New Literacies: Are Colorado Teacher Education Programs Preparing Pre-Service Teachers to Use Technology in Their Learning Environments?

A Dissertation Study - University of Denver - August 2004 - Debra S. Austin, PhD, JD

LITERATURE REVIEW

21st Century Skills and Public Policy

Technology has transformed many functions of American society. Teachers must be able to prepare students to adapt to the changes in our culture. New skills are required for full participation in 21 st Century America (Koob, 2002). Because technology is prevalent in nearly all our activities, the public expects it to be used to enhance student achievement and prepare future business owners and employees (Schwab, 2000). Both national and state policymakers have acknowledged its importance and are working to ensure its incorporation into K-12 education.

National Initiatives

The current guiding educational legislation is the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB, 2002). Technology is addressed in Sections 2402 – 2404 of the NCLB legislation, known as the Enhancing Education Through Technology Act of 2001 (EETA, 2002). The stated goals of the EETA include the:

( 1) Primary Goal- The primary goal of this part is to improve student academic achievement through the use of technology in elementary schools and secondary schools.

(2) Additional Goals- The additional goals of this part are the following:

(A) To assist every student in crossing the digital divide by ensuring that every student is technologically literate by the time the student finishes the eighth grade, regardless of the student's race, ethnicity, gender, family income, geographic location, or disability.

(B) To encourage the effective integration of technology resources and systems with teacher training and curriculum development to establish research-based instructional methods that can be widely implemented as best practices by State educational agencies and local educational agencies. (EETA, 2002, online)

A number of U.S. Department of Education (DOE) initiatives, sponsored by the Office of Educational Technology (OET), promote the goal of technology integration into the learning environments of American students. The OET brought together educators, parents, and business leaders to identify 21st Century skills and create a guide for states and school districts to assess progress toward educating for these skills entitled Learning for the 21st Century: A Report and Mile Guide for 21st Century Skills .

Our community vibrancy, personal quality of life, economic viability and business competitiveness depend on a well-prepared citizenry and workforce. Public education provides the bedrock from which our national and individual prosperity rise together. (OET, 2003, p. 2)

Because there is a significant disparity in the knowledge and skills learned in school and those needed in the information age workplace, the report identified six critical elements for learning in the 21st Century:

• Emphasize core subjects , which are defined by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as English, reading or language arts, science, math, foreign languages, civics, government, economics, the arts, history, and geography;
• Emphasize learning skills , delineated as information, communication, problem-solving, interpersonal, and self-directional skills;
• Use 21st century tools to develop learning skills , technology skills which enable the learner to locate and assess information, create new knowledge, and share it with others;
• Teach and learn in a 21st century context , using student experience and authentic asses sm ent to help students transition between school and the workplace;
• Teach and learn 21st century content , identified as global, economic, and civic literacies; and
• Use 21st century assessments that measure 21st century skills , to ensure enriched multifaceted learning while maintaining standardized tests to determine accountability. (OET, 2003, p. 4 )

Students will need a new skill set to be part of the Information Age workforce. The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, working with the Metiri Group, has identified a set of Information Age skills required for high-performance learning:

• Digital Age Literacy
• Basic, Scientific, and Technological Literacy
• Visual and Information Literacy
• Cultural Literacy and Global Awareness
• Inventive Thinking
• Adaptability/Managing Complexity
• Curiosity, Creativity, and Risk-Taking
• Higher Order Thinking and Sound Reasoning
• Effective Communication
• Teaming, Collaboration, and Interpersonal Skills
• Personal and Social Responsibility
• Interactive Communication
• High Productivity
• Prioritizing, Planning, and Managing for Results
• Effective Use of Real-World Tools
• High Quality, Meaningful Results. (enGauge, 2000, p. 5)

Students will need to possess critical thinking skills, be curious, creative, adaptable, and willing to take risks (CEO Forum, 2001) .

A national grant program, Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology (PT3), provided funding to prepare teachers to work with 21st Century students. This program recognizes that K-12 teachers need to experience technology-enriched learning environments in their teacher preparation programs in order to effectively adopt technology in their own classrooms. Funding for the PT3 grants ran from 1999 through 2003, with distributions ranging from $62.1 million in Fiscal Year 2003 to $125 million in Fiscal Year 2001. Congress did not allocate funds to the PT3 grant project in Fiscal Year 2004 (OET, 2001).

