Using Technology for Education: Panel Recommendations
“During a period in which technology has fundamentally transformed America’s offices, factories, and retail establishments, its impact within our nation’s classrooms has generally been quite modest.” --Panel on Education Technology Report
To support President Clinton’s commitment to prepare American children for the twenty-first century, the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) formed a Panel on Education Technology. The Panel’s findings were recently made available in a 135-page document entitled, “Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States” (March 1997.)
“If the federal government is to play a meaningful role in applying technology effectively within the nation’s elementary and secondary schools,” the Panel states, “the deployment of computers and their interconnection...must not be viewed as an end in itself.” The report emphasizes that importance must also be given to understanding methods of using technologies for teaching, developing appropriate software, providing teachers with the time and training to integrate it into the curriculum, and evaluating what methods are most successful. On the basis of its review of current policies, programs, and pedagogy, the Panel makes the following recommendations:
1. Focus on learning with technology; not about technology. “Although universal technological literacy is a laudable national goal,” the report says, “the Panel believes the Administration should work toward the use of computing and networking technologies to improve the quality of education in all subject areas.”
2. Emphasize content and pedagogy, and not just hardware. Although “access to modern hardware remains a significant impediment,” the Panel finds “widespread agreement that one of the principal factors now limiting the extensive and effective use of technology within American schools is the relative dearth of high-quality computer software and digital content designed specifically for that purpose.”
3. Give special attention to professional development. “The benefit to students increasingly will depend on the skill with which some three million teachers are able to use these new tools,” the report claims. Yet the Panel’s review shows that “among teachers who report having one or more computer systems readily available at school, only 62 percent use a computer regularly for instruction.” It attributes this to the fact that teachers currently receive little technical, pedagogical, or administrative support for integrating educational technologies, and few education colleges prepare them to use such tools in the classrooms. The Panel calls for doubling the amount of the typical education technology budget devoted to teacher development from 15 percent to at least 30 percent.
4. Engage in realistic budgeting. The Panel warns educators that “in the absence of realistic budgetary planning, schools and school districts are prone to overspending on the initial acquisition of hardware, and may find themselves with inadequate funding for upgrading and replacement, software and content, hardware and software maintenance, professional development for teachers, and the hiring and retention of necessary technical support personnel.” It recommends that the amount of public investment in K-12 education devoted to technology-related expenditures be increased from approximately 1.3 percent to at least five percent (about $13 billion per year in 1996 dollars.)
5. Ensure equitable, universal access. The Panel comments that in recent years, “specifically targeted federal programs have...helped to substantially mitigate some of the disparities in access to educational technology.” However, it finds reasons for continued concern, and notes that “systematic disparities in the availability of computers and modems within the home may represent an even greater problem from the viewpoint of equitable access.”
6. Initiate a major program of experimental research. “In the judgment of the Panel,” the report says, “any research that sheds light on how technology might be employed in a more efficacious...or cost-effective manner would be of great value in maximizing the ratio of benefit to cost.” It adds, “In the long run, the Panel believes that much of the promise of educational technology is likely to remain unfulfilled in the absence of a significant increase in the level of funding available for research in this area.” The Panel recommends gradually increasing this percentage so that “a steady-state allocation of no less than 0.5 percent of our nation’s aggregate K-12 educational spending (or approximately $1.5 billion per year at present expenditure levels) be made to federally sponsored research aimed specifically at improving the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of K-12 education in the United States.” The fraction of educational spending currently devoted to this aspect is less than 0.1 percent.
The report generally praises the Clinton Administration’s current educational technology efforts, finding that “most of the areas the Panel has identified as critical to the successful deployment of educational technology are encompassed by the President’s initiative.” But it adds the following caveat: “The most important respect in which the Panel believes the President’s initiative should be fundamentally broadened and strengthened, however, relates to the pressing need for large-scale, federally sponsored research and evaluation.”
Copies of the report can be obtained by calling 212-478-0608 or emailing a request to garrett-deckel@deshaw.com . The full text is available on the Web at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/OSTP/NSTC/PCAST/k-12ed.html
