INTRODUCTION
Compact discs and CD-ROMs. Hypertext. The Internet. Videodiscs. Microcomputer-based laboratories. Virtual reality. Local and wide area networks. Instructional software. Macs, PCs, laptops, notebooks. Educational television. Voice mail and e-mail. Satellite communication. VCRs. Cable TV. Interactive video.
The list of "hot" technologies flowing into the country's school systems goes on and on. The technologies are powerful, exciting, readily available, and increasingly affordable. A recent Department of Education report notes, "Support for the use of technology to promote fundamental school reform appears to be reaching a new high."
Engaged learners are:
- responsible for their own learning
- energized by learning
- strategic
- collaborative
Technology is being used in education as a tool for learning, collaboration, curriculum development, and staff development. But how do we know that we're making the best use of technology? How can we be sure that we're using technology to support what we know about how students learn best? How can we make sure that technology supports engaged learning?
The only real measure of the effectiveness of technologies and technology-enhanced educational programs is the extent to which they promote and support students' engaged learning and collaboration.
Using technology for learning
Issues of learning and technology are more critical today than ever before. To meet new challenges, educational decision makers need information about technology - its cost effectiveness, how it delivers information, and its accessibility.
- Technologies are still very expensive. Decision makers must understand differences in cost, capabilities, use, and effectiveness among various technologies and technology-based programs in order to spend their limited dollars wisely.
- Technology changes how information and resources get to schools and other agencies. Electronic publishing allows many different kinds of information providers to serve schools. Printed textbooks may no longer be schools' primary sources of content. This reconfiguration must be planned with our learning goals for students as the top priority.
- Access to technology and technology-enhanced programs must be equitable, and not promulgate and extend differences in educational quality among schools. Decision makers must ensure that poor schools, especially those with students who are academically at risk, have the same opportunities to access and use technologies as schools that are financially better off.
Most evaluations of the effectiveness of technology focus on the technology itself - its costs, its complexity, and its feasibility in particular circumstances. They don't examine the effectiveness of technology as a tool for learning. This EdTalk offers a way to evaluate the effectiveness of various technologies and technology programs against the backdrop of new research on learning. It presents an analytic framework to help educators ensure that their use of technology complements their goals for student learning.
"Learning" here does not mean how well students perform on standardized tests. That's not learning, as researchers and educational reformers are coming to understand it. There's a dynamic shift occurring in this country as we move from traditional definitions of learning and course design to models of engaged learning that involve more student interaction, more connections among schools, more collaboration among teachers and students, more involvement of teachers as facilitators, and more emphasis on technology as a tool for learning. It is in this context that our framework operates; it is this type of engaged learning that technology must support to be effective.