In support of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB, 2002) and in recognition of the transformational potential of technology in education, the OET has been charged with the creation of a National Education Technology Plan to institute a national approach to improve student achievement via technology. The DOE awarded a contract to develop the national plan to a team consisting of the American Institutes for Research, the International Society for Technology in Education, and the State Educational Technology Directors Association. They identified the following areas of interest which will serve as themes in the new plan:

• Students Today: The Digital Generation;
• Leadership for System-wide Rethinking;
• Technology’s Role in Teacher Quality;
• eLearning Opportunities;
• Broadband for Education;
• One-to-One: Universal Computing for Education;
• Data Driven Decision Making and Accountability;
• Budgeting and Funding Models for 21st Century; and
• Special Education. (OET, 2004, online)

Comments were solicited from the public from January through March of 2004 and this input will guide efforts in creating the plan. This national strategy will “identify major policy issues, barriers, and opportunities for technology to transform America’s education system” (OET, 2004, online ). It is due to be released in late summer 2004 .

Technology in Colorado

Colorado Governor Bill Owens believes Colorado 's technology sector will help drive the state's economic recovery due to our highly-educated workforce and the highest number of technology workers per thousand in the country. Colorado has completed a $30 million high-speed broadband network linking all 64 county seats and enabling high-tech companies to locate in rural areas of Colorado where they can find less expensive land, labor, and housing (Lock, 2003).

Owens established the Office of Innovation and Technology (OIT) in 1999, whose mission is “to enhance technology infrastructure, education and research opportunities that stimulate Colorado's technology-driven economy and create more jobs” (OIT, 2004). The OIT hosted its fifth Annual Colorado Technology Summit on June 3, 2004 for the purpose of continuing to build

closer ties and develop a better understanding of the working relationship between Colorado businesses, government and academia, with the goal of enhancing our diversified state economy, and to continue the pursuit of a highly educated and better-equipped workforce for the 21st Century. (OIT, 2004, online)

During a Summit discussion on the out-sourcing of technology jobs overseas, Chairman of Qwest, Dick Notebaert, and Professor Manuel Serapio, Business School of the University of Colorado at Denver , noted that jobs of the future require more than just technology skills. Future employees must be able to “communicate with colleagues; look at the world from a global perspective; perform complex tasks; and be capable of solving complicated problems” resulting in company profits (Fillion, 2004, p. 6B).

In January 2004, the OIT released its Statewide Strategic Information Technology Plan designed to implement e-government which will streamline delivery of government services to the citizens of Colorado (OIT, 2004 ). In a Denver Business Journal interview, Colorado ’s secretary of technology, Leroy Williams stated that “we have a goal of being the most digital-ready state in three years,” before Governor Owens is out of office (Berry-Helmlinger, 2004, p. A61). Williams anticipates that the comprehensive technology infrastructure planned for conducting e-government will be used for services like distance learning and telemedicine. He would also like to see a greater number of local students take an interest in math, science, and technology (Berry-Helmlinger, 2004). Governor Owens, Colorado ’s top policy maker, has an expectation that the state’s workforce will continue to support its growing technology industry. That workforce will largely be educated in Colorado schools.

The Digital Cities Survey examined how city governments utilize technology to provide services. Colorado , along with Texas , proved to be the leader with the most cities (6) rated in the top 10 for their population category. California had 5 cities in the top 10. Colorado ’s Digital Cities Survey winners in the 75,000 to 125,000 population category were Ft. Collins – 3, Boulder – 6, Pueblo and Westminster tied for 7, and Arvada – 9. Colorado Springs tied for second with Los Angeles for cities with 250,000 or more citizens (CDG, 2003).

While Governor Owens courts technology businesses, and state and local government demonstrate leadership in utilizing technology to provide services to its citizens, Colorado is 27 th in students per Internet computer and 13 th by percentage of schools with Internet access (Williams, 2002). Although our governing entities are utilizing technology in their work and Colorado is a leader in technology enterprises , commitment to support the technology education of the state’s teachers is unclear. Technology expectations exist within the Colorado Department of Education performance standards for Colorado teachers (CDE, 1999) , but technology competence is not assessed by the state (Education Week, 2002).

A variety of technology resources are delineated by the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) on its Technology in PreK-12 Education web site. The CDE maintains an Education Technology Center staffed by a Director, three Senior Consultants, and a program assistant (CDE, 2004). The Colorado Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology (CTLT) provides support for in-service educators on the use of various technologies for teaching. Their instruction topics include Internet resources, handheld computers, and data mining (CTLT, 2004). The Technology In Education conference has been held in the Colorado mountains every summer since 1998 and each year over 1,000 educators attend. Topics for this year’s conference included emerging technologies, technology integration, information literacy, and technology leadership (TIE, 2004).

