The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the key themes and issues that will be revisited throughout the book.

• The following questions are addressed:
• How does the role of the teacher as facilitator differ from more traditional teacher roles?
• What are the most common inequities in computer use?
• Why are students not actively involved with the technology that is already in schools?
• What are the characteristics of activity-based approaches to learning?
• What experiences are influential in preparing future teachers to make use of technology in their classrooms?

I. Themes of technology use in the classroom (pp. 11-14)

This book emphasizes some specific themes. While many issues are considered, a set of themes we feel are interrelated and potentially most beneficial will receive the most attention.

I.A Technology integrated into content-area instruction.

This theme concerns the knowledge and skills students will learn. Our emphasis is on applications of technology that are useful in helping students learn traditional academic subjects. We recognize that "computer literacy" is important and potentially a new and unique academic subject. However, computer literacy is not a central theme and many "literacy skills" will be picked up as students make use of technology in their own learning.

I.B A tools approach

Even when focused on content area instruction, technology can be used in a variety of ways. We place the greatest emphasis on "tool applications." We label flexible, general-purpose applications as technological tool. Such applications would include word processing, spreadsheet software, Internet searching, multimedia construction and similar "reusable" examples of technology.

I.C An active role for students

The activities emphasized in this book can be related to specific models (theories) of learning. What the specific theories (see Chapter 2) share is an emphasis on the active student processing of experience. Knowledge and skills are not presented to students, but constructed by them in response to information and learning tasks. We want teachers to consider how, and perhaps if, learning experiences are encouraging students to perform this type of mental work.

I.D Teacher as facilitator

When students play a more active role in constructing their own understanding, the teacher's role shifts from "dispenser of information" to "facilitator of learning." The issue for preservice or practicing teachers is what this distinction "looks like" in practice. If presenting is not enough, how do teachers interact with students and structure the learning environment to encourage, support, and perhaps even develop the processes involved in constructing knowledge?

I.E A multidisciplinary approach

While content-area applications are emphasized, many of the tasks proposed to encourage active learning involve students in several directions. For example, communication skills (e.g., writing or even multimedia design) are heavily involved in content areas such as science.

I.F Cooperative learning

Student cooperation is frequently involved in proposed learning activities as a way to encourage active learning and as a practical way to make use of limited technology resources or to provide a service it might be difficult for the teacher to provide (e.g., tutoring, providing frequent feedback during the preliminary stages of product development).

I.G Standards

We have added an emphasis on educational standards because of the increasing interest in establishing core goals for planning and evaluation. II. Technology in Today's Classroom (pp. 14-18)

The purpose of this section is to provide future and practicing teachers some insight into what typical schools and classrooms look like when it comes to technology. While some data are available, there are at least two factors which still make the picture a but fuzzy:

• technology is an area of rapid change and data are dated even before they can be published
• statistical descriptions need to include both a measure of central tendency (something like the mean) and a way to represent the variability that exists around what is reported as "typical."

Most of the statistical data reported in the book were published in 1999. To give you insight into how dated these statistics are, your textbook has a publication date of 2001 and the content was written in 1999-2000. This delay in combination with the rate of technological change is one reason we feel it is important to augment the book with these web resources.

The book not only offers data describing patterns of typical use, but provides some indicators of just how different schools are and some of the reasons they are different.

II.A Student access to technology (data from 1999)

The number of computers and the likelihood students will have Internet access has increases rapidly.

• from 1992-1999, the ratio of students to computers dropped from 13:1 to 5:1
• from 1994-1999, the percentage of schools with Internet access rose from 35% to 90%+. More than 50% of classrooms have Internet access.

There are some qualifications that apply to these data:

• Only 45% of the computers are considered "high end" and capable of running more sophisticated software.
• The conditions vary greatly among schools
• At the level of individual states, the student to computer ratio for high end machines varies from 7:1 to 15:1 and the variation in ratios for Internet connected machines varies from 7:1 to 30:1.

