Philosophy and Knowledge Base of the Technology in Education Program

At the national level, the International Society for Technology in Education has developed National Educational Technology Standards for both students (NETS-S) and teachers (NETS-T).  These standards enable students and teachers to function as researchers, problem-solvers, collaborators, problem-solvers, and communicators in an information society.  NETS-S provides profiles of technology-literature students for grades PreK-2, Grades 3-5, Grades 6-8, and Grades 9-12.  Similarly, NETS-T includes performance profiles for four phases of teacher development (general preparation, professional preparation, student teaching/internship, first-year teaching) for standards organized into six categories: Technology Operations and Concepts; Planning and Designing Learning Environments and Experiences; Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum; Assessment and Evaluation; Productivity and Professional Practice; and Social, Ethical, Legal, and Human Issues.

Definitive standards at the state and national levels for both teachers and students leverage greater access to and use of educational technology in the P-12 classroom and increase the need for support to teachers in the form of curriculum development and professional development.  Technology specialists/facilitators are needed to support integration of technology in the curriculum, as well as modeling for, mentoring, and providing technical assistance to P-12 teachers.  Such specialists/facilitators need to exhibit knowledge, skills, and dispositions that enable them to support teachers in their planning for, design of, and assessment of engaged learning environments that make effective use of technology.  To meet this need, the State of Illinois has recently developed a new certification and content area standards for Technology Specialist. The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) in cooperation with the International Society for Technology in Education has outlined performance assessment standards for Technology Facilitation.  However, school districts have difficulty finding applicants who meet these standards. Candidates that have both expertise in curriculum integration and peer coaching as well as the needed technical knowledge and skills are not easy to find. (Ken Wiseman, personal communication, September 9, 2002)

            The knowledge base in the relatively new field of technology in education builds upon what is known about best practice and linking it to the research and theory.  Best practice involves understanding ways in which current technology tools expand and enhance the learning environments of children.  Program students examine their practice in light of recent trends, research, and theory in our field.  Interactive technologies can be an important feature of constructivist learning activities through instrumental use of technology to enable and support new knowledge acquisition, understanding and exploration.  Seymour Papert's vision of microworlds took the view of computer as tool for making the abstract concrete and allowing the user to program the computer.

And in teaching the computer how to think, children embark on an exploration about how they themselves think . . . . Thinking about thinking turns the child into an epistemologist . . . . But to say that intellectual structures are built by the learner rather than taught by a teacher does not mean that they are built from nothing.  On the contrary:  Like other builders, children appropriate to their own use materials they find about them, most saliently the models and metaphors suggested by the surrounding culture.  (Papert, 1980, p. 19)

The advent of and focus on engaged learning and other current frameworks provide environments that guide the use of technology tools. These frameworks include and are exemplified by engaged learning (NCREL), anchored instruction (Bransfsord), and inquiry-oriented learning (Morrison & Lowther). The work of instructional designers including Wiggins and McTighe and Jonassen, comes into play as well. Integration of technology in support of carefully designed learning activities in which students are given opportunities to select, choose, and find the best material for their own goals (e.g., a WebQuest) provide the basis for work in our program. Cognitive psychologist, Robert Gagne provided guidance to teachers who are designing learning activities.  His framework includes desired learning outcomes, teaching strategies to achieve those outcomes, and assessment of the effectiveness of learning (Gagne, 1992; Wager & Gagne, 1988).

In light of the program mission to create technology specialists, students discuss adult learning theory and examine the work of experts in the field of designing professional development.  Current research examines the barriers as well as the support needed by practitioners moving forward in their efforts to integrate technology across the curriculum (Becker, 1998; Ertmer, 1999). Seminal research by David Dwyer and others involved in the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) project still provide important insights (Dwyer, 1994; Sandholtz, Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1997). The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM), the Profiler from the High Plains Regional Technology in Education Consortium, enGauge from the North Central Educational Regional Laboratory, as well as the Milken Professional Competency Continuum, provide ways of identifying stages teachers go through in their adoption and adaptation of new technologies.  It is this research that shows us how to help move practitioners through the various stages, enabling to weave powerful new technologies into their work. 