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Technology Standards

The Colorado Department of Education and other national education technology associations have promulgated technology standards to steer technology education for teacher educators, teachers, and students. The Educator Licensing Act of 1991 provides exhaustive requirements for endorsement in Technology Education in Colorado (CDE, 1991, Section 8.13, pp. 73 -75 ). On September 25, 2003, the Colorado State Board of Education approved new endorsements for Instructional Technology Teacher (CDE, 1991, Section 8.08, pp 59-61) and Instructional Technology Specialist (CDE, 1991, Section 10.06, pp 140 - 142), designed for educators who wish to specialize in teaching technology or to assist technology integration efforts at the district or building level. The Colorado Department of Education (CDE) has adopted a performance-based standard regarding knowledge of technology and ability to utilize it for all Colorado  classroom teachers. Standard 7 pertains to technology acquisition for teachers.

Standard Seven: Knowledge of Technology: The teacher is skilled in technology and is knowledgeable about using technology to support instruction and enhance student learning.

The teacher has demonstrated the ability to:
7.1  Apply technology to the delivery of standards-based instruction.
7.2  Use technology to increase student achievement.
7.3  Utilize technology to manage and communicate information.
7.4  Apply technology to data-driven asses sm ents of learning.
7.5  Instruct students in basic technology skills. (CDE, 1999, online )

The CDE recognizes national technology standards, for both teachers and students, developed by two key educational technology associations, International Technology Education Association (ITEA) and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) (CDE, 2003, online ). The literature in this field focuses on the ISTE Educational Technology Standards and Performance Indicators for All Teachers (ISTE-NETS*T) (see Appendix C) and Technology Foundation Standards for Students and their associated performance indicators (ISTE-NETS*S) (see Appendix D) (Henriques, 2002; Thomas, 2000; Armstrong, 2000). These standards, meant to guide teacher educators and K-12 teachers in the implementation of technology into the learning process, include: Technology Operations and Concepts; Planning and Designing Learning Environments and Experiences; Teaching, Learning, and the Curriculum; Assessment and Evaluation; Productivity and Professional Practice; and Social, Ethical, Legal, and Human Issues Associated with Technology Use. They anticipate the needs of the American workplace and the budding capabilities of the technology savvy student.

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The Changing Student

After the little girl climbed onto Santa’s lap, Santa asked the usual question: “And what would you like for Christmas?”

The child stared at him, open-mouthed and horrified, then gasped: “Didn’t you get my e-mail?” (Jokeline, 2003).

Today's students are growing up immersed in digital media which they use for entertainment, communication, learning, and shopping. Technology may accelerate child development due to the interactive nature of software and the Internet, as compared to such passive activities as watching television or listening to a lecture. Using digital media requires reading, investigation, critical thinking, play, and community. Students without access to digital media face the prospect of being developmentally delayed and disadvantaged. Schools may be the only place to decrease the digital divide (Tapscott, 1998). Increasingly, net generation learners will demand that educational institutions provide technology-rich learning environments.

Douglas Rushkoff has described children as the natives of cyberspace, while adults are the immigrants (Maclachlan, 1999), yet it is the adults that control the learning environment of the American student. NetDay Speak Up 2003 surveyed 210,000 K-12 students across the country in October and November of 2003 regarding their use of technology and their dreams for technology implementation in their schools. Children from K-3 were surveyed in their classrooms in groups, while students from grades 4-12 completed online secure individual surveys. The purpose of the survey was to incorporate the opinions and ideas of American students into the National Education Technology Plan being devised by the US Department of Education (NetDay, 2004).

NetDay found that students in all grade levels strongly believe that technology is important to their education, yet they learn and use new technology at home, not at school. Seventy three percent of students in grades 4-12 find using technology and learning new ways to use it enjoyable and 74% in grades K-6 and 91% in grades 7-12 use technology to do schoolwork. When asked how they would like to see technology used in schools to improve their learning, they sought more computers and high quality software; greater access to high-speed, wireless computers throughout the school; computer labs with access when school is not in session, including weekends, and access to email and instant messaging during school. Students in grades 4-12 believe that with greater access to and use of technology in their education they would learn more, enjoy their learning, create higher quality projects, and achieve higher scores on both class work and tests (NetDay, 2004).

