The Learnal

In the early sixties there was a new movement in education whose principles embodied creativity, collaboration, authenticity, individualism, and openness. Walls and doors were dramatically removed from classrooms so students could communicate with peers of all ages and share resources across the building. Teaching was tailored to individual students as they frequently pursued their own learning interests, worked in the community, and collaborated with peers on self directed learning projects. Teachers shifted their roles from learning directors to learning mentors and spent more time working with students individually and in small groups. This movement was call the “Open Classroom.” Sadly, the open classroom faded away and as standards-based curriculum and high-stakes testing have taken the forefront, one wonders if there is any hope for the principles the open classroom embodied. I believe there is.

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Based on years of experience providing technical assistance and professional development, Byrom and Bingham (2001) concluded, “leadership is probably the single most important factor affecting the successful integration of technology into schools” (p. 4). A survey of the literature on school technology integration reveals a number of frequently cited components of effective technology leadership including: developing and communicating a shared vision for technology use, modeling the effective use of technology use by administration, administrative support of changes in policies and practices, providing teacher incentives, and hiring practices that consider technological literacy and leadership as criteria for selection (Baylor & Ritchie, 2002; CEO Forum, 1999; Kelly & Thomas, 2002; Milken Exchange, 1998; Byrom, 2007; ISTE, 2002; U.S. Department of Education, 2002: Frazier & Bailey, 2004).

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On a recent mission to incorporate American Memory and PowerPoint as part of a 4th grade webquest, I though I would browse the literature on the subject. First of all, I was surprised at how few results were returned when entering the keyword “webquest” in the NClive database. If I’m not mistaken, I believe that there were about 72 hits. Just out of curiosity, I tried the ERIC database and only got 74. Considering that the webquest has been around since ’95, there has apparently been very little written in the major media sources on the topic and the academic journals. As a student in a Masters program in Educational Technology, this was even alarming. Typically, instructional delivery models are frequently studied and evaluated, but there has been very little concrete research on this topic. I was, however, fortunate enough to find in the NClive database an article from an excellent source called the Journal of Research on Technology in Education published by the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE), famed for the NETS standards that are used widely in schools and teacher education programs.

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An old proverb says that, “A vision without a plan is just a dream, a plan without a vision is just drudgery, but a vision with a plan…” Perhaps having a plan for technology is unlikely to change the world, but it is certainly as important for effectively integrating technology into schools as the support of a strong leader. Without a sound plan, the necessary resources to carry out this plan, and an evaluation of whether or not the plan is working, the vision is merely wishful thinking, despite the initial good intentions. Perhaps this is what the state of Kentucky had in mind when they became the first state in the union to fully fund a comprehensive technology plan, or why in 1994 state legislators in Ohio required every district to develop a technology plan a prerequisite to participation in a statewide technology initiative (Milken Exchange, 1998).

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I’ve spent the past few day pouring over a series of reports that are part of the Use, Support and Effect of Instructional Technology Study in an effort to determine how technology use is being studied and to gather insight into conducting my own survey of technology use within my district.  I’ve decided that this particular study will serve as a model for my own because of the similarity in purpose and the method of investigation, specifically for phase one of USEiT study which dealt simply with documenting the classroom uses of technology and support. 

Although the scale of this study and the technical aspects involved in the data analysis are intimidating, what I have been able to understand from the study has helped me to clarify my own research questions, focus the scope of my thesis, and understand how an instrument is designed and implemented. As a result, my own study will still focus primarily on teacher use of technology but will be expanded to include factors related to technology use.

What I have found disappointing in terms of the technical aspect of the study was a failure to mention the specific sources used to determine the factors related to technology use and why those factors are important to examine. 

Notes continued…

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Although I’m naturally skeptical of a study whose findings so neatly coincide with the business objectives of the large company who sponsored the Teachers Talk Tech survey, there is still much in this study that is relevant to my thesis. 

Both the purpose and the goals of this survey, i.e. learning  "how k-12 teachers use computers in their jobs" in order to "help communities make academic choices" are quite similar to my own thesis, so examining which questions were asked and how provided some guidance and understanding into my own project.

Although there is little within the report besides the findings, I found it interesting to note that the majority of questions focused on teacher attitudes and beliefs (which are often linked with use) and teacher skill level or training, as opposed to specific uses by teachers or barriers to use. So, although the actual results were not very informative, knowing that factors such as professional development, teacher’s attitudes and beliefs, and their confidence and skill level are being considered when examining technology use is helpful. I would have been curious to understand specifically why the question used were chosen and the literature that guided the report, but I suppose that will have to be left for later lit reviews.

Notes Continued…

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Just when I thought the studies surveying the landscape of computer usage by teachers was non-existent, I came across a couple of studies via Google Scholar of all places, that used a survey methodology to examine computer usage by teachers. The Teachers Talk Tech survey was commissioned fairly recently by CDW-G in 2006 and another back in ‘98 funded by the National Science Foundation titled Teacher and Teacher-Directed Use of Computers and Software.

Aside form the large scale survey on Teacher Use of Computers and the Internet Use commissioned by the National Center for Educational Statistics and a handful of dissertations and journal articles describing computer usage by teachers, I was pretty discourage that efforts to determine how teachers were actually using across their practice the massive investment made by so many schools throughout the nation.

Interestingly enough, I came across one of these studies from an interesting article found in Google Scholar titled Computer Use by Teachers: Are Cuban’s Prediction Correct? that attempts to refute Cuban’s claim that technology and teachers simply weren’t meant to mix, hence the findings from reports that cite a limited lack of usage.

More to the point, Google Scholar recently came through with another useful hit of a large scale statewide study called the Use, Support, and Effect of Instructional Technology Study (USEiT) which tackles what its name implies. This study was found though the “cited by” link from an earlier study I found, a research strategy that has become increasingly useful for finding more recent works and which has made Google Scholar handy tool in the researchers tool kit.

After a weekend of agonizing over the direction and purpose of my thesis, or rather lack thereof, and having even considered starting entirely from scratch, I spent much of this evening and the prior rethinking the aim of this endeavor and have come to the conclusion that this data collection on teacher use of technology will provide a great opportunity for addressing objectives from both my district’s strategic plan and technology plan while gaining some valuable insight into how actual practicing teachers are using technology to enhance their practice and why they’ve adopted those uses.  Below are the two main district objectives that this thesis will help address.

In terms of the content of the survey to assess teacher access and needs, the State of North Carolina has adopted the NETS-T standards http://tps.dpi.state.nc.us/standards.html which will provide a foundation for the survey instrument, though the focus is less on teacher competencies and more on actual practice. 

Timeline for completing literature review.

I’ve recently been toying with the idea of combing my research project with my school newsletter by using the interviews I plan to conduct to collect data as source material for weekly articles that highlight our technology using teachers. I thought that rather than wait for the thesis to be written, my ongoing findings could be shared immediately with the staff through the use of an online blog and/or our school newsletter. Perhaps this would also stimulate conversations regarding the use of technology an help me indirectly gather data while providing a teachers a venue for ongoing discussion. If this is to happen, I really need to start my literature review so I can begin developing my questionnaire.