Michigan's schools are excited by the potential of technology and spending millions of dollars on it. Most districts have spent a fair amount of time planning for that technology.
Anyone who has been involved with that planning knows that it is an incredibly complex process. Planners must consider a number of components (hardware, software, teacher and administrator competency, learning objectives, etc.) with a myriad of complex interrelationships.
In an effort to help schools gauge their progress toward the effective use of technology, the Milken Exchange on Educational Technology has published a document to help planners that breaks the components into seven dimensions:
Each of these dimensions deserves equal consideration if a working system is to be developed. Unfortunately, most "Technology Planning" to date has focused primarily on building Technology Capacity (hardware, connectivity, facilities, technical support, etc.).
The time has come to move beyond focusing on the computers and wires to equally considering all aspects of this complex system. Until we do so, the technology will drive our curriculum, instead of the curriculum driving the technology.
One of the dimensions that has received short shrift is the Learners. To move beyond the focus on Technology Capacity, we need to have a vision of what we want our students to learn with and about technology. That includes knowing how technology should be integrated into the subjects and what knowledge and skills are unique to using technology. The difficulty is that because of the newness of educational technology and its ever-changing nature, few people have a coherent, articulated understanding of what technology integration should look like.
Following is a fictional conversation which illustrates some of the differing perspectives that exist.
Expert 1: Technology is just a tool. Teachers should focus not on the technology but on the curriculum content. After all, we don't have classes on pencil and paper use or overhead projectors.
Expert 2: That's a misleading analogy. We may not have pencil and paper classes, but we do have handwriting and cursive lessons. We do instruct students on formatting their paper. And, kids take writing classes until they graduate. That doesn't even touch on the artistic uses of paper and pencil use.
Besides, computers, which are only one piece of "technology," are used in a far wider variety of ways: multimedia, word processing, e-mail, WWW, etc. Word processing alone is probably more advanced than paper and pencil in the "technology" it provides our students. Multimedia combines all of word processing and page layout and adds in other "technology" in the form of audio, video, graphics, or animation. Add in the ability to instantly publish to a worldwide audience with the web and the "technology" far exceeds paper and pencil.
Expert 3: I think you both have valid points, though the way you state them gives mixed messages to teachers. One view seems to suggest avoiding technology-specific lessons like the plague while the other seems to promote lessons or classes that focus on the technology. To me it resembles the debates I have heard on phonics and whole language or teacher-centered versus student-centered. I don't think the ideas are mutually exclusive and the answer is probably a balance between the two.
Expert 1: So what would your "balance" look like in an elementary school?
Expert 3: Well, I've seen it done successfully in different ways in different schools. One approach taken by a number of schools has created a computer teacher position, sometimes by modifying the media specialist position. Students visit the computer teacher in the lab on a scheduled basis. This teacher is responsible for teaching students the computer skills. The best programs have the computer skills lessons draw on the content the students are working with in their regular classroom as much as possible. For example, the students might be word processing a story written in language arts or creating a multimedia presentation on a social studies topic. The benefit of this model is that it can be done without demanding that all teachers be comfortable and capable with computers.
Another school approach took that method a step further by designing a school-wide scope and sequence for computer skills. Because the scope and sequence was carefully followed, the basic skills new to each grade only took the first quarter of the year to teach. During that quarter the computer teacher drew on lessons and content from the regular classroom as mentioned earlier.
During the rest of the year the computer teacher facilitated larger integrated projects with the classroom teacher. Much of the learning and work on the projects was conducted in the classroom and then brought to the lab. So, during the first quarter the technology skills dominated the curriculum. During the rest of the year the content curriculum drew on the skills already learned with occasional skill mini-lessons taught on an as-needed basis. The difficult piece to this method is finding the time for the teachers to get together to plan the integrated projects.
The classroom teachers in that school knew what skills the students had and could plan assignments that drew on those skills and knew they wouldn't have to teach the skills themselves. Many also used Drill and Skill software or simulation software in their classrooms, things that didn't require skills instruction.
