Editorial - October 2007 - Volume 107 (6)

How Much Technology is Enough-Or Too Much?

Gerald Kulm, Texas A&M University

The new school year is always an interesting, challenging, and refreshing time of the year. For those of us in education, it represents new students and colleagues, and fresh beginnings. For me, each new year is beginning to have another characteristic. I am split between anticipation and dread to learn about the new technologies that are unveiled for our use. I hasten to say that I am far from a Luddite, having embraced and encouraged the use of technology for the past 20 years. However, I wonder, as many others surely have, whether we should be more cautious in implementing each new tool, without doing some investigation, collecting data on possible effects, and making more informed decisions.

Our university and department is probably somewhat typical in its rapid advance toward technology in teacher education and professional development. The following is a summary of a few examples I have experienced in the past few months.

Teacher Education Modules. Funded by the state education agency, our department developed a set of web-based modules for mathematics methods, grades K to 12. As is often the case with state funds, the project lasted two years; just barely enough time to develop the modules and produce them on the web (see mtc.tamu.edu). In this case, we did press to have support for some field testing, which was done simultaneously with the development. The culmination of the project was a dissemination conference attended by about 150 teacher educators. Although there was not time to conduct evaluations of the modules after they were finalized, we did receive promises from our colleagues at the conference to try implementation and some data collection. We have used the modules to supplement our regular courses. Most students seem to love the idea of flexible time allotted to do assignments away from class, using their laptops. However, universities continue to seek efficiencies through technology, increasing class sizes and decreasing professor-student contact time. The overarching question is whether this type of format is as effective as face-to-face class work.

On-line Courses and Degrees. For the past few years, our department has been providing incentive pay for faculty to develop or convert traditional courses, especially graduate courses, but also undergraduate courses to web-based formats. A majority of our graduate courses are now available online. In some cases, that is the only option. The economic issues are clear: a graduate course that would draw half a dozen students on campus will have an enrollment of 15 to 20 when offered online. We are currently seeking approval for an online “Executive EdD” degree that will be entirely online. The degree is intended for school district curriculum supervisors and specialists.

iPods, PDAs, and Video. At the annual fall department retreat, each member of our faculty received a digital camera, a PDA, and several memory sticks. Those who attended a two-hour training session received an iPod. All of these goodies were purchased with money derived from extra fees students are charged for online courses. The idea and expectation is that faculty members will be creative in finding interesting and effective ways to implement these tools in their teaching. They will be able to access email, the online course website, their students, and each other from anywhere at any time. The PDAs are being used by methods instructors to do real-time evaluations of students in field-based experiences. The checklist data is uploaded to their computers, then pulled together into a data base that combines multiple sections and courses.

These examples are probably similar to others being implemented across the country. Technology development and implementation has always outrun the opportunity to do careful research on its effects. Even when technology appears to work well and have positive effects economically or seems to be more efficient, the longer term effects on learning science and mathematics are difficult to determine. As we use technology in our own classes for future educators and encourage them to do the same with K-12 students, we also should pay attention to our responsibility as researchers. Approaches to collecting data and evidence of the effects on our students should be as important as our creative thinking about ideas for applications of new technologies.

Announcement

Speaking of substituting technology for traditional approaches, this Journal is completing plans to use online submission and review of manuscripts. We expect to make this option available soon to authors and reviewers. A link on the journal web site (http://ssmj.tamu.edu) will make it possible for authors to submit manuscripts and follow the progress of the review process. Reviewers will access manuscripts for viewing and downloading, then submit their reviews online. We believe that this approach will help to shorten the time needed to process manuscripts, make it easier to track manuscripts, and save on postage, especially for international authors and reviewers. We expect to have this system available before the end of the year as an option. Traditional hard copy submission and review are expected to be phased out once the system has been tested and used successfully.