Context

= = toc **Analog and digital worlds** We live in the 21st century with many new tools that make more things possible than we can imagine. Using technology, the average person can create a multi-track recording, media type="file" key="woodshed_2006-07-16T10_57_18-07_00.mp3" width="240" height="20" a printed, professional-looking journal or magazine, a doctored photograph, a movie, media type="youtube" key="B5FSZ4TToVo" height="390" width="480" and 3-D animated video. media type="youtube" key="WPOddHZTNh8" height="390" width="480" Just 15 years ago each of these activities required equipment that the average person could not afford, operate, or house. The range of possible technologies available to the field of education has grown immense in a short period of time; at the same time, these new technologies are appealing to students because they allow students to do truly interesting projects. Students are likely to be much more interested in making a stop- animation video about a book they read than to write a book report. Yet a lot of the education process still depends on a 19th century technology, the chalkboard and its fancier brother, the dry-erase board. While the chalkboard was probably engaging technology at the time it was introduced, it has lost much of its appeal in light of newer audio-visual equipment from the late twentieth century and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) from the 21st century. When learning is not engaging to students, they are likely to ignore it; conversely, when educational projects require students to learn information but to represent it using the many possibilities offered by ICT (and getting well beyond just using presentation software, which has lost much of its ability to engage), then they often go beyond the terms of the assignment to create something spectacular.

Unlike today’s students who are considered to be “digital natives,” using computer-based technology from a very early age, many of today’s teachers and professors were born in a previous age and are having to adjust to the possibilities of the new paradigm. The differences between “digital” natives and “analog” natives is sizable because each has a different way of storing and using information as different concepts of how information can be shared. For example, analog people remember how copying a phonograph record onto a tape degraded the quality of sound. Digital people are used to retaining quality in every iteration of their music. Analog people remember mimeographs. Digital people are used to being able to create information and share it widely almost instantaneously. Analog people didn't take a lot of pictures because film was expensive to buy and develop. Digital people take thousands of photos all the time and everywhere.

These different possibilities govern thinking. Analog people's paradigm suggests that transmitting information is difficult which means they may be much less likely to use digital capabilities in this area. The digital capacities are not intuitive to people who live in the analog world.

While the digital world was necessarily created by analog natives such as the early computer scientists from the 1950s, most “analog” natives have some degree of struggle when entering the digital world. The analog/digital split has become extremely noticeable in the field of education. While there are analog natives in education who have learned how to manipulate the digital world (and to enjoy that process), there are also many people born in the analog world who are intimidated by the digital world, have little or no interest in learning how to operate in the new world, and who have little to no confidence in their own abilities to make that transition. Yet these analog natives must teach digital natives.

Sommers’ (2011) report, “Education that Gets Results: Giving Taxpayers Their Money’s Worth,” points out the greater context of today’s educational world:

//Education is the key to personal prosperity, and our state’s long-term success.// //Education does not operate in a vacuum and must respond to an ever-changing world// //that includes:// //• A globally competitive marketplace. Our children will compete globally for jobs// //and economic prosperity.// //• Rising expectations for knowledge and skills. Advanced learning is the new// //normal for today’s jobs. A good high school education isn’t sufficient to prepare// //young people for competitive jobs in today’s economy. Blue collar jobs require// //knowledge and skills that exceed our traditional expectations for entering// //college.// //• Urgency for all students to succeed. If Ohio is to become competitive nationally// //and internationally, we must greatly increase the number of students who// //succeed. (p. 2)//

Sommers then identifies using educational technology as one of five changes that need to be implemented in order to achieve the potential of education in Ohio. The implications in relation to the analog/digital split are that all Ohio children need to learn to use digital technology in order to succeed in the marketplace and that Ohio teachers must be able to use this technology effectively in the classroom to set up future marketplace success for students. Further, since any given classroom is likely to have several grades’ worth of student levels, from students who are 2-3 levels below grade level, students who are basically at grade level, and students who are significantly advanced beyond grade level, teachers need to learn how to individualize instruction so that more students can succeed. One role of educational technology is that it provides ways for teachers to give each student education at his/her challenge level.

