Technology in Education
Group #9
Appalachian State University
Fall 2009
Shawna Summers, Zack Underwood, Khou Vang
Introduction
Throughout time, the term “technology” continues to change based on the time period in which it is used. According to Heinch (1984), early technology evolved primarily through accident and trial and error. In his findings, Heinch (1984) found that, for a period of time, dictionaries defined technology as “the systematic treatment of an art” (p. 74). New dictionaries such as Webster’s Dictionary defined technology partly as “a technical method of achieving a practical purpose” (Heinch, 1984). In 1967, technology was defined as “the systematic application of scientific and other organized knowledge to practical tasks” (Galbraith, 1967). Heinch (1984) reported that Daniel Bell, a sociologist defines technology as “the instrumental ordering of human experience within logic of efficient means, and the direction of nature to use its power for material gain” (p.75). Today, Wikipedia (2009) proposed that technology is a broad concept dealing with human as well as animal species usage of knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects their ability to control and adapt to its environment. The constant search to redefine the word technology and the historical definitions of technology are still abstract. In whichever way professionals define technology; it is the characteristics and applications of technology in classrooms or instructional technology, which is important for this particular essay. The rise of modern technology calls for instructional technology as a new and emerging process to improve learning and knowledge. The article "The Proper Study of Instructional Technology" reported that in order to better understand instructional technology, it is better to consider it as a subset of technology rather than as a subset of education because technologies of instruction have developed to help an instructor improve a lesson (Heinch 1984).
Historical Practices (1900 – 1990):
By the early 1900s the United States had experienced quite a few growing pains as it moved from the Agricultural Era to the Industrial Era. This helped to set the stage for education in the 20th century. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human history and in the mindset of people with almost every aspect of daily life being influenced by it in some way (Wiki 2009). Education felt the ripple effect of the Industrial Era and was driven in a new direction of efficiency and productivity thanks to the minds of educational progressives and child-centered reformers (Cuban 1985). This mind set created a movement by teachers and non-teachers alike to innovatively discover new and improved ways to encourage excellence in student knowledge output while simultaneously getting more “bang for the buck”. Technology was crowned the savior and viewed as the superhero of education before it ever hit the classroom. Education moved into a century full of promise and electrifying excitement especially for those in the lead.
Film was the first of many innovations tested in the classroom in 1910 and it caught on quick. While school districts were scrambling to find funds to purchase the equipment, “Kleine published a 336-page Catalogue of Educational Motion Pictures which listed over 1,000 film titles that could be rented by schools” (Cuban 1985, p12) and by the next year Edison released the first set of films specifically for the classroom (Miller & Cruce, 2005). Saettler suggested that while many schools were excited to get involved with the new technology there were just as many that were fearful such as Boston banning films due to it being a fire hazard.
Only seven years later the radio emerges as the next new super innovation in the classroom yet it isn’t until 1921 (four years later) that educational radio hits the airwaves in Utah broadcasting classroom lectures (Saettler, 1990). Films continue to be utilized while radio slowly emerges in schools around the country. The radio is believed to be able to remove the teacher from the classroom and use them only for needed guidance. Slowly films took a back burner to the radio and were seen by some as a nuisance to education.
"To a student of educational radio, prowling through yellowed scripts, it seems almost incredible that teachers who presumably hoped to reach men's minds elected to attempt it with anesthetics. Surely, secrets of audience psychology readily mastered by semi-literate movie stars and dance-band leaders are not hidden from the academicians."
(White, in Saettler, 1990, pp. 201-202)
More and more schools began incorporating the radio into the classroom by playing 20 to 30 minute classes for students on subjects ranging from math, penmanship, and history. The Little Red School House aired in 1924 with lessons prepared by teachers and students. Radio hits an all time high in education by the mid 1930s and tapered off quickly with the assurgency of the television. Sound was eventually dubbed over the silent films, but television was the grand slam on the AV (audio and visual) technological front.
By 1956 television took center stage in the classroom and in continuing education with an excess of 100 schools televising courses nationally, NBC broadcasts The Continental Classroom for higher education, and but not limited to WXXI airs a 15 minute news program geared toward 4th- 8th graders (this airs for almost 50 years) (Miller & Cruce, 2005). Televisions were donated in such magnitude that the price tag for all television donations rose to above $100 million dollars with the Ford Foundation donating a substantial portion (Ford, 2006). This was and continues to be the highest amount of money donated to schools for a specific technological advance. Not only were TVs donated, there were studios built, and staff hired to design and develop TV shows for education; some studios were even housed within the school. The idea here was the same as it was when radio came out, that the television would again be the primary educator and that the teacher would be at its’ command.
