Articles of Interest

Teachers Strive to Show What Adding Technology to Classrooms Can Mean
San Jose Mercury News
Tuesday, November 28, 2000
by Katherin Corcoran

The Series:
As part of a series on the national quest to find what works in education, the Mercury News looks today at programs that researchers say do a good job harnessing computer power for student learning. Educators contend that these programs, still a rarity in the nation's classrooms, teach students teamwork, problem-solving and critical thinking, as well as increase their enthusiasm for learning. But there is little evidence that they raise achievements as measured by standardized test scores. Last spring, the series examined Success for All and Open Court, two pre-packaged reading programs that have developed strong followings among educators.

Math teacher Pam Ensign thought a computer program was the last thing she needed for middle-school students who still were struggling to add and subtract. But, desperate for new ideas, she signed on to help develop and test classroom software.

Six years later, the San Jose teacher is beyond convert and bordering on zealot. Every year her Herman Intermediate students, even those lacking basic skills, use computer-aided design to plan dream homes and Antarctic research stations, and eagerly tackle algebra, decimals and fractions in the process.

The change in Ensign's thinking reflects a national shift in the debate surrounding technology in classrooms. While some still question whether computers belong in schools, most educators say computers have become so widespread that the issue no longer is whether they're used, but how.

The computer-drill programs that many schools continue to use to teach reading and math actually hurt test scores, according to some studies. And the ubiquitous laboratory setups that allow students to get onto computers just a few times a week are inadequate, according to a growing consensus.

But programs such as Ensign's show more promise. When used as an educational tool rather than a classroom toy, proponents say, computers can spur projects that teach students teamwork, problem-solving and critical thinking, as well as increase their enthusiasm for learning.

"I've had kids who would come in at lunch and say, 'I've got to get this done,'" Ensign said. "I've had kids I couldn't get out of the building at night."

Such programs are rare, however. Bay Area initiatives such as the research-station project are among just a handful nationwide recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as the right way to use technology in the classroom of the future.

Because there is very little time for teacher training, and more than 80 percent of technology money is spent on software and machines, most educators continue to teach the computer to children, rather than using the computer to teach.

"Too many schools are still doing it the old way," said Judy Powers, manager of technology/curriculum for the Santa Clara County Office of Education, which each summer trains nearly 400 teachers how to develop multimedia projects like the Antarctic research station. Locally, "I would guess 10 to 20 percent of teachers know how to use technology effectively, and that percentage wouldn't be far off nationwide."

You've got the computer - now what?

Schools have come a long way since the days when Apple machines on audio-visual carts rolled from classroom to classroom. The past five years have seen a tremendous push to increase technology in the classroom, including lowering the ratio of students per computer at each school and wiring campuses for the Internet.

Public schools spent an estimated $5.67 billion on educational technology in the 1999-2000 school year, an average of $121.37 per student, according to a report this month by Market Data Retrieval, a Connecticut-based educational research firm.

But there is a growing concern about how that computing power is used. In a 1998 report on technology, Educational Testing Service research Harold Wenglinsky lamented that with the ever-popular students-per-computer statistic, "We don't know how many (of those computers) are behind locked doors, we don't know how many are broken, and we don't know how many teachers really know how to use them."

This fall, the technology-in-schools debate raged anew after Alliance for Childhood - a national group of educators, doctors and child-development experts - issued a report calling for a moratorium on more computers in schools. The group contends that billions are being spent on something that is unproven in its ability to boost learning. Meanwhile, the report said, computers rob young children of creativity, human relationships, hands-on learning and the fun and frolic of childhood.

Rather than a moratorium, however, the report prompted advocates to rally in defense of technology.

Jim McCarthy, who teaches a combined third and fourth grade at Oak Ridge Elementary in San Jose, contends that technology can help students understand things they would be unlikely to see on their own.

His students use the Internet, PowerPoint presentation software and Claris Works spreadsheets for group reports on California regions and weather patterns.

"You don't learn from the computer," he said. "You have to take the information and do something with it."

Oak Ridge Elementary is among the 45 Bay Area schools participating in the Challenge 2000 Multi-media Project sponsored by Joint Venture Silicon Valley and the San Mateo County Office of Education. The project is one of only two nationwide that the U.S. Department of Education recently recognized as "exemplary" for using technology in schools.

The research-station-design program in Ensign's class was one of only five "promising" programs the education department said appeared to use technology effectively for learning, but required more study. It is part of the Middle-School Mathematics Through Applications Program developed by the Institute for Research on Learning, now part of the West Ed research group in San Francisco.

The Challenge 2000 project provided grants and training for teachers to develop their own classroom technology projects that are curriculum-based, have a real-world connection and allow students to work in groups, make decisions about what they're learning and use the technology during a week-long period.

In kindergarten through high school classrooms across the Bay Area, the five-year, $6.6 million program has transformed everything from the old two-page report and classroom skit to the beginning biology lecture on cells.

Many steps to learning
At Miner Elementary in San Jose, Elaine Imada's sixth-graders wrote and produced a report on earthquakes using HyperStudio presentation software. The project not only involved researching the science and history of earthquakes but scanning photographs, creating sound, making page links and patching video of a simulated earthquake, which the students staged in a Barbie Dream House.

"If we had done this project on paper, I would have put all this information out and not remembered any of it," 12-year-old Shera Iosefa said. "Because we did it on the computer, it was much more interesting."

