Classroom Technologies Alter Teaching and Learning: NW Report, 11/97

November 1997
Classroom Technologies Alter Teaching and Learning

A package of materials on education technology soon will be arriving in the mailboxes of technology coordinators and media specialists throughout the North-west region. The package employs a broad spectrum of communications media—print, video, and CD-ROM—to guide and inspire schools as they work to weave technological tools into their classrooms and curricula.
The package, published by NWREL’s Northwest Educational Technology Consortium (NETC), contains the following items:

A CD-ROM titled Networking Issues in K-12 Schools
A publication called A Guide to Networking for K-12 Schools
A video called Classrooms in Transformation
A report titled Closing the Equity Gap in Technology Access and Use

Networking Issues
The interactive CD-ROM—enlivened with graphics, sound, video, photos, and animation—takes users through the fundamentals of computer networking (that is, linking computers locally, regionally, or internationally). The CD’s primary target, schools’ technology planning teams, typically include players with varied roles in the educational picture. So the CD offers "guided tours" tailored for teachers, administrators, and school board members, in addition to technology coordinators. It offers guidance on planning and building a network, as well as insight into the impact of networking on schools.
The benefits of networking are many, the CD reports. Sharing files, applications, and printers are the prime advantages, along with e-mail and access to library materials and Internet resources.
But the plusses can be undermined by the many pitfalls schools face when they begin to network. The CD identifies the top six problems educators confront in the world of computer networking: (1) unequal knowledge among staff; (2) inappropriate match of technology and objectives; (3) no clear instructional focus for use of technology; (4) no annual technology budget; (5) poor technology inventory; (6) few staff development activities. Schools can overcome the pitfalls in large part by paying attention to what the CD calls the "human side of the technology equation." Schools should attend to the human side by recognizing that:

Investing in human resources is of primary importance
Hands-on training and access to technology are essential
Teachers need systemic support
Multiple training strategies work best

A theme stressed on the CD is the idea of "classrooms without walls." Networks can break down barriers for both teachers and students, the CD maintains. About teachers, it says, "Electronic communication through networks can transcend the walls of isolation that can so often shape the teaching profession, and allow teachers to converse and share experiences with colleagues, school administrators, parents, and experts in the field."
As for students, schoolhouse boundaries fall away as kids collaborate with other classmates and with students and experts around the world. "It has expanded our classroom, blown away the walls," one teacher observes.
"We can bend time and space," says another teacher. With networking, teachers are no longer bound by schedules and curricula that divide knowledge into compartments. Math and science, history and geography, literature and art begin to blend and merge when students have infinite resources and the time to explore them.
The CD offers a big bonus: A library stocked with 16 full-text publications relating to networking or other aspects of educational technology. Users need only point and click to pull up an entire document and read it on their screen.
Networking: The Basics
A how-to guide offers an easy-to-understand discussion of computer networking for K-12 schools: definitions of network terminology, planning strategies, and guidelines for operating and managing a network. Among the many topics covered are LANs and WANs (local-area and wide-area networks), costs, standards, infrastructure, training, and security. The publication provides a checklist for schools to use in analyzing their networking needs, a sample wiring specification, and brief snapshots of networking in several Northwest schools. Contact and resource information is given for the states of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.
Transforming Classrooms
Technology, when used well, can change the way teachers teach and students learn. The 23-minute video, produced jointly by NETC and Seattle Public Schools, explores the momentous shift in classroom roles and relationships that technology can engender.
"Students no longer wait for teachers to fill them with information or rely on textbooks for answers," the narrator asserts. In the technologically advanced classroom, students are in charge of their learning—"explorers, producers, and presenters" of knowledge.
The video shows snapshots of classrooms where these "self-directed learners" collaborate, work on teams, set goals, devise strategies, and select options. They analyze and interpret. They evaluate their own progress. In short, these active learners take control of their learning.
With students driving their own learning, teachers relinquish their role as fount of knowledge. Instead, they work beside students to guide, support, encourage, suggest, and—perhaps most revolutionary of all—join in the learning process. A teacher in this setting is "circulating, interacting with the students," the narrator says. He or she is "encouraging informed guessing, monitoring discussion, helping connect new information with old, redirecting focus when needed."
Flexibility in time and space is essential if technology is to fulfill its promise, the video stresses. Such classrooms are noisy and messy as students work in flexible groupings. Rigid scheduling gives way to time frames that flex with changing needs and goals. Subjects blur and overlap when students work on real-life, real-time projects that aren’t boxed into separate disciplines.

In this environment, the video says, reticent kids often blossom. "Technology can be a great leveler," one teacher observes.
Equity Gap
The recent advance of technology into homes, classrooms, businesses, and society at large creates exciting and challenging learning opportunities for children from all walks of life. However, technology—often referred to as the "second language"—can also leave some students lagging behind their peers in disturbing ways.
"Often thought of as a solution to problems, new technology sometimes extends existing ones," notes the report, Closing the Equity Gap in Technology Access and Use: A Practical Guide for K-12 Educators. "In our society, the gap between those who know how to use technology and those who don’t is increasing at a cost to both individuals and society."
The report, co-produced by NWREL’s Technology and Equity centers, synthesizes the literature on equity in computer use and other educational technology.
Citing 15 years of research, the report notes that the inequitable distribution and use of computers and other technologies:

Appear at all educational levels
Occur among districts as well as within and across schools
Often result from inattention
Endure indefinitely without planned interventions

"The present system for funding public education presents a formidable barrier to equal educational opportunity in technology," the report states. "Districts and schools will continue to experience substantial differences in the financial and educational resources available to them. However, educators with a commitment to equity have done and can do much to lessen or overcome financial and other barriers."
The report is directed at district planners, technology committee members (including community members and parents), curriculum planners or reviewers, and teachers. The section titled "Identifying Inequities in Technology" presents the disparities in technology access and use as a set of questions to increase awareness of the issues. It is followed by a section called "Finding Solutions," which describes a planning process to help foster district and community commitment to equity, discusses how to address equity in a school plan, and emphasizes the need to collect information on computer laboratory usage and course enrollments. The final section includes strategies for addressing inequities based on the author’s review of the literature. (An electronic version of the report can be viewed at http://www.netc.org/equity.)

Technology coordinators in every K-12 public school in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming should expect their "Best of NETC" package after Christmas. The package also is available for purchase, as are individual items from the package. To order, please return the Document Order Form.

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