This article reports on a survey of an exemplary group of teachers who use (or plan to use) technology in their classrooms. The 93 (out of 118) teachers included in this study were selected to receive a state technology grant through a competition that asked them to offer project ideas for technology integration. Each of these teachers has, at the very least, proposed an innovative project that exemplifies effective and appropriate uses of technology in education. In this article, we attempt to paint a comprehensive portrait of this group in terms of their knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. We hope this article will serve two purposes: (1) to provide some beginning baseline information to help conceptualize what teachers should know to take advantage of modern technologies; and (2) to help develop professional development programs in technology that are more connected to practice and reality.
This paper reports on a “two-pronged” approach to restructuring teacher candidates'field experiences to support the integration of technology. It describes challenges in bringing about change to the entire field placement system, while also focusing on concentrated efforts to work with a subset of student teachers placed with technology-using cooperating teachers at designated partner school. Several ongoing initiatives are described that address systemic changes in the process. Included is information on efforts to create request options for teacher candidates, revise student handbooks, address the development of field supervisors, and provide alternative models for student’s field experiences. The article concludes with a discussion of outcomes obtained thus far and future directions that we envision for our program.
The RETA (Regional Educational Technology Assistance) program has recently completed its fifth and final year of program activities. The program offers professional development to educators across the state of New Mexico in the integration of technology into academic content. The program also emphasizes developing regional expertise among classroom teachers who can act as peer technology experts in their communities. In addition, the program addresses issues of education technology policy at a statewide level and provides resources to pre- and inservice teachers through partnerships with institutions of higher education at several Regional Resource Centers throughout the state. The program works to reach teachers of students who are often underserved by more traditional professional development efforts.
This article examines 14 teacher educators’ development of standards-based electronic portfolios. The research focused on the participants' interpretation of the standards and how they conceptualized the portfolio development process in relation to their professional practice. For one year, participants interacted around the Association of Teacher Educator (ATE) standards and the development of their electronic portfolios. Findings illustrated that these teacher educators developed their porfolios in individual ways within a community of practice. Yet, they differed in how they viewed the structure of the process. The process of creating the electronic portfolio encouraged reflection on the standards and on how they think about having their students create portfolios.
The 1998 ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Information Technology in Teacher Education survey identified factors important for helping new teachers use information technology (IT) in education. In 1999, I resurveyed high-scoring institutions from the previous survey to find out how they achieved their superior levels of capacity. Important attributes of successful institutions included professional development, funding, and suitability of the physical plant for technology. The value of personal commitment to the technology program was particularly emphasized. These high-capacity institutions also relied heavily on their introductory technology courses. Technology courses are not highly correlated with other measures of capacity at most institutions, but it appears that as technology permeates a program, IT-specific coursework becomes more applicable to the various aspects of teacher preparation.
This article reports the results of a status survey of computer facilities currently available to education faculty and students. Specifically, the survey sought to identify the organization and management of computer labs, classrooms, and other facilities provided to support teacher training activities. Such information is helpful to those involved in planning and organizing educational computer facilities. The article then recommends directions for further studies to address questions suggested by the findings reported here.
This article reviews gateways to online resources specifically for preservice teacher educators. Gateways are Web sites where information about a particular topic, or set of topics, has been screened, annotated, organized, and linked. They help users find relevant and worthwhile resources with a minimum of effort and frustration. Even though there are differences among gateway sites, this article examines their common features as well as the pros and cons of using them.
The World Wide Web has become a promising medium for delivery of instruction. This paper describes a case study in which the Internet was used to supplement course instruction via an Interactive Web module. The technology used to design this module, assignments, and interactions, are explained along with the outcomes of using such a medium for facilitating teaching and enhancing learning.It was found that as a result of the Web page being available in this teacher education course, students were better prepared for in-class discussions, class participation improved, and individual needs were accommodated. The instructor was better informed about what the students were understanding, and students were able to self-monitor their own concept recognition and comprehension. Students also had an avenue to gather resources beyond what the textbook offered when researching specific topics, and the quality of student work improved due to the interaction with experts in the educational field.The Web site is...
The use of proper measurements of diffusion of information technology as an innovation are essential to determining if progress is being made in state, regional, and national level programs. This project provides a national level cross validation study of several instruments commonly used to assess the effectiveness of technology integration in instructional programs. (Keywords: measures, assessment, cross-validation, technology integration, instruments.)
