|
August 1, 2002
Connecting Technology and the Curriculum
By James Kelleher and Lynn Moore Benson
While the standards movement has helped educators to frame their vision for the role of technology in the classroom, most schools are still plagued by an "instructional digital divide." This refers to the limited success that schools have had in integrating technology into the curriculum in a meaningful way. The instructional digital divide can be explained by many factors, including the low quality of the available software; limitations in the school schedule; inadequate professional development on technology instruction, and an overwhelming number of school priorities that crowd out time and money for technology.
The many obstacles to the successful integration of technology into the school curriculum can seem insurmountable. In addition to the concerns cited above, much has been written about the digital divide, the disparity in access to technology between school systems with high levels of low-income enrollment and those with low levels of low-income enrollment. Research has also pointed to a gender digital divide, with boys gaining greater access to computers than girls. This inequity has surfaced in the low enrollment of girls in some computer application courses, along with the negative representation of women in various software programs.
In high standards schools, technology should not be a reward or an extra; it should be directly embedded in an assessment-driven curriculum. Today, some schools are still in the beginning stages of using technology while others need to pause and reflect upon what they will need to do differently in the future. The following Seven Essentials for High Technology Standards will help in this process. Any school that has carefully considered and implemented these Essentials will ensure that a foundation is in place to support the integration of technology into the curriculum.
Seven Essentials for Technology in Schools
The most important ingredient for any progress to be made in developing high technology standards is the need for continued support from teachers, administrators, school board members and community members. Support for technology needs to be a serious commitment that infuses all school practices, from finances to professional development to teacher evaluation. School improvement plans should outline the direction for technology, and this should inform teachers' goals and professional development pursuits. When teachers are not held accountable for integrating sound assessment-driven technology instruction into the curriculum, it is often because administrators are not comfortable with or sufficiently committed to the role it should play. Principals should be willing to gain new technology skills and coach and support their teachers in doing the same.
The second key step in developing high technology standards is the need for teachers to consider how curriculum standards, be they from the state, the district, or professional associations intersect with technology standards. If either the state or the district does not have technology standards, a good place to begin is with the national educational technology standards for students, developed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). These national standards, which include profiles of what students should know at various points in their educational careers, provide teachers with a guide to use technology effectively in the classroom. Teachers--who may be surprised to find that their district already has technology standards, as happened in one high school where I have conducted research--might need to amend locally approved curricula in order to incorporate technology lessons.
The third essential ingredient involves carefully mapping the role technology will play in the curriculum. Just as the curriculum spirals up, with students developing better skills in reading or writing as they advance from one grade to the next, students should be expected to learn new technologies and hone their skills as they progress upward. In my experience, teaching in an affluent school with good access to technology, it was not uncommon to find teachers assigning similar Microsoft PowerPoint projects at the same time, regardless of the time of year or the grade level. Like many teachers, we had good intentions, thinking that the technology would enrich students' experiences in the curriculum units we were covering. But we were thinking only about our individual curriculum units, rather than thinking about the big picture from the students' perspective.
Curriculum maps provide one way to clarify technology's role in the curriculum. A curriculum map outlines the grade level and time of year when technology skills (in Web page design, video editing, or presentational software, for example) will be introduced to students and shows how the expectations and skills will increase from year to year. The process of outlining expectations on a map can also make curriculum integration easier, since teachers will be able to see where they are already doing projects with similar themes or skills. Curriculum maps help everyone, including parents and other non-educators, visualize the curriculum and clearly see how technology fits in. A good resource on curriculum mapping is Heidi Hayes Jacobs' (1997) Mapping the Big Picture.
The fourth component involves specific competencies for teachers. School districts should clarify what they expect teachers to know and be able to do with both hardware and software. In a district that wants to make technology its primary focus, technology competencies should be a factor in teachers' evaluations; and technology competencies should guide the teachers' goals and the district's professional development program. Many school districts have already established competencies, along with rubrics for evaluating skills. Ability levels on these competencies range from novice to expert, covering skills such as setting up the computer or developing a multimedia presentation.
The fifth step in developing high technology standards includes technology competencies for students. In addition to clarifying expectations for staff, school districts should also decide what technology skills students should gain throughout the curriculum. Two excellent examples of competencies for students, available on the World Wide Web, are those of the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District in Fairbanks, Alaska, and public schools of Bellingham, Washington. Unfortunately, many schools have either no technology expectations or just token statements, such as vaguely worded technology requirements for graduation. Schools that struggle with limited resources may wonder if it makes sense to have explicit, comprehensive technology competencies if the school and district are unable (or unwilling) to provide the funds to achieve them. It is important to remember the crucial role that competencies play in providing a common understanding of what constitutes excellence in technology at each grade level. Nevertheless, in schools or school districts that have been inconsistent in their support of technology, both in funds and in holding teachers and administrators accountable, then the adoption of competencies (or maps or technology standards, for that matter) may not change anything.