=Funding challenges= While a lot of school technology was recently bought with stimulus dollars, the post-stimulus budget crunch means that when today’s new technology becomes tomorrow’s old technology, there may be little to no money to replace it. The tradition within most school systems is to buy proprietary hardware and software which can cost an enormous amount of money which leads to the idea that old technology cannot be replaced since that enormous amount of money is not available. As hardware breaks down and doesn’t get fixed, technology in the classroom becomes more and more unreliable which makes it much harder for teachers to use. Rebooting a slow computer takes a lot of time away from a lesson and also puts the classroom at risk for becoming out of control. There are forms of both hardware and software that can be affordable; many high quality software programs are free and have the type of license that allows them to be freely distributed and used. There are “workarounds” for hardware that take hardware from one source such as a video game system and apply it in an innovative way to create educational technology such as clicker systems (using smart phones).

=Accessibility of Technology= The first step to increasing students’ use of ICT is to make sure that the technology is actually available. Norris, C., Sullivan, T., Poirot, J., Soloway, E. (2003) point out that technology has little or no influence on student learning if students do not have access to it. While some classrooms are well-endowed with educational technology, even after the stimulus dollars some classrooms have a very small number of old computers and other classrooms allow computer access in computer labs for which teachers have to sign up in advance. Another factor to consider in the accessibility of technology is that computer waste in landfills has become a significant concern because of the dangerous substances in computers and because computer parts are not bio-degradable. Many people are beginning to recycle computers through using Open Source operating systems and programs. With new light-weight operating systems, old machines become not just usable, but fast, interesting, and engaging because of new possibilities. Donated recycled computers can add amazing new possibilities with technology. For example, Open Source programs are available not just on Windows and Macintosh operating systems; they are also available in many forms of Linux operating systems. The following chart compares proprietary software to equivalent Open Source software and demonstrates how Open Source software can expand the range of technology usage in the college classroom and the K-12 classroom, without costing money:

Why buy Microsoft Office $90-140 when you can get [|Open Office]?

Photoshop costs $200-500 [| Gnu Image Manipulation Program] doesn't.

Windows 7 costs $100 for a license to install on a limited number of computers. Linux ([|Ubuntu]in this case) doesn't cost anything for an infinite amount of computers and has amazing educational software

You could make a video with Adobe Premier $500. Or you can use [|Avidemux]

Adobe After Effects $800 is a professional video editing program. [|Blender] does the same thing. Here's an example: media type="youtube" key="WruTNnF6Ztg" height="390" width="480"

Adobe Illustrator $500-$600 is a vector graphics program. [| Inkscape]is also available.

Additionally, there are specialty Open Source programs for mathematics, science, and other forms of curricular content. Teachers will be able to add programs that will suit their classroom needs from a wide range of possibilities.

In addition to Open Source programs as resources, there are adaptations of technological items to create a version of expensive technology for a lot less money. For example, Johnny Chung Lee created an interactive whiteboard using a “wiimote” from the Wii game system and having the wiimote track infrared pens (which he shows how to make in his video); an example is shown here: media type="youtube" key="5s5EvhHy7eQ" height="390" width="480" Assuming a classroom has a computer and an LCD projector, the rest of the equipment to create this interactive whiteboard costs less than $100. This type of interactive whiteboard is not as good as the commercial ones; it is fussy to get it set up. The point of something like this is to get people thinking about old things in new ways.

=Teachers= Numerous studies, e.g., Zhao, Y., Pugh, K., Sheldon, S., & Byers, J. (2002); Kleiman (2000); and Hernandez-Ramos, Pedro. (2005), have suggested that having computers available in classrooms does not mean that they are being used effectively (or at all) for student learning. In fact the amount of technology in a classroom may far exceed a teacher’s capacity to use. These studies suggest that not only technical knowledge but beliefs about teaching significantly influence if and how ICT is used in education.

The creators of the E-tech RFP acknowledge this through the focus on pre-service and in-service teachers’ professional development. A number of issues must be covered in order to create effective university curricula for pre-service teachers and professional development for in-service teachers.

