“No Child Left Behind” was one of the topics considered by Governors in their annual conference. The opportunity to discuss key issues with Secretary Paige was somewhat lost in the furor over the now infamous “NEA as Terrorist Organization” comment. The administration claims it is spending more on K-12 education than the past administration and governors claim their is not enough funding or flexibility to meet expections of the law.
See EdWeek Summary.
There will be no EdTech posts this week. I am out of town and enjoying myself. We took the kids to London for Spring break and are having a great time. Our technology is with us, but we are using it mostly for pleasure rather than work.
As I have grown older, I have developed an appreciation for the value of spending time in other places and Cindy and I are pleased we can take our family. I would encourage you to do the same if you have the opportunity. The best way I can explain the benefits would be to refer to the daily experience of watching the sports on TV. Here, not only are the games different than you are used to playing or watching, but the coverage involves teams from countries from multiple continents. The big thing was the India/Pakistan cricket match. I saw a score from the Lakers game, but nothing on the Timberwolves.
One of the lists I follow has somehow become focused on the cost of books. Some are making statements contending without doubt that book companies are evil and responsible for the terrible cost of books and the bad backs of students who must carrying them. I have taken a position on such claims in earlier comments contending that those who take this position are naive regarding all the costs and issues that are invovled (in fact, the quest to save money by reusing books ends up raising costs and may benefit only the stores buying and selling used books). It is true I write a book and may be biased in not complaining about the evil publishing companies. By the way, that used Ford pickup in the parking lot is mine.
Anyway, a subtheme within the general discussion of book costs has involved ebooks. I like this alternative approach to the cost issue and enjoy reading what some imagine may eventually happen given this use of technology. For example, consider the musings of Doug Johnson.
I have a colleague in my department who developed some software for the Apple IIe back in the day when it was the hot machine. He does not want to or does not have the time to rewrite his software for newer machines. He still uses the IIes in his research and is constantly scrounging to find disk drives and 5.25 floppies. When I was department chair, I told him to keep those machine hidden because we did not want the general public to think we were 15 years behind the times. 😉
I just came across something that may solve his problem – a Apple II Emulator‘, ‘
Check this site for ideas related to K-8 Blogs.
Cindy had an experience while teaching one of her classes that gave me an idea for a demonstration. She was working with pre-service teachers creating simple web pages and experienced some “issues” while trying to work back and forth creating web pages with multiple programs.
Her students were generating web pages by converting a Word document into HTML. At some point, they wanted to tweak the page that was generated and they opened this document in Netscape Composer. After saving the changes, they loaded their pages to the server and then attempted to view the pages in Internet Explorer on Windows machines.
Here is a screen image of what they encountered (this my approximation of the process). If you view this same material on a Mac, my experience has been you do not necessarily see these same abnormalities. Version “Web page created by opening Word HTML document and saving using Composer” that appears below is the corrupted version.
I started experimenting with this same process and generated the following options. I would encourage students to create a similar set of “experiments” to evaluate some of these same issues.
Web page created by saving Word document in HTML
Web page created by opening Word HTML document and saving using Composer
Word HTML page resaved using FrontPage
HTML page generated by AppleWorks
AppleWorks HTML resaved in Composer
My Point? I do not like the approach taken by Microsoft products. The code appears to create some compatibility problems (easy to see if you view these examples from a Windows machine and IE) and the code is overly complex (view the source code). Why would this be a desirable approach? Beats me. If you feel my analysis is unfair, please feel to respond.
Another research paper commenting on technology use in schools has surfaced – Zhao and Frank (2003). Factors affecting technology use in schools: An ecological perspective. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 807-840.
The authors argue that much of the previous work has evaluated single variables through correlational studies and more complex approach is required. The description of the ecological approach is interesting. I will warn you that authors have decided to explain what an ecological approach is by contrasting the movement of computer applications into some schools as similar to the invasion of the Great Lakes by the zebra mussel. This comparison is not just mentioned, but it is used extensively throughout. I had to keep telling myself that in this case I was supposed to be a supporter of the Zebra Mussel and that I wanted it to be allowed to survive.
For “stat types”, think of a regression model that includes main effects and interactions. The main effects might be things like the ecosystem (district), the teacher, and the interactions might involve the teacher and ecosystem.
A couple of findings:
Teachers who perceive pressure from and receive help from colleagues were more likely to involve their students in the use of technology (a teacher-ecosystem interaction). Help from others who are not close colleagues did not seem to be influential. If this would include “computer coordinators”, I would find this both interesting and disappointing since it has long been argued that schools must put money into such sources of support.
The more a teacher believes computers are compatible with personal teaching style, the more likely the teacher is to use technology with students.
I must admit that after being impressed by the ecosystem model and the call for more complex ways of attempting to understand the use of technology, I was not that impressed by the quality or uniqueness of the questionnaire data. The “interaction” findings seem similar to what others have reported. Because the study also selected districts that had invested heavily in technology (see my post of 2/20), the access variable was not in play. In the big scheme of things (a larger ecological perspective), the level of access may interact in very significant wants with the variables evaluated in this study. Any variable that adds another significant challenge (access), my influence other parts of the ecosystem model and result in different outcomes.
I do think the attempt to build an ecological model makes good sense and this study may prompt more work of this type.
There were also some specific findings that may be helpful. I tend to look for data that might be used as benchmarks or indicators. There were some data on student use of technology in specific ways. I am summarizing here by indicating the % of students estimated to make a particular use of technology as least once a month.
– Student inquiry (search electronic database, WebQuest – I am not certain whether general web searching would be included) – 45%
– Student-to-student communication (publish web site, e-group projects) – 19%
– Core curriculum skill development (e.g., drill and practice) – 71%
I am surprised that the inquiry category is this low (unless general web searches were excluded). I am disappointed that the student-to-student category was so low (obviously because we try to promote such activities).