Facing the risks of Computers in School - The Professional Development Debate

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Facing the risks of Computers in School - The
Professional Development Debate

• Jim Vanides
• Yasu Kato

ED224 3/15/2001
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Overview Framing the debate

• Issues we agree on
• The Risks
• The Disagreements

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Teachers need more opportunities to learn about
teaching with technology

• The Risk
• The cost to do it well is too high.
• Teachers dont have enough time.
• Other professional development is needed
• Spending on technology is wasted.
• Teachers will be spending their precious time
  focused on non-essentials

• Disagreement
• Mis-use will lead to a decrease in student
  learning
• Some training is better than nothing

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Some teachers are spending their own time to
learn technologies

• The Risk
• At a time when the demand for talented teachers
  is sharply increasing, teachers will quit in
  frustration
• Not enough teachers are this motivated, so
  building capacity to teach with tech will not
  happen fast enough

• Disagreement
• If teachers have paid training time, the teaching
  staff attrition will increase.
• It is expected that professionals need to spend
  some of their own time learning.

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Teachers must avoid the misuse of technologies

• The Risk
• Mis-use will lead to a decrease in student
  achievement.

• Disagreement
• What misuse looks like
• How to assess teaching
• How to measure student achievement

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There is insufficient technical support in most
schools

• The Risk
• Teachers waste time in fixing technical problems.
• Teachers waste time in preparing for class, since
  they cant count on the technology working
• The broken technology sits unused (Low ROI)

• Disagreement
• Dont bother training the teachers because the
  kids know better than teachers, so they are going
  to help.
• Technical support costs too much.

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Technology enables collaboration, helping to
reduce teacher isolation...

• The Risk
• Best-practices dont spread, limiting the
  capacity to grow master teachers
• Teachers will retire and their knowledge will be
  lost, forcing new teachers to forever be learning
  from scratch
• Teachers dont have time for communication
  technologies.
• Teachers lack a culture of collaboration
• Consistency is a key. A teacher is primarily
  responsible for his/her class.

• Disagreement

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Teachers are under pressure from outside to
prepare students for their future

• The Risk
• Superintendents and policy makers are overly
  influenced by the computer industry.
• Parents are controlled by mass media.
• Computer skills dont need to be taught in school

• Disagreement
• Students cant compete for information-age jobs
• Students cant compete for high opportunity
  colleges
• Students are info-illiterate, a risk to an
  informed and functional society

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Most faculty in teacher education program are B.C.

• The Risk
• New teachers will graduate without having
  experienced what the integration of technology
  looks like, leaving them with nothing to emulate
• Teachers might lose some of core teaching
  knowledge.
• Teaching should be the focus, not technology

• Disagreement
• Some programs provide technology course.

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Conclusion

• The Risks are significant
• The Debate is critically important
• Every year millions of children leave or graduate
  from school. If were serious about leaving no
  child behind, we must accelerate the discourse.