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February 1999 | Volume 56 | Number 5
Marge Scherer
Table of Contents
Don Tapscott
As teachers and schools make the transition to a digital world, they may best turn to their students, described here as the Net Generation, for help. N-Geners, raised on new technologies, are thriving on the Internet—creating Web sites, doing project research, managing personal finances, and making friends in chat rooms. As a result of these new technologies, educators will need to shift the way they think about teaching and learning: from linear to hypermedia learning; from instruction to construction and discovery; from teacher-centered to learner-centered education; from absorbing material to learning how to navigate and how to learn; from school to lifelong learning; from one-size-fits-all to customized learning; from learning as torture to learning as fun; and from the teacher as trasmitter to the teacher as facilitator. Although the teacher's role is still essential, classrooms of the Net Generation will become more student-centered, with teachers and students engaging in learning activities together.
As teachers and schools make the transition to a digital world, they may best turn to their students, described here as the Net Generation, for help. N-Geners, raised on new technologies, are thriving on the Internet—creating Web sites, doing project research, managing personal finances, and making friends in chat rooms.
As a result of these new technologies, educators will need to shift the way they think about teaching and learning: from linear to hypermedia learning; from instruction to construction and discovery; from teacher-centered to learner-centered education; from absorbing material to learning how to navigate and how to learn; from school to lifelong learning; from one-size-fits-all to customized learning; from learning as torture to learning as fun; and from the teacher as trasmitter to the teacher as facilitator. Although the teacher's role is still essential, classrooms of the Net Generation will become more student-centered, with teachers and students engaging in learning activities together.
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Al Doyle
Through a grassroots initiative with public television stations, educators are harnessing the power of video and the Internet to enhance classroom instruction. The National Teacher Training Institute for Math, Science and Technology (NTTI) provides teachers with specific strategies, resources, and interactive lesson plans that help them effectively integrate technologies into classroom instruction. The integration of technology, the author asserts, can transform education and increase student achievement. The author provides specific tips about how to prepare Internet-based lesson plans.
Larry Lewin
Students are fascinated by the Internet and the World Wide Web, but teachers are often puzzled about the best way to use this new technology in the classroom. The author explores how the Web can foster reading comprehension and literary analysis. By selecting appropriate Web sites and reformatting their contents into student-friendly documents, teachers can make accessible the often difficult to use and sometimes overwhelming resources that the Web provides. Teacher-prepared worksheets can then help students focus their attention on relevant information. Examples from literature and U.S. history illustrate this approach.
Hollylynne Stohl Drier, Kara M. Dawson and Joe Garofalo
Teachers of secondary mathematics have available new technological tools and sources of data that allow them to make intra- and interdisciplinary connections and explore real-world data. Topics that were once too complex for the typical classroom are now accessible as technology makes mathematics activities more exploratory and interactive and less time-consuming and tedious. In addition, vast quantities of real-world and sometimes messy information are now readily available through the Internet and CD-ROMS. These tools and data help students gather and interpret information, perform descriptive and graphical analysis, make statistical predictions and inferences, and create and use simulations. The authors link mathematics with science, health, economics, media literacy, meteorology, politics, and geography. They present brief descriptions of activities that suggest to mathematics teachers how they can adapt technology into their mathematics classrooms.
Teachers of secondary mathematics have available new technological tools and sources of data that allow them to make intra- and interdisciplinary connections and explore real-world data. Topics that were once too complex for the typical classroom are now accessible as technology makes mathematics activities more exploratory and interactive and less time-consuming and tedious. In addition, vast quantities of real-world and sometimes messy information are now readily available through the Internet and CD-ROMS. These tools and data help students gather and interpret information, perform descriptive and graphical analysis, make statistical predictions and inferences, and create and use simulations.
The authors link mathematics with science, health, economics, media literacy, meteorology, politics, and geography. They present brief descriptions of activities that suggest to mathematics teachers how they can adapt technology into their mathematics classrooms.
Lajeane G. Thomas and Donald G. Knezek
New technology standards are giving educators guidelines to link technology to the curriculum. The NETS (National Educational Technology Standards) Project attempts to draw a national consensus on the role of technology in schools by developing standards to address the conditions for effective use of technology in preK–12 education. The educational standards are divided into six categories: basic operations and concepts; social, ethical, and human issues; technology productivity tools; technology communications tools; technology research tools; and technology problem-solving and decision making tools. The standards and profiles are available in print and in electronic format at http://iste.org.