Teaching process.
The first issue is the position of technology in the teaching process, the primary question being, when and how technology enhances learning. Technology can be effective when it brings to the classroom something that cannot be experienced directly. For example, there are simulations that allow people to do virtual open-heart surgery, an experience not available in K-12 classrooms for obvious reasons. This kind of simulation provides students with high level intellectual engagement through virtual “hands-on” activities and supports learning about body structures and functions. Another way brings something previously unavailable to K-12 students is through online courses which bring high level college preparatory classes to all schools (as pointed out in the report, Education that Gets Results, Sommers, 2011).

Technology is also effective when it provides students with more ways to represent their learning. Traditional means for representing learning such as tests, essays, book reports, term papers, and even Power Point presentations can be very unmotivating. As mentioned above, it is now very easy to make videos and other media that can demonstrate learning in an authentic way. When students can represent their learning in creative ways, they are more likely to be engaged in the process.

Which type of student project would be more interesting for a teacher to assess?

media type="youtube" key="4GZk0cZ7wjc" height="390" width="640"

Finally, technology is effective when it gives students opportunities to solve problems related to their own desire to do something. For example, a student might want to make a character in [|Alice](a 3D learning environment that simulates writing computer programs and creates animation) move forward or up a hill. The resulting animation may represent classroom learning related to why a character is moving up a hill; the process of creating it represents the critical skill of problem solving and also creates a foundation for more complex computer use.

Teaching philosophy
A second issue is teachers’ perspectives about the teaching/learning relationship. Several of the above-cited research articles suggest that teachers with a constructivist philosophy tend to use technology more in teaching and to use it more effectively than teachers with other kinds of philosophies. Since a lot of using technology is based on constructing one’s own knowledge of what the technology can do and how to use it in one’s own context, it makes sense that constructivist philosophy is more in line with the use of technology than other approaches to learning.

Philosophies are deeply held beliefs, so to have a goal of people changing their philosophies to accommodate ICT would be extremely difficult to completely impossible to achieve; it would also be demeaning and paternalistic for a university-led program to expect to change teachers in this way. Instead, those who are creating curricula and professional development will find ways that technology can enhance all types of learning activities in the framework of a wide range of philosophies.

Learning technology
A third issue related to teachers’ adopting ICT in their classrooms is technical knowledge. Learning in classrooms tends to be defined and practiced as systematic, complete, accomplished step by step, mastery of a topic. This perspective on learning when applied to technology learning tends to make people feel overwhelmed. If it takes a week’s worth of hours to master Microsoft Office, how much more will it take to learn Photoshop, 2 and 3d animation programs, music manuscript-writing programs, software that accompanies hardware such as Smart Notebook, and so forth? This feeling is completely demotiving and unnecessary because effective technology learning does not mean learning everything about a few select pieces of software or hardware only to find these things become obsolete in a matter of 2-3 years.

When people are able to learn enough of a software program to get it to be useful to them and their students, that is a sufficient amount of learning about that particular program. When people learn how to take templates created by other people (whether templates for text layout or templates for Java Script widgets) and plug them into their own projects, that is an effective level of being able to use technology. When people can download a new-to-them program and find ways of exploring what it can do, that level of technological proficiency will help them to use technology for teaching and learning. Technology learning is often unsystematic, which means that a lot of things can be learned quickly.

Teachers and peers. It is extremely difficult for one single teacher in a school building to get to the level of innovating in ICT use because the process of learning the software, figuring out how to use it in the classroom, and innovating with it requires a cognitive load that most individuals cannot sustain. However, a group of teachers of several different levels of proficiency can benefit everyone. The advanced users can teach less advanced users. The less advanced users can be social and professional support for the advanced users.

Time
The final issue is time. The best curriculum or professional development program is useless if it is too time consuming either for pre-service teachers or for practicing teachers. Creators of technology development experiences should use asynchronous forms of teaching (e.g., online course work) as well as the creation of local peer groups within a single district or school so that synchronous learning fits into each person’s schedule.