Critical Issue: Technology: A Catalyst for Teaching and Learning in the ClassroomThis Critical Issue was researched and written by Gilbert Valdez, Ph.D., director of North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium and codirector of North Central Eisenhower Mathematics and Science Consortium (NCEMSC). Editorial guidance was provided by Barbara Youngren, director, NCEMSC.
The Critical Issue team would like to acknowledge the following experts for reviewing this article: Marla Davenport, director of Learning and Technology, TIES; Kathleen Fulton, director for Reinventing Schools for the 21st Century at the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future; and Robert Nelson, Learning, Leading and Technology.
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ISSUE:
The interface between educational technology and science and mathematics instruction is integral and symbiotic. Few of the examples noted in the Glenn Commission report (
National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century, 2000) would be as advanced as they are without the use of technology:
Literacy in these areas [mathematics and science] affects the ability to understand weather and stock reports, develop a personal financial plan, or understand a doctor's advice. Taking advantage of mathematical and scientific information does not generally require an expert's grasp of those disciplines. But it does require a distinctive approach to analyzing information. We all have to be able to make accurate observations, develop conjectures, and test hypotheses: In short, we have to be familiar with a scientific approach. (p. 14)
Educational technology, especially computers and computer-related peripherals, have grown tremendously and have permeated all areas of our lives. It is incomprehensible that anyone today would argue that banks, hospitals, or any industry should use less technology. Most young people cannot understand arguments that schools should limit technology use. For them, use of the Internet, for example, plays a major role in their relationships with their friends, their families, and their schools. Teens and their parents generally think use of the Internet enhances the social life and academic work of teenagers:
The Internet is becoming an increasingly vital tool in our information society. More Americans are going online to conduct such day-to-day activities as education, business transactions, personal correspondence, research and information-gathering, and job searches. Each year, being digitally connected becomes ever more critical to economic and educational advancement and community participation. Now that a large number of Americans regularly use the Internet to conduct daily activities, people who lack access to these tools are at a growing disadvantage. Therefore, raising the level of digital inclusion by increasing the number of Americans using the technology tools of the digital age is a vitally important national goal. (
U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, & National Telecommunications and Information Administration. (2000, p. xv)
The very concept of the Internet would not be possible without technology. This is paralleled by the incredibly rapid growth of information that likely would not be possible without this technology. Research centers with no computers would arouse suspicion about the completeness, accuracy, and currency of their information because science and mathematics information grows daily and much of that new information can only be found through the use of technology. In fact, very few would argue with the statement that computers are essential to the work of professional scientists and mathematicians.
From the beginning of the computer age, educational researchers and practitioners have told us that for technology use to be successful in our schools it needed to be closely tied to school reform. Glennan and Melmed (1995) wrote: "Technology without reform is likely to have little value: widespread reform without technology is probably impossible" (pp. xix–xx.). The unavoidable conclusion is that successful improvement of technology, science, and mathematics education is of high importance to our future. In 2002, 100 high-tech executives met with President Bush to discuss the future of technology: They indicated that improving mathematics and science education ranked next to national security and broadband Internet access was one of the most important considerations for improving economic growth in their companies.
Given the vital role of technology in today's world, t his Critical Issue will examine the value of effective technology use in classrooms with specific references to mathematics and science instruction, programs, and curricula. It will attempt to answer the following three questions that are essential to making technology use more effective in instruction :
What prevents educational researchers from giving us definitive answers about technology in the classroom that would satisfy both critics and advocates?
What does the best quantitative and qualitative research tell us about educational technology's effectiveness and the conditions and factors necessary for maximum effectiveness?
Why is educational technology important to the teaching and learning of mathematics and science and what are the important considerations and resources that make technology use more effective?