Members of the technology in education community such as David Thornburg, Jamie McKenzie, Alan November, and Doug Johnson, although not designing and implementing traditional research projects, are innovative, non-traditional thinkers, who have added reflective commentary on the integration of technology, thus adding new perspectives and insights. Larry Cuban’s work over the years helps us remember to not accept blindly but to question the ways in which technology is best used and the issues raised by technology.  Theory in the field is emerging, based on studies such as the comprehensive survey research completed by Becker (1998) and others through the Teaching, Learning and Computing research project of the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations. During NLU's TIE program, students build a professional library of articles and books; literature they have found during their studies that will, hopefully, guide them, as they become technology leaders in their learning communities. For a long while teacher knowledge was not valued.  Today we look for examples of teacher as researcher, honoring the knowledge practitioners bring to the table about what happens when students have technology in their hands; these studies, much as the earlier ACOT studies, will serve us as the field grows. 

The Technology in Education program is built upon Dewey’s belief that educational experiences must lead to positive growth, have continuity, and provoke change. Dewey insisted that the competent educator “…views teaching and learning as a continuous process of reconstruction of experience” (Experience and Education, 1938, p. 78).  In addition, program faculty believe learning is a constructive process with the following characteristics... (a) learning is achieved through relevant experience, (b) learning is rich in meanings, (c) learning is domain or situation specific, (d) learning is strongly influenced by social and cultural contexts, and (e) learning is less purely cognitive and less grounded in abstract principles [Adapted from Black & Ammon, 1992, P. 324].  Adult learners feel they have a greater sense of direction when they can direct some of their own experiences and work actively with other adults in the learning environment (Lieb, 1991).

According to Perkins (1992), technology can be any of the following:  an information resource, a learning tool, or a storage device. Along with using technology to create an information-rich learning environment, storage and presentation of information as projects or demonstrations becomes a significant feature of technology in teaching and learning. Technologies provide students in our program with mechanisms for accessing data and understanding complex problems, and with opportunities for social dialogue and discussion. Students spend less time looking for information (answers) and more time reflecting, analyzing, constructing their own understanding of technology in education, and applying that understanding to transforming their classroom environments and instructional practices.

The vast array of information available through computer use also suggests changing roles for teachers and students, encouraging more "side-by-side" activities.  As expressed by Mary Alice White, "Everyone has equal access to information--teachers and students alike.  (One could say that the technologies have democratized information, just as the printing press democratized the Bible)" (White, 1987, p. 15).  Introducing a role for the computer in the classroom enables a teacher to step back and re-examine his or her pedagogy and to try new and varied instructional strategies in the classroom. Having such opportunities in their own learning experiences, practitioners are more likely, and more able, to provide such experiences for P-12 students and other educators.

1. Access to technology-rich learning environments where participants use and discuss a variety of state-of-the-art interactive technologies while engaging in learning activities based upon authentic, inherently complex, constructivist activities. These involve the integration of multidisciplinary content and interactive technologies into P-12 teaching and learning. 

Classes (excluding TIE 593 Seminar in Technology in Education) are held in the computer labs on each campus.  Each participant in the program is guaranteed a computer for his or her use during class time.  Therefore class size (and cluster enrollment) is limited to the number of computers available in the lab (usually 15).  Class sessions include a variety of instructional strategies modeling use of technology in support of instruction.

2. Guidance and encouragement to assist participants in exercising curricular judgment and creativity necessary to develop and implement meaningful and contextually appropriate learning activities that can empower their students and professional colleagues to begin thoughtful and considered uses of technology in support of P-12 teaching and learning.

As described above, participant experiences in the program are around (1) authentic tasks with real-world applications and (2) complex problems that integrate multidisciplinary content and related skills.  The teacher’s most significant responsibility for supporting constructivist-learning activities becomes creating or developing information-rich learning environments where students can think, explore, and begin to construct meaning.  Participants in the program consider the changing role of the teacher from information provider to one who presents a problem or task to be solved, acts as a guide and facilitator, and one who provides scaffolding for learning experiences.  Participants examine both subject matter and technology-related standards along with their teaching role as they design and implement lessons and units for P-12 settings and professional development activities for other educators.

