Course V, Post Three

"[T]here still is very little scientifically based research to gauge the effectiveness of technology," according to John Bailey, the Director of Educational Technology for the U.S. Department of Education
-From Technology and Academic Achievement by Les Foltos (http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/technology/foltos.htm)

I began to read with interest an article I found called, Technology and Academic Achievement by Les Foltos. It appeared on the New Horizons for Learning site. It immediately raised some issues that concern just about any teacher regarding the use of technology. That is--does it improve student learning? This article claims that though millions and millions have been spent to create, maintain, and upgrade the technology infrastructure in public schools in the US, there is scant, if any, real evidence to show improvement in student learning. All this from the first two paragraphs. But then on closer inspections, we see the dates of this article and the studies cited--pushing ten years old. I wonder if there has been any recent, scientific study to show student learning in relation to the increase in technology used in education.

Another question, though, that springs to mind, is HOW will that increase in learning be measured. Years ago as a public school teacher, a fellow educator was lamenting the increased onslaught of state-mandated testing. He put a sign up in the faculty room: "You can't make a hog fatter by weighing it ever day." In the vein of referring to students as barnyard creatures, I'd venture you can't measure increase in ANYTHING other than weight with a scale. So, if you want to see if your prized pig has fatter pork chops and leaner pork rinds, you can't gauge that with a scale. OK, that makes no sense. But what I'm saying is; does it make sense to try and measure student acheivement with the same old tests (eg, standardized paper and pencil ITBS types, or the glorified MAP version) if the use of technology can provide a fundamentally different learning experience? So, back to the pigs: we just might be making them "fatter" but we're using the wrong scale and we haven't yet agreed on what fatter means.

Further along in the article comes this about student achievement: [using] computers to teach low order thinking skills, '...[W]as negatively related to academic achievement….'" This resonated with me as a teacher who still believes in the importance of putting a warm body in front of students, and particularly if that warm body has a high level of training. As somebody who has spent 15 years teaching middle school students, it makes perfect sense that students will learn fundamental skills better from a caring, nurturing human being rather than a computer. In fact, this article goes on to state that the learned teacher uses technology for simulations and problem solving, whereas the less-well versed educator will use technology for "drill and kill" type low-level activities.

Another area of note from this article: "We find that when you put the two, (inquiry based learning and true technology integration) together there's a synergy created that really boosts students' learning" (Brannigan, 2002). I like this because "computers" is not a curriculum...nor is it anything other than a noun used to describe object that, uh, compute. But getting back to that original rant about pigs and making them fatter, I wonder how we can assess in some sort of standardized way (and we can argue all day about the necessity to do that, but...) if a student is capable of taking himself on a focused, guided learning journey or "inquiry" using a certain set of technology available.