A sixth step involves the use of technology self-assessments, both for teachers and for students, to measure progress and set new goals. A number of self-assessments are already available (again, Fairbanks, AL and Bellingham, WA provide good examples on their Web sites). Teachers may want to make their own assessment of students'growth, just as principals or peer coaches may want to assess teachers' growth in developing technology skills. Even so, a self-assessment is a good place to begin, since it encourages reflection and accountability to oneself. Since technology skills are life skills, it is important for students and teachers to be able to set their own goals and measure their progress toward those goals.
A final, but significant step includes district and school level technology plans. Technology plans should outline an overall vision for technology along with the nuts and bolts of purchasing hardware and software, allocating paraprofessional help, and enforcing other regulations. A good technology plan outlines where the school and district want to be in five years, along with what will be needed to get there. The preceding six steps, along with a commitment from teachers, school leaders and community members to support technology, will ensure that the technology plan is implemented in a meaningful way.
Assessment and Technology
Once the foundation to support a strong role for technology in the curriculum exists, attention should turn to the development of appropriate assessments. Teachers should consider how they will provide students with feedback on both content knowledge and technology skills. If a seventh grade student has used Apple's iMovie software, for example, to edit a movie on the Age of Exploration, the teacher should decide how to provide feedback on the many components involved in the assignment, ranging from content knowledge of the Age of Exploration to filming and editing skills. In his book, Transforming Classroom Grading, Marzano (2000) has written that "a single letter grade or a percentage score is not a good way to report student achievement in any subject area because it simply cannot present the level of detailed feedback necessary for effective learning" (p. 106). This is particularly true with regard to technology, since the skills involved are often different from the skills and content of the subject area. In working with technology in the curriculum, teachers need to be as clear as possible in assessing how students have met both the technology expectations of a unit or project as well as the content-area expectations.
One way to achieve this is through the use of rubrics. As a high school Spanish teacher, I evaluated students' video projects with two rubrics, one for oral presentations and one for editing videos (download rubric). My students received two grades for video projects, one that reflected students' skills in using the movie editing software, and another that reflected students' growth in oral language skills. Students found it easy to adapt to this grading system, particularly since it clarified which skills were strongly developed and which ones needed additional development. The expectations for excellence were also clear, since the video-editing rubric was general enough that it could be used by any teacher at the secondary level in conjunction with specific, content-area rubrics. As with any rubric, exemplars were shared with students, and teachers met occasionally to discuss grading practices and ensure that they were interpreting the rubrics in the same way.
The strength of this approach is that students are being held to the same technology expectations in varying content areas. Thus, if a student (in a school that has adopted the rubric) wants to improve her audio visual and editing skills, all teachers will hold her to this standard, regardless of the subject area or grade level. Interpretations of the rubric may vary somewhat depending on students' ability levels. While the rubric would not necessarily change from year to year, teachers' expectations would increase, according to the technology expectations outlined in the school's curriculum map, as students become more sophisticated in their use of technology.
One of the primary lessons of the standards movement (although many legislators have yet to grasp it fully) is the importance of utilizing multiple measures to assess student learning. In addition to the use of rubrics, schools may also rely upon electronic portfolios and traditional tests. With certain technology lessons, an authentic assessment, such as a performance task or an exhibition, may be an effective way to showcase excellent student work and also provide professional development to teachers. Every year, one of our schools organizes a school-wide awards ceremony based on the Academy Awards. Teachers nominate the best video projects of the year in various categories, ranging from Best Film to Best Actor to Best Supporting Actress. Brief clips of all nominated films are shown (and this is still fun even when the movies are in German or French); students and teachers dress up, and awards are given. The ceremony, which can also include Microsoft PowerPoint, Web design and other projects, is a creative way to celebrate student achievement, and it allows both students and teachers to be motivated by the creative work that is being done with technology.
It is necessary to take careful steps to ensure a strong foundation that supports the integration of technology into the school curriculum. At the same time, principals and teachers must consider how technology will be assessed. The standards for excellence in technology should be shared in common by all teachers in the school or district, and these standards, along with the multiple measures for assessing students' progress, should be conveyed to students regularly. Students should have a clear understanding of what is expected of them from year to year, and from one Web design experience to the next even within the same year. This will require a commitment from administrators to find time for teachers to share with each other; to model excellent technology curriculum for each other; and to compare grading practices. Of course, the long-term success of this depends heavily on the first essential mentioned above: the ongoing support of teachers, administrators, school board members and community members.
James Kelleher, Ph.D. is Director of Secondary Curriculum for the Dover Public Schools in Dover, NH. Lynn Moore Benson is Technology Instructional Specialist and French Teacher for the Wellesley Public Schools in Wellesley, MA.
Email: James Kelleher
|
