As access to computer-based technology in schools and classrooms increases, greater emphasis has been placed on preparing teachers to use technology for instructional purposes. Survey data collected from 2,894 teachers in 22 Massachusetts districts were analyzed to examine the extent to which technology is used in and out of the classroom for instructional purposes. In addition to defining six specific categories of instructional use of technology, this study provides evidence that teachers generally use technology more for preparation and communication than for delivering instruction or assigning learning activities that require the use of technology. Important differences, however, were found among teachers who were new to the field compared with their more experienced colleagues. Although new teachers reported higher levels of comfort with technology and use it more for preparation, more experienced teachers report using technology more often in the classroom when delivering instruction or having stude...

Examining Teacher Technology Use: Implications for Preservice and Inservice Teacher Preparation.

Meta-analyses were performed including 26 studies conducted between 1992–2002 focused on the comparison between K–12 students writing with computers vs. paper-and-pencil. Significant mean effect sizes in favor of computers were found for quantity of writing (d=.50, n=14) and quality of writing (d= .41, n=15). Studies focused on revision behaviors between these two writing conditions (n=6) revealed mixed results. Others studies collected for the meta-analysis which did not meet the statistical criteria were also reviewed briefly. These articles (n=35) indicate that the writing process is more collaborative, iterative, and social in computer classrooms as compared with paper-and-pencil environments. For educational leaders questioning whether computers should be used to help students develop writing skills, the results of the meta-analyses suggest that on average students who use computers when learning to write are not only more engaged and motivated in their writing, but they produce written work that is of greater length and higher quality.

The Effect of Computers on Student Writing: A Meta-analysis of Studies from 1992 to 2002

Thinking with images plays a central role in scientific creativity and communication but is neglected in science classrooms. This article reviews the fundamental role of imagery in science and technology and our current knowledge of visual-spatial cognition. A novel analogic and thematic organization of images and visualization within science and technology is proposed that can help in the generation and evaluation of classroom activities and materials, and serve as a focus for professional development programs in visual-spatial thinking for science teachers. Visual-spatial thinking includes vision—using the eyes to identify, locate, and think about objects and ourselves in the world, and imagery—the formation, inspection, transformation, and maintenance of images in the “mind's eye” in the absence of a visual stimulus. A spatial image preserves relationships among a complex set of ideas as a single chunk in working memory, increasing the amount of information that can be maintained in consciousness at a given moment. Vision and imagery are fundamental cognitive processes using specialized pathways in the brain and rely on our memory of prior experience. Visual-spatial thinking develops from birth, together with language and other specialized abilities, through interactions between inherited capabilities and experience. Scientific creativity can be considered as an amalgam of three closely allied mental formats: images; metaphors; and unifying ideas (themes). Combinations of images, analogies, and themes pervade science in the form of “master images” and visualization techniques. A critique of current practice in education contrasts the subservient role of visual-spatial learning with the dominance of the alphanumeric encoding skills in classroom and textbooks. The lack of coherence in curriculum, pedagogy, and learning theory requires reform that addresses thinking skills, including imagery. Successful integration of information, skills and attitudes into cohesive mental schemata employed by self-aware human beings is a basic goal of education. The current attempt to impose integration using themes is criticized on the grounds that the required underpinning in cognitive skills and content knowledge by teachers and students may be absent. Teaching strategies that employ visual-spatial thinking are reviewed. Master images are recommended as a novel point of departure for a systematic development of programs on visual-spatial thinking in research, teacher education, curriculum, and classroom practice. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed 83:3–54, 1999.

Visual-spatial thinking: An aspect of science overlooked by educators

This paper examines current issues related to technology integration and provides a contextual framework with which school principals can undertake new leadership responsibilities in this area. Selected examples of successful technology integration are provided to inform current technology leadership practices. The leadership goals, competencies and responsibilities needed in order to achieve this preferred future are described. In the final section, the authors draw on professional experiences as researcher and teacher/leader to build and expand on a five‐part leadership model currently in use by a large urban school district to interpret multiple dimensions of technology leadership for principals. Ways in which this framework can serve as a guide for school leaders as they develop technology competencies, implement professional growth plans, work with their community, and provide daily technology leadership, mentorship and advocacy for teachers in an elementary school are discussed.

Technology leadership for the twenty‐first century principal

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED462924.pdf

The Learning Return on Our Educational Technology Investment: A Review of Findings from Research.

The nation's most important educational goal must be to produce learners adequately prepared for life and work in the 21st century. Computer- and network-based technology will play a key role in reaching that goal. In 1983, there was about one computer for every 125 students in the nation's public schools. By 1995, there was one computer for every nine students. In 1994, U.S. schools spent about $3 billion on computer- and network-based technology. Despite all this activity, however, examples of schoolwide use of technology are comparatively rare and isolated. This report identifies principles for guiding public officials, educators, and others concerned with increasing the use of technology to improve the performance of schools and school systems. Prepared as a result of RAND's Critical Technologies Institute (CTI) participation in federal efforts to plan a research agenda and develop a national educational technology plan, it is based upon a series of workshops, interviews, and literature reviews. This report takes stock of the current status of the use of technology by U.S. public elementary and secondary schools and suggests some of the challenges that face educators, policymakers, and producers of educational technology and software as they seek to expand and deepen the use of technology in schools.

/pdf/fostering-the-use-of-educational-technology-elements-of-a-hr875o2jfl.pdf

Arthur Melmed

Papers

Fostering the Use of Educational Technology: Elements of a National Strategy

Fostering the Use of Educational Technology