The Teacher as Designer of Instructional Technology: Transcending time and technology in designing for global teaching and learning

1. The Teacher as Designer of
Instructional Technology:
Transcending time and
technology in designing for
global teaching and learning
David Whittier, EdD
Educational Media Technology Program
Boston University
whittier@bu.edu

2. Predictions about Technology in
Education
Teacher as Designer of Instructional Technology
– Case studies
– Research
– History of the field
The Unmet Promise of
Education TechnologyBy
Robert Slavin on September
14, 2011 6:59 AM | Leave a
comment

3. History of Predictions by Non-Teachers
Film:
“Books will soon be obsolete in the
schools. Scholars will soon be instructed
through the eye. It is possible to teach
every branch of human knowledge with
the motion picture. Our school system
will be completely changed in ten
years” (Edison, 1913)

4. Radio
"This is no place to indulge in idle
fancies, but it is no imaginary
dream to picture the school of
tomorrow as an entirely different
institution from that of today
because of the use of radio in
teaching” (1927)
(Pittman 1986, 40)

5. Television
"Television will not be simply a
luxury entertainment service.
Its educational potential is
unlimited. It will be the most
powerful communication tool of
them all”
(Journal of the AER, v. 6, no. 6 - Feb. 1947)

6. Computer
"The computer will blow up the school."
(Papert 1984)

7. Video Games
• Video games can reshape education
(Feller, 2006)
• Games teach team building, multitasking and
problem-solving under duress
• Scientists call it the next great discovery, a
way to captivate students so much they will
spend hours learning on their own. It's the
new vision of video games

8. Video Games (continued)
The Federation of American Scientists says that
video games can redefine education. The theory
is that games teach skills that employers want:
analytical thinking, team building, multitasking
and problem-solving under duress
(Msnbc, Technology and Science Oct. 18, 2006)

9. Three Game Changing Tools That Will
Transform Education - 2011
• Apple IPad
• Microsoft Xbox
• Promethean ActivBoard Mobile System

10. What does the research say
– over time?

11. Research on Educational Film
• Film “will only attain its highest degree of
effectiveness when accompanied by good
teaching”
• The “teacher’s own interest” helped
determine effectiveness
(Knowlton and Tilton, 1929)

12. Non-Teachers have their own agenda
“Lack of teamwork among the various
constituencies of film producers, teachers and
educators, historians, business people, and
educational psychologists” contributed to
significant failure in educational film.
(McClusky, 1937)

13. Television
“Television was hurled at teachers.”
(Television in Education - 1960s and 70s)
“The technology and its initial applications to
the classroom were conceived, planned, and
adopted by non-teachers”
(Cuban, 1986)

14. Research was ignored
• “It is clear from the available studies that
they hold significant implications for the use
and design of instructional films and related
media.
• However, it is a puzzling fact that this
extensive program failed to influence film
production” . . .
(Lumsdaine, 1961)

15. Educational TV 1955
• St. Louis experiment found that TV instruction
could not carry the “complete instructional
burden and follow-up instruction by
classroom teachers was necessary.”
• Pittsburgh Project - effectiveness of televised
lessons depend on the quality of the follow-up
by teacher
(Saettler, 1990, p. 367)

16. Classroom Teachers are Integral
“Some of the most successful uses seem to
depend on the studio teacher and the
classroom teacher working as a team,
toward the same learning goals”
Chu & Schramm, (1979)
• Classroom teachers are an integral part of the
success of educational television
• Television can enhance learning under the right
conditions

17. Programmed Instruction (PI)
• Programmed instruction plus classroom
teaching was more effective than either alone
(Denver PS, 1960s, n=6000).
• The more enthusiastic the teachers, the
better the student work.
• However, difficult and time consuming to
implement.
• Teacher attitudes proved to be a critical factor
in the success of PI.

18. Technology dependent on the skilled
Teacher
“A well-designed and well produced TV program
can and does teach . . . especially true when
the medium is in the hands of a skilled teacher”
(Cambre, 1988)

19. Washington Post, April 5, 2007
Educational software, a $2 billion-a-year
industry that has become the darling of school
systems across the country, has no significant
impact on student performance, according to a
study by the U.S. Department of Education

20. 2007 Educational Software Research
A study on the “Effectiveness of reading and
mathematics software products: Findings from the
first student cohort,” (Dynarski et al., 2007),
reported no difference in performance on
standardized tests between students who used the
software and those who did not.
Why Not?

21. Why Not?
1. Emphasis on “products” separate from the
teachers who would use them and the processes
to plan and implement.
2. Behaviorist, or “transmission” model of the
software.
3. Students used the software largely
independently, in a tutorial model, apart from
teacher direction.
4. No “good links to other study and activities in
the classroom as it largely stood alone in
roughly 10% of the classroom time in which it
was deployed.”
(Fitzer et al., 2007)

22. Conclusion on 2007,
$3 million software trial
“Puzzling absence of the teacher in the conception
of the software and its trial.”

23. A Costly Lesson 2009
• “15,000 Birmingham students k-5 were each given a
computer, at a cost of $200 apiece. . . It did not take long,
however, for several major flaws in this plan to become
evident.”
• School leaders “negotiated
the city's purchase of the
computers for $3 million, and
that was apparently as far as
their thought process went.
• Their plan did not include
sufficient time, money, or
resources to train teachers
how to use the laptops or how
to incorporate them into the
curriculum.”

24. Teachers should decide
“Teachers will alter classroom behavior selectively
to the degree that certain technologies help them to
solve problems they define as important and avoid
eroding their classroom authority”
(Cuban, 1986)

25. Patterns in Educational Technology
• “The glowing early promises that these
technological innovations would revolutionize
education failed to materialize.
• Most failed because their main objective was
to prove that technology was wonderful and
they lacked “any theoretical or experimental
foundation.” They “quickly faded away”
(Saettler, 1990)

26. Patterns in Educational Technology
• Pattern of New Technology in Education:
• Extravagant Predictions
• Exaggerated Claims

27. The “Teacher as Designer of
Instructional Technology” (TDIT)
• Responds to historical lessons learned by
putting teachers in charge of producing their
own resources.
• ED-101 educates pre-service teachers (PST)
to integrate technology into processes of
teaching by producing instructional Websites.
• University required technology lab linked to
field placement.
• Supervising classroom teacher is PST’s client
for technology lab Web development.

28. Teachers Understand Best
• The constraints imposed by time, skills, logistics,
real life, schedules and buildings. Teachers
understand best the need for assimilation,
individualization and differentiation among their
students
• “Contextually Constrained Choice”
(Cuban, 2001)

29. Measuring History
• Two-part questionnaire assessing
participating pre-service teacher’s self-
reported knowledge of:
• Part 1. Technology and
Curriculum Integration
Competencies (13 items)
and
• Part 2. Common Teaching
Practices (5 items)

30. ED 101 pre/post over 10 semesters
2005-2011
Part 1. Technology and Part 2. Common Teaching
Curriculum Integration Practices (5 items)
Competencies (13 items)

31. From year 1 (ED101) to year 4 (STv)
24% Decline Slight Increase

32. Teacher as Designer of Instructional
Technology - Transcends Time and
Technologies
• Putting teachers in charge of educational
technology creates highest probability of
effectiveness regardless of the technology in
use.

33. Your Objectives for Global Learners
Identify how to leverage emerging mobile
technologies, Web 2.0 technologies, and Web-based
computing in general to engage learners locally and
at a distance who can benefit from being linked,
regardless of time and place.

34. To Contribute Go To:
• http://goo.gl/UGxdr
• http://goo.gl/UGxdr.qr