Jack Schneider, postdoctoral fellow for innovation in the liberal arts at Carleton College, recently blogged for Education Week’s “Teaching Now” blog on the “mania” for educational technology. He touches on the apparent consensus that the solution to the nation’s education problem is new technologies: smartboards in every classroom, iPads for each student, and collaborative projects like wikis and blogs across the curriculum. Governments, foundations and schools are pouring buckets of money into educational technology projects to help boost American students’ achievement. However, new research suggests a problem: it’s not working.
A recent front-page article in The New York Times details the efforts of the Kyrene school district in Tempe, Arizona to boost achievement through huge investments in technology. Since 2005, the district has invested $33 million in technology through hiking property taxes, but rather than seeing a jump in student performance, test scores in reading and math have stagnated. The district’s response? A new ballot initiative to get new taxes to pay for more technology.
Schneider cites the large investments of private foundations and local businesses that have contributed to the craze. They invest tens of millions of dollars in educational technology projects regularly, yet stories similar to Kyrene’s are happening all over the country. Even Tom Vander Ark, formerly of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, admits that the research linking educational technology to academic achievement is weak. “It’s very difficult when we’re pressed to come up with convincing data,” he said.
Schneider asserts that the discrepancy between perceptions and reality, though, require some investigation. It is easy to walk into a thriving classroom where all children have a tablet computer and believe that the technology is driving the achievement. However, one has to remember that schools with such technology available are generally well-resourced with lots of other factors in its favor. Straining out what makes the school a success is more difficult than simply pinpointing one particular aspect.
However, this does not mean that we should give up on educational technology. Any tool, including technology, is only as effective as the person wielding it. So rather than throwing in the towel, districts should begin to look closely at what comes after the investment. Is the technology being used appropriately to enhance learning and instruction, or simply as a flashy addition to otherwise ineffective techniques? Comprehensive training and professional development opportunities should be considered a crucial component to any educational technology investment, and teachers should be given ample opportunities to subsequently “brush up” their tech know-how through additional training and support.
As Schneider concludes, there is an “urgency of working toward school improvement. We can’t wait. ..But we also can’t afford to get it wrong.”
To read more, please visit http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/05/06schneider_ep.h31.html?tkn=TNQFmh%2BMkb0Pb2v3nlm%2FYYp7B7DFlQ%2BiXYia&cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1
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