The 1950s is the decade of the television. TV surpasses both film and radio in revenue and airtime. The next decade, the 1960s, started the questioning regarding the adverse affects TV had on students and here begins the expected decline of the television in education as well as the unfolding of the next classroom superhero, the computer. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 brought new money into schools and allowed mainframes and minicomputers to be purchased, while these high tech devices were primarily used for the administration and school counseling, students were given the opportunity to be exposed to this new and amazing device (Murdock).
Keyboards, word processors, fax machines, overhead projectors, copy machines, personal computers, printers, handheld calculators, computer mice, etc began to flood the schools with their promise of a more productive student and faculty around the 1970s and on through the 1990s. As Cuban (1985) clearly states, there is no persuasive body of evidence that confirms the belief that technology enhances productivity or efficiency, but the search still continues and the majority of educators you meet will inevitably tell you that technology in the classroom is a step in the right direction and is a necessity in education.
Current Practices:
Technology in the classroom is now further advanced for both the teacher and students since 1900. Today’s student is growing up in a digital era and this is “the generation [of students] that has spoken the language of technology from birth” (Lambert & Cuper, 2008, para. 1). Now, technology is being used in almost every classroom to communicate, present, educate, and assist teachers as well as students.
As communication tools, K-12 schools both public and private, are taking place in a global community of students and teachers thanks to technological tools. Students do not need to assume what they are learning in a textbook, they can ask peers in other countries and find the truth. Videoconferencing is the technology that is connecting students around the world together to create projects, conduct reports and communicate. “Students meet with students from the UK, from a number of provinces in Canada, and from Pakistan, to name a few, and recently with students from India” (Harrison) to learn about cultural celebrations, geographic differences and more (2009, para. 15). The classroom is now expanding to include up to date understandings of diverse ways of life.
Not only are presentations taking place via videoconferencing, but also the traditional idea of presentations is changing. Since students today have literally grown up with technology, they assume that technology should be an integral part of class presentations. The usual oral presentation is becoming passé and teachers are adopting new technologies to enhance student learning and engagement. Classrooms now use interactive whiteboards, or Smart Boards for class presentations to give students more excitement towards learning. “The switch to interactive whiteboards, according to Moses Lake School District educators, has improved flexibility in teaching and also boosted student engagement” (Thompson, 2009, para. 3). Teachers can also present lessons and access information from earlier lessons much easier thanks to the interactive whiteboard. Knight, Pennant and Peggot (2005) found that by having the easy ability to reference earlier lessons, foundational lessons in subjects were reinforced to support student growth. Thanks to instructional technology like Whiteboards, students are able to present to one another and learn interactively.
In K-12 schools, more technology is being utilized to educate student to student, not teacher to student. One example involves using digital cameras in the classroom as learning tools. This idea references back to the students of today being the most digital generation thus far. Students no longer assume that their knowledge of technology is useless, but are now empowered to teach their peers. In particular lessons taught at an Australian school using digital cameras, “older students assisted younger students (even kindergarteners) with completing elaborate photo projects” (Fisher & Lazaros, 2009, p. 22). This proves that establishing digital technological tools within the classroom can enable students to share their knowledge with others.
The teacher now has current technological tools thanks to the Internet. The current era of Web tools sometimes referred to as Web 2.0 or Web 3.0 include tools like wikis. A wiki is a “web site that lets visitors easily add, remove, and edit content” (Barrel, 2007, 88). In the classroom, students use this tool for a variety of projects ranging from mathematics equations to revising reading. One example is that students use a wiki to create, revise, and produce a group paper. Morgan and Smith (2008) found that “when using the wiki as a collaborative writing community the students are more engaged with the writing process” (p. 82). Students no longer assume that all of their group work has to be done in person. By using wikis, students are collaborating at their convenience via an Internet based software tool.
Finally, technologies for classrooms are expanding so far that they have evolved to be an actual classroom. Virtual classrooms and online classes are a current trend that K-12 students are taking advantage of. According to the US Department of Education in 2005-2006, “22 states had established virtual schools and 16 states had established at least one cyber charter school.” Classrooms are expanding to include students who are in different locations, different time zones, and advanced levels of study. Students are able to enroll and engage in these types of schools which offer “synchronous experiences through voice conferences, chats, IM, and whiteboards” (Beldarrain, 2006, p. 145). In other words, students are engaging with each other virtually more often thanks to technology. By engaging in this type of classroom, students are gaining valuable experiences for the job market. In advanced courses online, students engage technology and “become comfortable with the kinds of information technology that are fast becoming an integral element of so many living-wage jobs” (Wested, 2007, p. 10). The virtual classroom is shattering the assumption that students are limited to classes taught locally at their high school. Virtual classrooms and advanced courses online are ever expanding and becoming are a common theme for today’s students, especially for advanced studies.
