technologies helps
my students develop a wider and deeper understanding of the subjects
they are learning.
What's more, my experiences integrating technology into learning
have also led to a new professional gig for me. As part of the
Pioneer New Media Technologies Mentor Teacher Program, I now travel
around the country training educators how to integrate laserdisc
and other multimedia technologies into classroom learning.
Working together
My first experience using educational technology as a teaching
tool was in the summer of 1991, when I was introduced to multimedia
at a staff development workshop. The multimedia program that was
demonstrated, called Kid Pix, allows students to create pictures
and text, organize them into a slide show, and add their own voices
and photographs into the slide show.
At the time, I was a rookie teacher at my school, and I immediately
started to think about how to apply this technology to my teaching.
I shared those thoughts with fellow teachers, who also sensed
the potential. Together we decided to design a collaborative research
project in which students would produce multimedia shows based
on the study of explorers ranging from Christopher Columbus to
astronaut Neil Armstrong.
More than 150 students were involved in the project, working
in groups of two. This helped them break the research into manageable
parts and also allowed them to help each other master the intricacies
of using the technology.
The increasing use of cooperative groups is one way in which
educational technology is influencing changes in teaching. In
most schools, there is not enough technology to go around to allow
every individual student the time to use a multimedia computer.
Cooperative groups are a logical response to this situation.
Beyond that, I believe it is important for kids to learn how
to work well together. But there are problems with technology-driven
cooperative learning that teachers cannot ignore. To begin with,
there's always the possibility that the more motivated students
will do the lion's share of the work. That's why we decided on
limiting the groups to just two students each -- it's hard to
hide in a group of two. What's more, small groups tend to result
in more interaction than is possible in larger groups.
This kind of grouping takes careful planning, however. Teachers
should not simply allow students to pick their best friend to
work with. They should select students who will complement each
other in their abilities. For instance, a student who is a good
researcher but not a skilled technology user might be matched
best with a student who needs to develop better research skills
but is a skilled technology user.
One other caveat: If you don't keep a watchful eye on each group,
some groups will goof off and fall way behind the deadline for
the project. If students fall behind, they create a waiting line
for other students to use the classroom technology. Once this
backlog starts, more and more groups begin falling behind, and
you have a frustrating scenario to deal with.
Exploring the explorers
Each pair of students was responsible for producing six slides
on a specific topic, and they had to do all the background research,
writing, and storyboarding necessary for the project. One of the
multimedia tools we used extensively was laserdisc, which the
students used to pull together images, movie clips, drawings,
sounds, and text.
Before that, I had taught similar projects using the traditional
pencil-and-paper approach. The students generally did what they
were told. But this time, I saw enthusiasm for doing research
that was far greater than anything I had ever seen in my short
tenure as a teacher.
We studied explorers in social studies, and in science class,
the students created experiments that used map directions, compasses,
and magnets that emulated the navigational tools used by the early
explorers. We studied astronomy so we could navigate by the stars
as the explorers did, and we examined the solar system like the
astronauts of today's space shuttles. We even created math problems
that related to mileage traveled. Students had to use mileage
estimation for creating supply lists that would be needed for
their explorations.
One of the concerns raised about educational technology is the
depth of learning that results. Some educators argue that technology
does little more than create a glossy presentation, which does
not increase the depth of students' knowledge. A recent research
study conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) justifies
their concerns. When used unwisely, the report says, technology
can actually hurt student learning.
But that's the point: Technology must be used wisely. The ETS
report found that when technology is used for more sophisticated
thinking skills, rather than for just drilling facts and figures
into kids' heads, student learning is greater than if no technology
is used.
In light of that conclusion, it's hardly surprising to me that
when my students use multimedia technologies to do projects, greater
learning results. That's because the students have to search professional
archives for information, images, video spots, and text. Their
projects quickly take on a more professional look than anything
they have done before, which motivates them to find and analyze
more information to add to their projects. Finally, they end up
with a greater depth of knowledge and a relentless curiosity for
the topic they have investigated. In fact, I had students who
wanted to work on the same topic for the whole year because their
interest level had been piqued far beyond the normal. They began
to see their topics as fluid, something they could continue learning
about.
Unfortunately, I have no test score data to back up my claims,
but as a teacher, I know what I saw. My students were digging
deep into topics and thinking long and hard about them. And that's
a good thing.