A third method, and probably the most common one, is to rely on the classroom teacher to teach everything, including the technology skills. The teachers decide what projects they want to do with their students and teach whatever computer skills are necessary. They are not locked into a particular lab schedule and can schedule time for when it fits their plans and needs.
Finding the time to plan is obviously easier with this third method and the integration with other subjects can be a little tighter. However, this method requires a greater level of computer expertise for all teachers and is therefore often less successful on a school-wide basis. Furthermore, the coherence and consistency across classrooms is less likely, making it difficult for teachers to know which skills have and have not been taught.
Expert 2: I've seen schools like your third example, but what seems more common is that a few teachers in a building have become the school experts and the rest of the staff use computers in a hodge podge manner, if they use them at all. I think the school-wide or district-wide scope and sequence of skills is what makes the difference. And that gets back to my idea that students do need significant instruction on computer related skills, possibly even complete classes.
Expert 3: I think you may be right in identifying the critical role that the scope and sequence may have in what makes a bigger difference than the methods of instruction I mentioned above. In most schools I have visited there is no real computer curriculum or concrete competencies. Teachers pick and choose what they want to teach and administrators are happy as long as the boxes and wires are being used.
A few schools have taken a step forward and created technology-specific competencies for each grade level. But, very few have moved very far towards integrating technology-specific skills/methods into their core curricula.
Expert 1: And that's the ultimate step in integrating technology. ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) has put out a set of National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) that I think all schools would do well to consider. Instead of listing a set of computer skills for each grade, these are broad standards that focus on student learning with technology.
Expert 2: I've seen those standards too, but how much good are they in helping, say, a fifth grade teacher know what to teach? Maybe fifteen percent of a school's staff are going to know enough about technology, the software available, alternative uses, etc., to translate the standards into quality classroom instruction. Even then, the competencies aren't grade level-specific enough for teachers to know what they should do at each grade.
The State of Michigan has published a document, ITAC (Instructional Technology Across the Curriculum), that I think does a better job in laying out a scope and sequence.
Expert 1: I think the Michigan model for the secondary level is more effective than the one for elementary. The elementary model focuses too much on technology-specific skills, organizing the skills by word processing, multimedia, etc. It does offer integration ideas for each subject, but the skills aren't really integrated into the subjects. The secondary model seems to offer better integration into the core subjects. It organizes the skills by subject area first such as "High School Language Arts Word Processing Benchmarks."
However, I'd also note that the Michigan model has not integrated the broader standards of the NETS document. We need to keep the bigger vision in teachers' minds or they are more likely to focus on the activities than the purpose.
Expert 3: Maybe what we need to do is work on a document that could combine the strengths of NETS and ITAC documents. One that draws on the broader vision of the National competencies but that offers a more specific scope and sequence for each grade-level, making sure, of course, that it is deeply integrated into the core subjects. The litmus test should be that a grade- or subject-specific teacher knows what they are expected to teach AND the purpose behind it.
Expert 2: I'd add that schools would then be able to make a decision on whether their teachers are knowledgeable enough to teach the necessary skills themselves or if computer skill classes are necessary.
Conclusion
The purpose of the fictitious discussion above was to illustrate that there are many differing opinions on what technology integration should look like, and that there is no "right" answer.
Knowing what technology integration could be like is the first step towards revising your school or districts Technology Plan into a Technology Integration Plan. Before deciding what it should be like in your school or district, I would suggest finding and visiting several schools that have implemented different approaches to integrating technology into their core subjects.
I would also suggest visiting the MACUL Learning Interchange's Resource page that has links to the National Standards, Michigan's ITAC, and several other worthwhile resources. The URL is http://204.39.58.95:591/resources/standards.html.
If your school or district has a different approach to integrating technology into the core subjects I would love to hear about it. Please contact me at JordyW@aol.com.
© 2000, Jordy Whitmer
MACUL Newsletter copy - http://macul.org/newsletter/2000/jan2000/elementary.html