Santa Teresa High School Spanish teacher Eric Balochie used to assign his students two-page reports on topics of Hispanic history, culture or civilization. But in his Challenge 2000 project, he taught them Adobe Page Mill, and students built their own Web sites, complete with photos, sound, Quicktime videos and links to other students' Web sites.

Balochie also gave them an online take-home test, requiring them to visit sites other than their own to answer the questions.

In just a few weeks, "they learned more than I could teach them in a whole school year," he said.

The project allowed junior Hannah Sim, who loves art but is shy about speaking Spanish, to stand out. Her El Salvador Web site included an erupting volcano, Salvadoran music and an interview with a woman who survived a brutal death squad massacre of her family and village.

Teachers and an SRI International study agree that with Challenge 2000 projects, students were more motivated and more involved in their own learning.

When Santa Teresa teacher Linda Sparling assigned her desktop publishing students to design a brochure on the Alaskan Iditarod, one asked if he could design a Web site as well.

"Anytime a classroom teacher presents a project and the student comes back the next day above and beyond anything in the unit, you've won," Sparling said.

Challenge 2000 students also were far more likely to collaborate in small groups. Teachers were less likely to lecture and more likely to encourage students to solve problems independently, according to the SRI study, which compared a group of Challenge 2000 middle-school students with a group that was not in the program.

But studies on technology's effect on student achievement are mixed. A 1999 study of West Virginia fifth-graders showed that the longer they participated in a computer-education program linked to state standards, the more their standardized test scores increased.

At the same time, Wenglinksy's ETS study on the effect of classroom technology on National Assessment of Educational Progress math scores showed that students actually scored lower if they used the computer for drill and practice. The study also shows that the positive effect of technology is great on middle-school children, but negligible on fourth-graders, supporting the Alliance for Childhood contention that computers are unnecessary in lower grades.

The SRI study compared groups of middle-school students who created a brochure on issues of homeless students. While the group using technology outscored their counterparts in content, design and thinking about their audience, SRI researchers found the vast majority of students in both groups failed to fulfill the assignment.

And when researchers considered the grade level of the students involved, the statistical advantage of those using technology disappeared in all areas but design.

Bill Penuel, SRI senior education researcher, sees those results as promising, not mixed. The problem is that standardized tests, the current arbiter of student achievement, don't measure skills gained from using technology, such as teamwork and active learning, he said.

"The complexity of the kind of work was greater," he said of the multimedia projects, "and reflected more of the kinds of activities people are expected to do in the workplace."

To teach, you have to learn first
Teaching with technology also is limited by money, teacher training and time. Federal money for Challenge 2000 dried up this year, just as the government named it an exemplary program. Forty-five percent of 30,200 schools in the Market Data Retrieval study reported that at least half their teachers can't use a computer well enough to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Teachers who venture into technology tend to be self-taught or spend summers and weekends in training classes.

The multimedia projects themselves take a tremendous amount of planning. Teachers not only teach the subject matter, but they must include lessons on computer programs and steps to planning a multimedia project such as story-boarding, videotaping and script-writing.

"I'm motivated because of the excitement it creates with students. That gives me the initiative to continue, because it's difficult. The planning of it is time-consuming," sixth-grade teacher Imada said one recent afternoon as teachers from the Blossom Valley Learning Consortium streamed into her classroom for yet another after-hours technology planning meeting.

According to her students, that excitement doesn't end with her class. Shera, who worked on the earthquake project, now has Ensign for seventh-grade math. Hearing she might be designing an Antarctic research station, she raised both hands in the air.

"I know I can nail that," Shera said.

MODEL PROGRAMS

After reviewing 134 educational technology programs nationwide, the U.S. Department of Education this fall recognized a handful for doing a good job using computer power in the classroom.

PROGRAMS CITED AS EXEMPLARY:

Challenge 2000 Multimedia Project: A Silicon Valley-based program that trains kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers to use multimedia technology in their classrooms for project-based learning (http://pblmm.k12.ca.us/).

PROGRAMS IDENTIFIED AS PROMISING AND MERITING FURTHER STUDY:

Middle School Mathematics Through Applications Program: San Francisco Bay Area-based mathematics program for grades six through eight that engages students with real-world problem-solving while requiring them to grapple with mathematical concepts (http://mmap.wested.org/).

Maryland Virtual High School CoreModels Project: A Montgomery Public Schools project which has students use technology to model real-life situations such as epidemics or earthquakes and use computational science to solve problems (http://mvhs1.mbhs.edu/mvhsproj/cm.html).

Modeling Instruction in High School Physics: A program developed at Arizona State University and used nationwide, including high schools in the Bay Area, that teaches students to use computers to create scientific models to describe, explain, predict and control physical phenomena (http://modeling.la.asu.edu/modeling-HS.html).

One Sky, Many Voices: A kindergarten-through-12th-grade weather curriculum developed by the University of Michigan that uses technologies such as CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web to study weather and air quality (http://www.onesky.umich.edu/).

The Web Project: A consortium of community organizations, private industries and educational institutions that use new technologies to bring about systemic reform in Vermont school systems. The program uses multimedia and telecommunications to allow students and educators from far-flung schools to share and discuss their work (www.webproject.com).

Source: U.S. Department of Education

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