Examining the lives of explorers is just one thematic unit I've
covered using multimedia technologies. As most elementary school
teachers know, kids love dinosaurs. One year, I split the children
into pairs again and had them choose a dinosaur to research. They
had to go online and also visit the school library to do research
on their dinosaur's diet, habitat, time period, and physical characteristics.
They read books, scanned the Internet, and reviewed CD-ROMs. They
then had to put that information into a computer-generated project.
Neatness counts -- and so does content
As I tell the students, the visual presentation of a project
is important. But so is content, and of course, as teachers, we
want the kids to learn how to write well, too. So, as part of
the dinosaur project, students wrote detailed descriptions of
what they found. Our expectation was that these descriptions be
written as well as if they were part of a formal research paper.
In other words, we wanted good grammar, accurate spelling, and
concrete examples. The project also required that students include
a bibliography page citing all the resources they used for the
project.
Elizabeth, a fourth-grader, said: "I enjoy using the computer
because we linked to dinosaur web pages that gave even more information
than our report. I put more effort into the computer project because
my writing looks real neat. It was also easier to get some of
the information from the laserdisc instead of having to go to
40 books to find information."
Scholle, her classmate, echoed that enthusiasm: "It is easier
to do the project on the computer because you do not have to keep
rewriting and erasing to make your final product look good."
Creating projects that look good is part of the fun. But more
than that, we want students to think. We stimulate higher-order
thinking skills in a number of ways, especially in science lessons.
For example, using a laserdisc called Science Sleuths, which asks
students to solve scientific problems, students investigate issues
and form their own conclusions using the available data and clues.
In one life sciences case, students learn how to identify and
group animals based on their behavior and habitat. Once the students
identify the animals, they must determine how best to group them
appropriately in a pet store. Choices must be based on scientific
principles. For instance, putting the mice near the snakes would
probably not be a wise choice.
Another science project that we have done involves multimedia
flower dissections. Unless each child had a real flower to dissect,
it would be difficult for everyone in class to study the inner
parts of a flower. And even then, flower dissections can be so
crude and messy that kids wouldn't really see what they need to.
We use the laserdisc to show students close-up views of the inner
parts of a flower. The students then conduct online dissections
of flowers they have chosen from around the world.
Karen Benore, a science specialist at my school, says the chance
to bring into the classroom "fantastic close-up photographs of
untouchable and unobtainable objects" is invaluable. It allows
students to dissect exotic flowers from far-away countries, delving
into the science of the flowers as well as the environmental conditions
that surround them.
Rules of thumb
In my experience, multimedia technologies are a welcome addition
to the learning landscape -- but only if used wisely. To use multimedia
wisely, there are a few guidelines to share with your teachers:
* Set up a well-coordinated system with other teachers.
Most schools do not have enough machines to allow each teacher
to have a television and laserdisc player all day long. For that
reason, it is important to set up an efficient system for sharing
the equipment. Otherwise, the equipment might not be available
when teachers need it, and frustrations will boil over.
* Share ideas constantly. Multimedia technology is relatively
easy to use. However, the key to your success is not whether you
use it, but how you use it. Find out how other teachers are integrating
multimedia into their lessons. It's likely you'll be trading ideas
throughout the year.
* Be aware of Murphy's Law. I don't know why, but it
seems just when you most need the technology is when it's most
likely to malfunction. To avoid problems, always have a backup
plan for what your students should do if the technology malfunctions.
And make sure you have a good relationship with your building's
resident technical genius.
* Prepare for more planning time than ever before. Believe
me, you will need to spend more time planning a lesson when integrating
multimedia technology than you would with the traditional pencil-and-paper
approach. For starters, you need to preview the content of the
laserdiscs to see how it should be integrated into your lessons.
The more you do this, the more efficient you'll become, and the
amount of planning time required for each lesson will begin to
drop. Even so, integrating technology will always take more planning
time. And that's an important consideration to keep in mind.
One of the biggest thrills of my teaching career occurred last
year. Some of my students were invited to showcase one of their
multimedia projects at the national Technology + Learning Conference
in Dallas. In front of scores of superintendents, technology directors,
teachers, and school board members from all over the country,
my students showed off their projects. Several of the educators
in the audience came up afterward to ask my students follow-up
questions.
I was very proud of my students' answers. They told these school
leaders that they had learned a great deal using multimedia --
and, they said, they wanted to learn more.
Well, isn't that what education is all about?
Kelly
Sain is a technology teacher at University
Park Elementary School in Dallas. As part of the Pioneer New Media
Technologies Teacher Mentor program, she travels around the country
training educators to integrate multimedia technology into classroom
instruction.
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