Making Your Case for Technology Funding:

Educational technology effectiveness

 As long as technology has existed in education, it has been studied, evaluated, and criticized. Parents, legislators, educators, and tax-payers make reasonable demands when they ask what learning benefits children receive from using classroom technology.

Your knowledge of recent findings on technology effectiveness will serve you in several ways:

*       Planning instruction for your students using appropriate technology

*       Ensuring that your students successfully achieve the state and national technology standards

*       Communicating to parents the importance of technology in your classroom

*       Working with administrators to acquire the best technology for your students

*       Writing successful grants to enhance your students’ technology access

*       Leading and mentoring so children in other classrooms will have technology-using teachers

*       Demonstrating the technology knowledge and skills you will need for recertification and National Board Certification

 

Technology/Information Literacy Standards

Recognizing the importance of technology for today’s learners as tomorrow’s workers, the following organizations have developed guidelines for educators:

U.S. Department of Education/U.S President: Four Pillars of Technology Literacy http://www.ed.gov/Technology/

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE): National Education Technology Standards for Students
http://cnets.iste.org/

ISTE Recommended Foundations in Technology for All Teachers
http://www.iste.org/Standards/index.html

American Library Association: The Nine Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning
http://www.ala.org/aasl/ip_nine.html

Technology Effectiveness Resources

Use the following Web and print resources on technology effectiveness to gather information appropriate to your teaching situation. Consider the questions below as you explore.

Questions to consider:

How is technology beneficial for content learning?

What skills does technology develop?

What affective benefits do students receive by using technology?

How will technology provide future benefits to students as they leave school?

In general, what improvements or increases are your students likely to experience by using technology?

What educational drawbacks or disadvantages of using technology have been identified? (Not financial, personnel, etc.)

What specific technologies (hardware, software, telecommunications) have been found to be effective?

What specific educational approaches with technology have been found to be effective?

Web Resources:

*       The Costs and Effectiveness of Educational Technology http://www.ed.gov/Technology/Plan/RAND/Costs/costs.html

*       Technology: How Do We Know It Works? http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper5.html

*       The Debate on Technology’s Effectiveness http://www.ets.org/research/pic/dic/dicone.html

*       Conclusions About Technology Effectiveness http://www.cosn.org/resources/cradler.html

*       Findings on Technology in Education http://www.fwl.org/techpolicy/refind.html

*       Effectiveness of Educational Technology http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR682/ed_ch2.html#RTFToC13

*       Plugging In: Choosing and Using Educational Technology http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/edtalk/toc.htm

*       Technology Counts http://www.edweek.org/sreports/tc98/

*       The Benefits of Educational Technology http://ericir.syr.edu/ithome/digests/edoir9804.html

*       Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te800.htm

*       Technology in America’s Schools: Seven Dimensions for Gauging Progress from Milken (http://www.milkenexchange.org)

*       The Balanced View: Educational Technology from NY State Education Dept. (http://ww.nysed.gov/rscs/edtech.html)

*       Technology and Education Reform Report Executive Summary from US DOE (http://www.ed.gov/pubs/SER/Technology)

*       Tech LEARNING, http://www.techlearning.com/intervie.shtml

*       From Now On research topic, http://fromnowon.org

*       Technology Assessment Links, http://www.tnellen.com/school/proof.html