3. Access to informational and expert human resources, including other students in the program, to help broaden participants’ working knowledge of technology in teaching and learning environments.

Nearly all participants in our program are current practitioners.  Some are classroom teachers and others are in technology-based roles in their schools.  The broad base of teacher knowledge and experience that our students bring to their course work provides opportunities for classmates to compare methods and strategies used in educational technology in a variety of authentic educational settings.

Students frequently go through our program in cohort groups which we call clusters. In these clusters students learn to work as a group, do peer mentoring and gain a perspective about the various ways in which technology is used in other settings. This two-year cluster connection appears to provide an important component for many students.

Goals and Objectives of the Technology in Education Program.

The Technology in Education program will prepare technology specialists/facilitators who:

1.     Use and model research-based best practice in the integration of technology in the P-12 curriculum.

2.     Mentor and provide technical assistance to P-12 teachers in their planning for, implementation of, and assessment of student-centered engaged learning environments that make effective use of technology.  Such student-centered learning environments will address diverse needs (cognitive, physical, social, and emotional) of students while meeting local, state, and national standards. 

3.     Practice collaborative inquiry as students and professionals, assessing, reflecting, and taking action to improve the use of technology in the P-12 learning environment and the infrastructure to support that use, promoting equitable access to current technologies, and addressing social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of technology in P-12 schools.

4.     Increase their roles as professionals in the area of educational technology, participating in professional associations and professional development activities in their school setting.

Becker, H. (1998). Computer technology and instructional reform.  [Online] Retrieved January 23, 2003 from the TLC home web site http://www.crito.uci.edu/ tlc/html/tlc_home.html.

Black, A. & Ammon, P. (1992).  A developmental-constructiveness approach to teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 43(5), 323-.

Cochran-Smith, M., Lytle, S. L., (1999). The Teacher Research Movement: A Decade Later. Educational Researcher; 28 (7),15-25.

Cuban, L. (1990). Teachers and machines: Classroom use of technology since 1920. NY: Teachers College Press.

Dwyer. D. (1994). Apple classrooms of tomorrow: What we’ve learned.  Educational Leadership, 51(7). [Online} retrieved on January 23, 2003 from the  ASCD web site at http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/edlead/9404/dwyer.html.

Ertmer, P.A. (1999). Addressing first-and second-order barriers to change: Strategies for technology integration. Educational Technology Research and Development, 47(4), 47-56.

Gagné, R. M., (1992). Principles of instructional design. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Lieb, S, (1991). Principles of Adult Learning. [Online]. Retrieved on January 26, 2003 from the Principles of Adult Learning web page at http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/ intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-2.htm

Morrison, G.R., & Lowther, D. L. (2002). Integrating computer technology into the classroom (2^nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.

Perkins, D.N. (1992) "Technology meets constructivism: Do they make a marriage?" (Ch. 4). In T.M. Duffy & D.H. Jonassen (Eds.), Constructivism and the Technology of Instruction: A conversation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Also available in Educational Technology, (May 1991) 31(5), 18-23.

Royer, R. (2002). Supporting Technology Integration through Action Research. Clearing House, 75(5), p233-37

Sandholtz, J. H., Ringstaff, C., Dwyer, D. C. (1997). Teaching with technology: Creating student-centered classrooms. New York: Teachers College.

Taylor, R. (1980).  The computer in the school: Tutor, tool, tutee. New York: Teachers College Press.

Wager, W., &  Gagné, R.M. (1988). Designing computer-aided instruction. In Jonassen, D.H. (Ed.) Instructional design for microcomputer courseware. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

White, M.A. Imagery as the new language of the information age. Paper presented at the National Educational Computing Conference, Philadelphia, June, 1987.

Last modified on Friday, August 29, 2008 @ 1:24PM by: Randy Hansen_

co-aspen.nl.edu_