RE: [xmca] NYTimes.com article: Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops

From: Russell, Donna L <russelldl who-is-at umkc.edu>
Date: Tue May 08 2007 - 18:08:10 PDT

hello all
 
i previously spent 14 years in k-12 classrooms using advanced new technologies - i was fortunate to work in a school district that encouraged innovations of this type both using new technologies and implementing new curriculum -
 
however many teachers work in situations of incredible restrictions where innovation is repressed or negated by standardized testing, top-down implementation, lack of professional development and few resources (including educational research) that informs educators on how productive innovation works.
 
i did my dissertation study of 4 teachers working together online to implement an online problem-based learning curriculum- through the use of CHAT i was able to identify those concepts (and their beliefs are important) and responses that were productive or less productive (contradictory to their goals).
 
working in conjunction with these teachers i was able to help them understand the stressors of implementing innovation in education (one teacher was given access to a computer lab to implement this innovative online problem-based learning unit and then told that her standardized test scores should go up as a result of increased access to technology or she could be fired)
 
CHAT helped me help these teachers understand their goals for their students and how the implementation of advanced new technologies can help them meet these goals and also how to work through the problems that will arise in the process
 
more CHAT research that identifies the contradictions that impact educators implementing new technologies would be very useful for teachers who would like to try new technologies in their classrooms.
 
 
donna
 
 
Donna L. Russell, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Instructional Technology
Curriculum and Instructional Leadership
School of Education
University of Missouri-Kansas City
(email) russelldl@umkc.edu <mailto:russelldl@umkc.edu>
(website) http://r.web.umkc.edu/russelldl/ <http://r.web.umkc.edu/russelldl>
 
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Received on Tue May 8 19:09 PDT 2007

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