Technology in the Classroom: Fad or Foundation for Learning?
In some classrooms, iBooks have replaced textbooks. In others, students prepare video yearbooks that can be delivered to their classmates' cell phones. In still others, teachers ask students a question and they punch in the answers with "clickers" that look like TV remote control devices.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent getting computers into classrooms, and teachers and students around the country are using technology in new ways. That raises two important questions for parents:
What's New
Educational service providers, schools, districts and, in some cases, entire states are experimenting with ways to use the Internet to teach or tutor students. Some of the newest examples:
- Help by cell phone. Teachers in New Hampshire post class assignments and homework on HomeWorkNow.com, and students check the site with their cell phones. Princeton Review, the test preparation company, sends practice SAT drills to students' cell phones at predetermined times. Parents are able to get email results of those drills.
- Online help. All students in fourth through twelfth grade in Alabama can now get free online homework help from 3 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week. Tutors are chosen by the company Tutor.com, which screens and trains current and retired teachers, grad students and professors. In Georgia, every high school student gets free access to online SAT test preparation.
- Online courses. More districts are offering classes online, from basic courses required for graduation that students have trouble fitting into overloaded course schedules to Advanced Placement. Even PE - yes, PE-is offered online in Minneapolis. Students are fulfilling the requirement by documenting their heart rates and workouts online. While these can be cost-effective ways for schools to add extra classes and for students to fit classes into crowded schedules, some critics say video dissection of a frog is just not as effective as the hands-on version.
- Testing technology literacy. A group of colleges has been working with the Educational Testing Service to test technological literacy. The test is designed to measure whether students can use technology as a tool to find, evaluate, organize and communicate information. An online demonstration is available at The Information and Technology Communication Literacy Assessment.
1. How is technology being used to improve learning?
2. Are students developing the skills they'll need to understand and use it in the future?
Pointers for Parents
It can be tough to assess a school's use of technology. There is little research to go on since many of the tools and techniques that employ them are new.
Here are three pointers to help assess how technology is being used:
1. Ask the teacher or principal how technology is aligned with grade-level goals.
Parents might be wowed by an 8-year-old's ability to produce a Power Point presentation without looking closely at the thinking that went into it. While students need to develop technological skills, it should be in the context of thinking and learning to solve problems. That means the technology needs to be aligned with learning goals, says Shelley Pasnik, senior researcher for the New York-based Center for Children and Technology.
"There needs to be a vision on the part of the instructional leaders at the school," she said. "The content should lead, the tool should follow."
2. Ask your child about how he uses technology in doing his assignments.
Pasnik advises parents to talk to their children about how they use technology in their assignments. If, for example, your child put together a multimedia presentation about the Lewis and Clark expedition, ask why he chose the elements he did. You'll find out pretty quickly if technology was used for its own sake or because there was thought behind it.
"If your child says, 'I was able to use not only my words to describe Lewis and Clark's journey, but also a picture' or 'I chose this font because it looked like something Lewis and Clark might have used in the 1800s,' you'll see that technology was used to give deeper meaning to learning."
3. Volunteer in the computer lab.
Pasnik also encourages parents to help out in the school computer lab to see how technology is used. When you're visiting the school, ask the teacher why the computer was used in a particular lesson. If she says, for example, that she's using the Internet so students can pose questions to experts in the field, that's a sign that technology is being used with a purpose.