One important recent change has been in the location of computers within the schools. In 1992, 10% of computers were located in classrooms. In 1999, 50% of computers are located in classrooms. So at least proportionally, there has been a migration of computers from locations such as computer labs and libraries into classrooms. The location of computers is important. The location is probably associated with the conditions of use. Computers located in lab settings allow group access, but often require that this access be scheduled. There is also at least one study (Ravitz, Wong & Becker, 1999) indicating that the immediacy of access to technology can be related to frequency of use.

II.B How frequently do students actually use computers?

Students indicating they used computers at least once or twice a week: (Jerald & Orlofsky, 1999)


II.C What students do with computers

It appears that the most frequent student use of technology involves the use of computers as a tool. Word processing is the most frequently reported application. For elementary students, drill activities represent the second most frequent application. For middle and secondary students, CD reference materials and web searching represent the second most frequent applications. (Ravitz, Wong and Becker, 1999).

Tool applications are a new found focus. Past data indicated a greater emphasis on drill activities and computer literacy.

II.D Resources, Equity and Student Activity

II.D.1 Resources

Data reported in 1999, indicate that schools spent approximately $120 per student on technology (Market Data Retrieval, 1999). This may seem like a lot of money, but this sum needs to be interpreted by understanding that the actual total investment per student is approximately $5,600.

The $120 expenditure breaks down into 69% spent on hardware, 17% on software, and 14% spent on training and support. In contrast to the way business and industry support technology, educational institutions underfund training and support.

II.D.2 Equity

Educators confront the issue of equity when they consider whether or not all students have the same opportunities to learn with technology. Specific equity issues are considered in Chapter 11 (SES, gender, etc.).

There is evidence that inequities have existed and that schools have taken steps to address inequities. It seems that biases apparent in resource priorities may influence how resource inequities have been addresses. Computer availability and Internet access have been addressed more aggressively than training and support. III. The Information Age: Arguments for Educational Change (pp. 19-20)

Some arguments for educational change are based on assumptions about the changing world and the skills needed to adapt to these changes.

III.A Learning to think and learning to learn

Assuming that many of the jobs of the future do not exist at present and also recognizing that workers of the future are likely to move through several different jobs, it can be argued that focusing heavily on job specific skills is pointless. Instead, students need to develop more general thinking and problem-solving skills and need to be prepared to learn throughout their lives.

III.B Growing information

It can also be argued that because the rate of information production has accelerated so dramatically information mastery (knowing) is impossible and information location will become of greater importance. Greater emphasis should be devoted to the development of skills needed to find problem-relevant information and to interpret and apply this information in the solution of problems.

III.C Restructuring schools

Advocates of educational restructuring argue either that schools are stressing the wrong things or that the methods schools employ are ineffective. Many of the learning activities emphasized in this book are consistent with suggestions for educational reform. IV. Changing the Way Technology is Used in Schools (pp. 20-24)

Teacher preparation and training are key to changing the way technology is used in schools.

IV.A Teacher preparation

Preservice teachers report feeling unprepared to use technology with students. Several explanations for this lack of preparation include:

Education colleges lack the resources necessary to provide the necessary experiences

The responsibility for preparing teachers to use technology is often limited to a single course and what is learned in this course is not implemented or modeled in other education courses

IV.B Practicing teachers

Support for practicing teachers is essential. Even if the preparation of inservice teachers could be drastically improved, new opportunities for using technology in classrooms emerge at a rapid pace providing a very practical example of the need to be a life long learner. Why would we want the teaching profession to be any other way? How teachers respond to new opportunities is telling. Teachers are used to feeling secure in their knowledge of the subject matter and in control of how students will experience this content. We try to encourage teachers to recognize that learning something with their students offers some unique opportunities. Learning something new is challenging and the process hardly ever is accomplished without some set backs. Working on something with students affords teachers the opportunity to model problem solving and persistence.

The Computer Coordinator - comments on the challenges facing computer coordinators. V. The Activity-Based or Design Model (pp. 24-28)

We make a special effort to explore one particular way of using technology. This approach might be described (using the words of other authors or researchers) as activity-based learning, the project approach, the computer as a mindtool, and design projects.

This approach recommends that at least part of the time available for instruction be shifted to hands-on, student-centered, collaborative projects. A substantial proportion of our explanations and many of our examples focus on explaining the characteristics of projects as learning activities and how teachers can implement project-based learning in their classrooms.