Improving Learning with Information Technology Report of a Workshop (2002) / Chapter Skim
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1. Initial ILIT Activity: A Symposium
1. Initial ILIT Activity: A Symposium
Pages 3-28
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From page 3... ...
and nearly ubiouitous.1 ~ 1 ' ~ 1 , ~ 1 1How to increase access to education technologies and minimize the digital dividedefined broadly as socioeconomic disparities in access to information technology—were important themes of this workshop and of the ILIT project itself. Additional discussions on these topics can be found later in this text.
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From page 4... ...
He identified the following "megatrends" within the educational landscape that could aid the project by coalescing the three principal communities: · Learning Sciences Research How People Learn (NRC, 1999b) explains the solid scientific basis for guiding advances in curriculum, pedagogy, teacher education, and assessment.
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From page 5... ...
This means that almost all public schools and three-quarters of instructional rooms are connected to the Internet (Cattagni and Ferris, 2001) , although wide socioeconomic disparities still persist (National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 20001.
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, especially given the increasing demands for academic excellence and accountability in the nation's public schools. Professional development issues for current teachers also pose significant challenges (see for example, (NRC, 1996b, 2000; National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, 20001.
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From page 7... ...
Recent advances include applicationsbased networking, the application service provider (ASP) model, different platforms such as handhelds, thin client servers, peer-to-peer and wireless networks, and digital cameras, videocams, and MP3 music players.
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From page 8... ...
Current research in the cognitive sciences coupled with the power of emerging IT should make it possible to provide fundamentally better real-time teaching and assessment capabilities in classrooms. Ready access to IT specifically designed for improving education should provide opportunities for meaningful, careerenhancing professional development for many more teachers in the myriad settings that constitute today's and tomorrow's education environments.
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From page 10... ...
Over the timeline for this project, the committee expects to establish ongoing dialogue and interactions among the three sectors the IT industry, the learning sciences, and the education community. The committee will need to find ways to tap the knowledge, research, and innovations of each of these communities, because they all must become fundamental contributors to the process of improving teaching and learning.
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From page 11... ...
People are designed to be flexible learners and active agents in acquiring knowledge and skills. While acknowledging that people learn many things without formal instruction, the committee found that formal training is usually necessary to learn reading, mathematics, the sciences, literature, and the history of a society, and the school is the traditional venue for this learning.
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From page 12... ...
Students can use visualization and modeling software tools to increase their conceptual understanding. New technologies provide access to a vast array of information, including digital libraries, real-world data to use in analyses, and linkage to remote experts and others who can provide information, feedback, and inspiration, all of which can enhance the learning of teachers and administrators as well as students.
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From page 13... ...
What is the best way to use technology to facilitate teacher learning? Bransford concluded that good educational software and teacher-support tools, developed with full understanding of the principles of learning, have not yet become the norm, and that the ILIT committee's deliberations about these questions would benefit the educational community.
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From page 14... ...
Identifying Fundamental Community Differences A participant offered initial comments, describing a "caricature" of the separate, sometimes competing, and certainly diverse nature of the different communities learning sciences, education, and the IT industry: · Learning scientists write grants and papers, conduct research, earn tenure (or not) , and get promoted (or not)
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From page 15... ...
He thought this was both ironic and accurate, as education often appears to be squeezed by the other stakeholders. On one side, the learning sciences community provides the latest strategies or tools based on its research, but these findings may be valid for only a year or two until the next "breakthrough." This speaker asserted that, by necessity, many educators have "desensitized" themselves to this sector's contributions and continue to do what their experience tells them is best for helping children learn.
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From page 16... ...
, teachers and administrators are not able to integrate data about what sites students are viewing so that they can build on students' interests. Finally, another person with ties to both the learning sciences and technology communities commented that if any progress is to be made, participants should understand that education is not monolithic.
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From page 17... ...
lust as other practical courses, such as keyboarding and cooking, are offered to prepare students for their future, using technology skillfully should be included in the K-12 curriculum.
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She cautioned ILIT committee members to consider questions of accountability carefully throughout their deliberations. Considering Context A colleague in a large university system was compelled to remind others that context is extremely important in addressing the problem of im
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From page 19... ...
The current thinking of the information technology and learning sciences communities represented at the symposium and the instructional materials actually purchased by the states are worlds apart. She mentioned that some states, such as California, are adopting only software that teaches children conventional algorithms.
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Despite valiant attempts by educators to transform teaching and learning at these grade levels, IT had often proved more trouble than educators thought it was worth. Furthermore, there is very little research evidence to support the claim that IT actually improves learning outcomes (President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, 1997)
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From page 21... ...
EXEMPLARS: IT CAN BE DONE The symposium included presentations by representatives from four projects that have successfully used information technologies to achieve significant goals. These projects all involved partnerships that required the kind of bridging work the ILIT committee would like to highlight and promote nationally for further achievement in improving learning with information technology.
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From page 22... ...
The network's architect is Darryl LaGace, Lemon Grove School District's director of information systems, who envisioned a connected learning community in which the school district serves as the communication hub for an entire community. What makes the system unique is the use of a microwave tower, located at the district office.
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From page 23... ...
Like many urban districts, Union City was also facing many obstacles to correcting these deficiencies, including language barriers, parents with limited formal education, and students with little incentive to stay in school. Rather than lose local control of the school district, however, Union City decided to face these challenges head on and drastically reform the entire educational system.
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From page 24... ...
Approximately 85 percent of the 3.500 instructional computers those in classrooms, media centers, and computer labs are part of a district-wide network that connects the schools, two public libraries, the city hall, and the local daycare center to the central office servers through T-1 lines. With a ratio of four students per computer, Union City is now one of the most wired urban school districts in the United States.
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From page 25... ...
Lessons from the McCosh partnership include the recognition that the partnerships must focus on developing the professional community of teachers within the 8A National Science Foundation funded center with a partnership between Chicago public schools, Detroit public schools, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan that forms collaborations with urban schools, designs project-based science curricula, develops interactive computing technologies, and supports systemic education reform. 9A partnership between Chicago Public Schools, Chicago City Colleges, and four-year colleges and universities with the goal of improving teacher professional development, curriculum, and student academic achievement in mathematics, science, and technology education in grades 7-14.
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From page 26... ...
SimCalc is based on the premise that technology provides essential means to restructure curriculum in order to democratize access to important and powerful ideas; build much more longitudinal coherence between the early and the later years of education; focus on the growth of big ideas and their roots in everyday human experience; crack the formalism barrier by providing multiple ways of working with mathematical ideas, using the full range of human linguistic, visualization, and cognitive capacities; increase efficiency by teaching several important ideas simultaneously; and bring mathematics taught in K-12 schools out of the nineteenth century and into the twenty-first century. The SimCalc Project began in 1993 as a National Science Foundation (NSF)
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From page 27... ...
The project also investigated related issues of learning, component software development, interface design, and the learning differences in observing simulated motion versus observing physical motion. The second phase of the project lasted from 1996 to 2000.
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