Patricia Leamon
Learning a language can be an entry into another culture, especially when the capabilities of the latest language lab technology are fully exploited. The availability of dual sound and visual streams allows the teacher to customize material to match the ability levels of students. The author describes how she deconstructs textbook material to ensure that she covers required content, prepares curriculum guides for her students, and presents engaging language lessons that teach not only vocabulary and grammar but also cultural context. Units on French nursery rhymes, French opera, and the history and court life of Versailles are described.
Joyce A. Burtch
Already dealing with an overcrowded technology class 30 students sharing 11 computers a 7th grade teacher faced incorporating three special education students into her instructional program. Through KIDLINK, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to worldwide understanding through electronic communication, she contacted a teacher across the United States who had similar students in her class. Through e-mail and regular mail, these special education students exchanged messages and drawings about a day in their lives. With the help of the teachers, student teaching assistants, an educational aide, and their classmates, the six students assembled their material into books that became lasting reminders of a successful experiment in inclusion and cooperation.
Mickey Revenaugh
To realize equal access to technology, the E-rate offers U.S. schools and libraries significant discounts on technological services and equipment. Under the E-rate, schools qualify for a discount of 20 to 90 percent on telecommunications technologies. The author explains the specifics of the E-rate and how schools can apply for services.
Raymond P. Farley
This inspiring story shows how technology can foster equity and build partnerships among diverse schools and school districts. Two New Jersey Schools—the suburban, technologically advanced, and high achieving Hunterdon High School, and the urban, technologically inexperienced, and low achieving Asbury Park—linked together with Rider University to form the Cyberspace Regionalization consortium. Teachers from Hunterdon High School trained teachers from Asbury Park in technology and, through grants, Asbury Park acquired much needed computers. More important, students from both schools worked together on interdisciplinary projects via the Internet—for example, Electric Soup magazine, Science Online, history projects, town hall meetings, and a Model UN. Now Asbury Park students have the same opportunities for academic rigor as do students in their suburban counterpart. Hunterdon students, too, have benefitted from learning about their urban neighbors, sharing in their cultural diversity, and understanding equity issues in meaningful ways. The consortium demonstrates that new, relatively inexpensive technologies can level the playing field and bring greater equity to all students.
Janice Weinman and Pamela Haag
Recent research confirms serious differences in how girls and boys use technology in schools. And in our technology-driven society, educational inequities can lead to economic ones. The American Association of University Women Educational Foundation's Technology Commission is seeking solutions to divide. The commission is specifically considering differences in the way girls and boys use computer-based technologies as well as classroom strategies to ensure equity. The article describes gender gaps in experience with and attitudes toward computer technology in K–12 classrooms, and how these gaps reverberate into postsecondary education and the job market. The authors contend that teachers are the linchpin in discussions of how, or whether, computers will advance equitable and rigorous education. For this reason, the commission is focusing its work on teacher education and professional development.
Elizabeth Thoman
To thrive in our mediated culture, children must learn to become competent, critical, and literate in all media forms. Media literacy the ability to be conscious of verbal and visual symbols prepares young people to participate fully in our media-dominated society. The author discusses five ideas that everyone should know about media messages and then offers concrete classroom strategies for examining media texts.
Renee Hobbs
Educators have a love-hate relationship with mass media and new communications technologies, yet nearly all agree that media culture has affected the work they do in the classroom. An innovative program helps teachers discover how to integrate media literacy concepts into high school humanities instruction. The Re-Visioning Project exemplifies how educators can embed the basic ideas of media literacy in all subject areas. The article describes the variety of activities in which participating educators engaged to critically evaluate media messages and their impact.
Alisa Algava
A teacher uses video animation as a multidisciplinary and multisensory technological tool to implement and integrate key educational goals. By focusing on national parks, she developed a project to integrate her district's 4th grade social science and science curriculums that focused on ecosystems and U.S. regions. In addition, her students used their writing, reading, and math skills as they created their animated movie and developed travel brochures for the national parks that they chose to research in depth. The students also enhanced their non-academic skills as they learned cooperation, perseverance, and team work; expressed a point of view; communicated information; and told a story. The project culminated with the world premiere of the students' video.
