Technology infusion in K-12 classrooms: a retrospective look at three decades of challenges and advancements in research
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Technology infusion in K‑12 classrooms: a retrospective look at three decades of challenges and advancements in research and practice Steven M. Ross1
© Association for Educational Communications and Technology 2020
Abstract Educational technology offers unique affordances as a learning tool and delivery system for enhancing and personalizing instruction. Over the past two decades, efforts by school districts and states to infuse technology into everyday K-12 education through one-to-one laptop initiatives have rapidly proliferated. In this paper, I examine such initiatives from studies in the literature and from my own research, starting with the Apple Classroom of Tomorrow in the mid-1980′s and continuing today with comprehensive mixed-method evaluations in school districts. Drawing from this work, I focus on several themes that create both challenges and opportunities for technology infusion to occur in more effective and sustainable ways. These include: (a) conceptualizing technology as an educational tool and delivery system, not as a “treatment” in itself; (b) defining and communicating to stakeholders what proximal and long-term outcomes the technology initiative is (and is not) expected to promote; (c) not over-promising impacts on student achievement on standardized assessments where technology applications are directed primary toward other educational goals; and (d) conducting ongoing evaluation studies to provide evidence of program implementation progress and effectiveness at different phases of the initiative. Keywords Educational technology infusion · Evaluating educational technology programs · K-12 applications of technology
Introduction Over 30 years ago, I visited a fifth-grade classroom in one of the poorest, most crimeridden sections of Memphis, Tennessee, and it changed the direction of my career as an educational researcher. The classroom was not a random choice, as it had a special purpose and even a formal name—Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT). It was part of a nationwide initiative by Apple Computer, Inc. in the mid-1980′s to develop and research innovative uses of computers in K-12 education (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow 1991; Baker
* Steven M. Ross [email protected] 1
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
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et al. 1993, 1989; Ross et al. 1989c; Tierney 1988). At that time, I was actively engaged in conducting basic research studies on educational technology applications in learning and instructional design. One of my center’s primary focuses, which generated some national interest, was using computer-based instruction (CBI) to personalize mathematics word problems by adapting themes to individual interests (Anand and Ross 1987; Ross and Anand 1987). As was common in that era of academic scholarship, the study “subjects” were college students who received course credits for participating. Despite the unavoidable limitations for external validity, we viewed the research findings as having meaningful implications for applied CBI design, specific
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