Vision of the Future:
The early proponents of technology in the classroom were too focused on the pedagogy and strategies of instruction, but ignored how students learn. Focusing on the knowledge input-output ratio based on a time and cost analysis removed the overly obvious aspect of the humanity of the audience. Each and every technology that was crammed into the teacher’s hands became a bit of a burden in one way or another. Either there wasn’t enough equipment, there wasn’t enough working knowledge of how to use the equipment, time was limited, or shows were not being aired when teachers and students had the time to watch, just to name a few. This was a devastating blow to the profound amount of money and time that was spent in creating elaborate studios, labs, and the like. To many, the movement of technology into the classroom was a failure (Cuban, 1986). There was no radical shift in the teacher-centered style of pedagogy and no overwhelming collection of evidence that provided support that technology actually helped educators and students. However, Cuban (1986) reported that supplementation and enthusiasm for computers and machines in schools continues to grow. Especially, there is a powerful tug that machines are capturing student interest in hooking students into learning, giving them the sense of self esteem, feeling of competence, and even control. It is the sense of control that reformers and policy makers along with practitioners alike dream in achieving of children learning independently or through individualized instruction using a machine that has the capacity to drill or tutor students quickly and cheaply without a teacher or pace of classmates.
It was not all for not though, much was discovered and recognized by the visionaries, educators, and students of that century, which continue to be a lesson for us all. These historical instructional technologies were building blocks to a machine-driven education of the future where classrooms are located exclusively online and students are extending their education to become virtual global citizens in a K-12 setting.
A Collection of References:
Intro References:
Galbraith, J.K. The New Industrial State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.
Heinich,R. (1984). The Proper Study of Instructional Technology. (W. Winn, Ed.) ERIC/ECTJ Annual Review Paper, 67-87.
Technology. Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. (2009). Retrieved September 28, 2009, from Wikipedia.org: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology
Historical References:
History of education. (2009, October 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 04:22, September 10, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_education&oldid=319871069
Miller, M. & Cruce, T., (2005). Timeline of 20th Century Classroom Use of Instructional Film, Television, and Radio (Last update: August 26, 2005). Created by Mary Miller and Teresa Cruce for Dr. Thomas Reeves' UGA class EDIT 6100, spring 2002; Retrieved 10:35, September 14, 2009, from http://www.arches.uga.edu/~mlmiller/timeline/sitemap.html
Murdock. History, the History of Computers, and the History of Computers in Education Retrieved September 12, 2009, from http://www.csulb.edu/~murdock/histofcs.html
Industrial Revolution. (2009, October 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:23, September 14, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Industrial_Revolution&oldid=319857593
Saettler, P. (1990). The Evolution of American Educational Technology. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1990.
Cuban, L (1985). Teachers and Machines: The Classroom Use of Technology since 1920. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Ford (2006). The Ford Foundation - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on The Ford Foundation. Retrieved September 5, 2009, from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/95/The-Ford-Foundation.html
Current References:
Lambert, J. & Cuper, P. (2008). Multimedia technologies and familiar spaces: 21st-century teaching for 21st-century learners. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 8(3). Retrieved from http://www.citejournal.org/vol8/iss3/currentpractice/article1.cfm
Harrison, D. (2009). Videoconferencing to bring the world to students. THE Journal: Technological Horizons in Education. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/09/10/videoconferencing-to-bring-the-world-to-students.aspx?sc_lang=en
Thompson, D. (2009). Washington district upgrades to interactive whiteboards. THE Journal: Technological Horizons in Education. Retrieved from http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/07/29/washington-district-upgrades-to-interactive-whiteboards.aspx?sc_lang=en
Knight, P., Pennant, J., & Piggott, J. (2005). The power of the interactive whiteboard. Micromath, 21(2), 11-15.
Fisher, A. & Lazaros, E. (2009). Digital camera project fosters communication skills. Tech Directions, 68(10), 20-22.
Barrel, M.D. (2007). Wicked productive wikis. PC Magazine, 26(4), 88.
Morgan, B. & Smith, R. (2008). A wiki for classroom writing. The Reading Teacher 62(1), 80-82.
Department of Education (2009). Technology and No Child Left Behind. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/os/technology/fact-sheet.doc
Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139-153.
WestEd for Department of Education (2007). Connecting students to advanced courses online. iii-88. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/academic/advanced/index.html
Our Vision References:
Huitt, W. (1999). Success in the information age: A paradigm shift. Revision of paper developed for a workshop presentation at the Georgia Independent School Association, Atlanta, Georgia, November 6, 1995. Retrieved [date], from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/context/infoage.html
Indirect References:
