Although the first set of readings focused primarily on visions of the future of schools, education, and scholarship -- visions inspired by networked technologies -- the current set includes readings that concern not only curriculum and teaching with technology, but on issues such as technology policy, teacher training, and technology program evaluation as well. These issues were very much on the minds of the participants at HT&T96, and we hope we can provoke and carry on further discussions with and through these readings. If you would like to comment on any of the readings please do so in the HT&T HyperNews discussions. And if you know of other material you think would be appropriate for this page, please send mail to [email no longer active.]
Hawkins' report, which was part of the "Briefing Book" for the 1996 IBM Summit, raises a number of important issues faced by our moving into teaching and learning environments with networked, and more ubiquitous, computing resources. In light of the recent HTT-L listserv exchange about teacher training, it is interesting to notice Hawkins' call for more thoughtful and lasting alternatives to the "short workshop" model.
Echoing many of the points raised at HT&T96 by Ted Nellen, Harris nicely articulates how composition classes on the Internet can replace student writing produced as an act of "inauthentic compliance," with purposeful writing produced as an act of meaningful communication.
Chizmar, a Professor Economics, and Williams, a Professor of Music, discuss a variety of advantages of networked teaching and learning, for both the Fine Arts and Economics curriculum. Although their experiences are drawn from higher education, their descriptions of the possibilities produced by combinations of synchronous and asynchronous instruction and learning are essential to understanding how networked computers can significantly enrich K-12 education.
Shepard's mathematics education assessment project appears here, even though it does not involve computers, both because it draws attention to the importance of professional development whenever there is a change in the prescribed method of instruction, and because it presents a model of assessment that might be productively and successfully carried out on projects that integrate the use of technology with specific content-area instruction.
Amidst the enthusiasm for integrating technology in teaching, enthusiasm justified by the projects featured at the HT&T Forum, it seems important that we be conscious of what a "technologized" education makes (or can make) of both students and teachers. This interesting review, which is actually a survey of several of Postman's works, might cause us to hesitate in our use of technology in classrooms and schools; then again, Postman's warnings might simply give us a framework with which to judge promising (as opposed to unfortunate) practices in teaching with technology.
This report, produced by the Education Development Center, provides a careful analysis of the use of rather basic networking technology to improve classroom learning. Perhaps because the technology is simple, the report makes very clear several important issues concerning the use of technology in schools and classrooms, and, among other things, provides an example of how a "successful" (i.e. reliable) technology can, in certain cases, do little to transform teaching and learning.
"Suppose it were music the nation is concerned about. Our parents are worried that their children won't succeed in life unless they are musicians. Our musical test scores are the lowest in the world. After much hue and cry, Congress comes up with a technological solution: 'By the year 2000 we will put a piano in every classroom! But there are no funds to hire musicians, so we will retrain the existing teachers for two weeks every summer. That should solve the problem!' But we know that nothing much will happen here, because as any musician will tell you, the music is not in the piano!"
"I give talks about this sort of thing to educators and at the end they say, 'Well, exactly how is the computer going to help me teach fourth-grade math?' And that's exactly the wrong question -- there's not going to be a 'fourth-grade.' There's not going to be a separate math class."
"I was about to teach a graduate course I'd taught before on the life and thought of Augustine of Hippo, I had the idea of expanding it by letting in auditors, by having an e-mail discussion list that anyone in the world could sign up for. More than five hundred people signed up at one point or another. About four hundred stuck to the course for a whole semester... What we did was we had a regular seminar on Monday afternoon -- a seminar in a real room, talking to each other. The students took turns as rapporteurs, ... writing up a report on the day's discussion and putting it out for the five-hundred people on the list. .. I would come in the following Monday afternoon and, as often as not, quite contrary to the usual experience of a teacher leading a seminar, I would come into the room and not get a word in edgewise in the first ten to fifteen minutes because the discussion was already up and running. There was an interaction back and forth between the people in the room and the people not in the room."
"Remind yourself that you do not have expertise until you are able to make something actually work with teachers and students on a reasonable scale. This perspective keeps the focus on producing student learning as opposed to supporting one's ego or proving a pet theory or philosophy. Also, when something does not work, don't blame the test. Instead, make the curriculum and training better."
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This Forum on Hypermedia Teaching & Technology is sponsored by NetTech, the Education Alliance at Brown, and STG. Email questions, comments, etc. to Roger Blumberg