Donelle Blubaugh
Are televisions in the classroom creating a new generation of couch potatoes or passive learners? According to Blubaugh, research shows that the opposite is true. In fact, when teachers use television and VCRs in ways that connect to the curriculum, students become better learners, retain more information, and are excited about learning. Teachers can organize the classroom to incorporate TVs, computer technology such as the World Wide Web, and reading materials so that students make meaningful connections to topics and issues—and are even inspired to read more. Educators need to rethink traditional notions about watching television passively and realize that television can be an active, inspirational addition to the classroom.
Rhonda Clevenson
Gunston Middle School in Arlington, Virginia, is using videos to encourage parental participation and support. Because so many families watch TV and have VCRs, teachers can increase communications with parents through this popular medium. The HomeVisions Program produces videos that show how parents can help students with homework, what materials they need to purchase, and what goes on in the classroom. Now families are more comfortable with the teacher, have a better understanding of the curriculum, and can actually see their child's growth throughout the school year. In addition, students who produce the videos are learning new skills in analytic thinking, script writing, performing, editing, and proofreading, all at a relatively low cost. Not all parents have access to sophisticated digital technologies, and videotapes are an exciting and easy way to bring parents, teachers, and students together.
Meg Kiernan
A group of adults and children attending a summit on children's television answer the question, What should children's television be? Together they created the Children's Charter on Electronic Media, which declares that children's television should be respectful, honest and real, nonviolent, and inclusive.
Jim Teicher
Schools already teach children personal safety, fire safety, and bicycle safety. Now it's time to teach children Internet safety and responsibility. The near total saturation of the Internet in schools by the year 2000 means that children are going online faster in classrooms than families are at home. This situation places responsibility on schools to ensure that children bring home a set of Internet-appropriate behaviors, particularly because filtering software is not fail-safe. The author outlines the CyberSmart! program for teaching savvy Internet usage. The program addresses safety, manners, advertising and privacy protection, research, and technology. Numerous Web-based resources for educators are also provided.
Geoff Roberts
Schools face a Sisyphean challenge as they purchase and update their technology. No matter how hard they try, new and better hardware and software always loom on the horizon, threatening to overwhelm even the best plans. The author suggests seven steps toward achieving technological viability: Listen to everyone, but don't follow a single person's vision. Plan to spend more than expected, especially for training and upkeep. Choose software to support the curriculum, then buy the appropriate hardware. Buy the most powerful hardware possible. Consider using both laptop and desktop computers. Appoint a quasi-formal body to oversee the plan and its implementation. Finally, anticipate upgrades in professional development, equipment, and school philosophy and expect increases in costs.
Peter Zelchenko
We hear a lot of hype today about how schools need to get the fastest, newest, and most expensive technology into the classroom. But what do students really need? Educators are finding that they don't have to throw out the old for the new; they can actually repurpose old computers and technologies, stored by the thousands in warehouses, in innovative ways. Indeed, many "new" products are simply older products repackaged to look sleeker and more attractive. Schools should be connected to the Internet, but rather than have every computer online, they can connect a limited number available for students in libraries. The older computers are perfectly usable as word processors and can assist with drill techniques. Although high-tech companies will try to convince us otherwise, sometimes older technologies are all we need.
John G. Conyers, Toni Kappel and Joanne Rooney
Willow Bend School ceased operation as an underperforming, traditional school in June and reopened in September as a model of transformation through technology. With the full backing of the district administration, the school's staff completely revamped the curriculum and teaching approach to focus on how technology could enhance and support student learning. The teachers adopted a philosophy: We use technology to learn, not learn to use technology. The results have been outstanding as measured by student test scores, teacher morale, and parent satisfaction. The authors share what they have learned from their experiences.
Willow Bend School ceased operation as an underperforming, traditional school in June and reopened in September as a model of transformation through technology. With the full backing of the district administration, the school's staff completely revamped the curriculum and teaching approach to focus on how technology could enhance and support student learning. The teachers adopted a philosophy: We use technology to learn, not learn to use technology.
The results have been outstanding as measured by student test scores, teacher morale, and parent satisfaction. The authors share what they have learned from their experiences.
Andrew Latham
Betsy Kelaher
Thomas J. Budnik
Joan Montgomery Halford
Copyright © 2012 by ASCD
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