The infusion of technology into preservice teacher education should be a major priority for teacher education programs across the country, especially in the area of special education where technology integration can be beneficial to student development. This article describes how we have begun to integrate the Internet and World Wide Web into an Exceptional Learner course in hopes of expanding the instructional use of technology in regular and special education classrooms.
(2002). Technology in Its Place by J. F. LeBaron and C. Collier. Journal of Computing in Teacher Education: Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 107-108.
This research examined changes in administrators’ ideas about technology integration and technology leadership while participating in an online professional development course. Eight administrators who were enrolled in a semester-long course participated in 16 discussion forums related to K–12 technology implementation issues. Pre- and postcourse surveys indicated significant changes in ideas about technology integration as well as methods used to support teachers’integration efforts. Analyses of interview and course discussion data suggest that administrators view technology leadership as a “shared responsibility” that requires both administrative skills and technical knowledge.
Current evidence indicates that the blended course delivery method can reduce costs, improve student academic performance, and improve instructor success in meeting course learning objectives when compared to face-to-face instruction. The present examination of best practices employed the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) (2000) quality benchmarks for Internet-based instruction as a framework for organizing 19 suggestions for designing and delivering blended courses. Results indicated that our specific faculty development experiences mirrored the more general IHEP framework.
This article discusses three studies that examined the efficacy of Teacher Net, an inexpensive computer networking system. Each study addressed a different context: independent work, teacher remediation, and assessment. The results of the studies show that Teacher Net can save the teacher tremendous time by assuming the tasks of providing immediate feedback to students, correcting and summarizing student performance, and administering and scoring student tests.
This article describes a university-wide initiative to enhance undergraduate and graduate classroom instruction with multimedia technology and foster a collaborative approach to the learning process in higher education. The project promoted teamwork among faculty, students and computer center support staff to develop technology-enriched learning environments supported by multimedia-based instructional tools. In this model, the university faculty serve as facilitators of the learning process and architects of the teaching/learning environment. The teaching/learning environments developed varied by individual course and professor, as will be discussed in some detail. Each environment shared an emphasis on the creative, student-centered use of a range of multimedia to engage students in their own exploration and mastery of the course objectives. Some of the course objectives were realized within the technology-based learning activities created by the faculty members, while other course objectives wer...
Schools of education (SOEs) are experiencing increased pressure to prepare teacher candidates for the effective and innovative integration of technologies. Lack of both ubiquitous on-campus access and effective modeling by SOE faculty are two of en-cited barriers to reaching this goal. The Academic Technology Initiative (ATI) at a large Northeastern university provided laptops and support for all preservice teachers and faculty in an attempt to address these barriers. Using a grounded theory, ethnographic approach, this study examines how the removal of access and infrastructure barriers affects technology integration and faculty technology modeling. Our findings may help inform new technology strategies at both this and other universities designing such programs. We expect to identify new barriers and limitations that hold important implications for the future of the ATI and teacher preparation programs in general.
This article provides an overview of universal design for learning (UDL) and the principles that support it. Recent legislation, new learning theory, and technological advances have shaped the concept of universal design and made it a reality in contemporary classrooms. Tomorrow’s teachers now need the knowledge and skills to work in environments where methods and materials are universally designed. These competencies include a clear understanding of goal setting, a sound working knowledge of how to use technology for teaching and learning, and the ability to develop flexible classroom curriculum. An example of a problem-based learning unit developed as part of a Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) project illustrates how teachers can apply principles of universal design in unit development.
Abstract In the Spring of 1995, a university-school district partnership was formed to provide computer hardware, software, and collaborative technology training activities for classroom teachers, student teachers, special area teachers, and parents. The project was designed to expand and enhance the use of computer technology in the classroom, with an emphasis on applications for implementing the curriculum. This study describes the experiences of cooperating teacher and student teacher pairs as they participated in this partnership project. Data sources included journals, interviews and researcher field notes. This experience provided student teachers with a classroom environment in which they had the opportunity to implement technology with children and learn from practicing teachers. Experiences with technology, as well as collaborative exchanges with practicing teachers and support staff, provided an environment rich in encouraging integration of technology in the classroom. The outcomes of this study suggest implications for inservice and preservice teacher technology training.