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Learning Environments in the 21st Century

Current learning theory values interactivity, activation of prior knowledge, connecting the theoretical to the experiential, and using relevance and efficacy to assess information.

In this constructivist approach, there is a fundamental shift from instruction to construction and delivery. Learning is not simply assimilating knowledge tran smitted by textbooks and instructors but personally building and communicating knowledge. (Harada, 2003, p. 42)

Learning environments in the 21st Century will continue to evolve with the assimilation of technology and its attendant benefits. Education research on designing successful learning environments has recently been distilled in How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999). Environments that optimize learning have been identified as learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered, and community-centered.

In learner-centered environments, teachers are seeking to develop a broad understanding of the learner. There is a focus on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes the learner brings to the environment. Teachers create challenges for students that are engaging but not so difficult as to result in student discouragement. Attention is paid to the progress of individual students and instruction is differentiated (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999).

Knowledge-centered environments focus on content, reasoning behind learning the content, and examples of expertise. The goal is deep understanding of content because development of competence facilitates new learning (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999).

The objectives of assessment-centered environments include assisting the learners in monitoring their own progress and helping the instructor to design further instruction for each learner. Students should have the opportunity via the asses sment process to experience growth in their thinking (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999).

When students ‘construct knowledge’ through ‘disciplined inquiry,’ they must often consider alternative solutions, justify their conclusions with reasons and evidence, apply their knowledge to new contexts, develop deep understanding of topics (rather than only superficial awareness), and express themselves through elaborated communication (rather than in terse linguistic fragments). All of these activities emphasize, in one way or another, extensive use and application of words and ideas in varied contexts. As students study a topic in some depth, the concepts that they learn are less likely to remain as disconnected skills and facts, and more likely to be integrated within a larger cognitive schema that connects new bits of information to one another and to students’ prior knowledge. This cognitively integrated knowledge is more likely to be owned or internalized by students. (Newmann, Bryk & Nagaoka, 2001, p.30)

To facilitate a community-centered environment, teachers must develop norms that encourage risk-taking, growth, problem-solving, inquiry, and feedback from all members of the community. Curriculum activities should support cooperation and intellectual curiosity (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999).

Educational programs for pre-service and in-service teachers should incorporate these learning environment components (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999) and involve modeling of the methods teachers are being urged to embrace (Smith, 2001). The research suggests that professional development for teachers should query them about their needs; provide the opportunity to understand why, when, where, and how new teaching techniques should be adopted; and offer opportunities to try innovations in their classrooms and then receive feedback and ongoing support for their efforts (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino, 1999).

Education reform literature has identified a number of objectives for cutting-edge learning environments. The role of the instructor is shifting toward facilitation of knowledge creation. Priorities include the development of a community of learners, incorporation of project-based learning opportunities, and authentic assessments (Bruni, 2000). Interactive and experiential learning environments reposition the teacher from the instructivist to the constructivist. The role of the educator is facilitative, where it once was didactic (Carlson & Gadio, 2002). “Learning is a result of construction, collaboration, reflection and negotiation within a rich context in which learning is situated” (Vrasidas & McIsaac, 2001, p. 129).

Technology-enriched learning environments can be learner-centered, interactive, and collaborative. Students focus on critical thinking, constructing knowledge, and developing an understanding of content. In this type of learning environment, the instructor imparts the framework for learning (Glenn, 2002). “Strategies for teaching and learning are not chosen to facilitate transfer of knowledge from the world to the learner’s head, but to provide tools the learner will use to create meaning” (Vrasidas & McIsaac, 2001, p. 129).

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Technology as an Educational Tool

Educators are offered practical suggestions on the creation of technology-enhanced learning environments in 10 Best Teaching Practices: How Brain Research, Learning Styles, and Standards Define Teaching Competencies (Tileston, 2000). Technology is a tool that can help teachers embody best practices to create an enriched and collaborative learning environment, meet a variety of learning style needs, support learning transfer, assist with the attainment of long term memory and deep understanding, address high-level thinking, make education equitable, and incorporate real world problems and authentic assessments (Tileston, 2000).

To support enriched and collaborative learning environments, teachers can provide assistance to students from a distance . The Internet and email can be used to post assignments, grades, and links to additional content resources online and to collaborate with teachers, other learners, and experts. Online mentoring programs can be initiated to help students with numerous issues (Tileston, 2000).

Differences in Technology meets learning styles are addressed when computers are used to provide visual and kinesthetic stimulation. Various software and web sites can also provide auditory learning resources, such as this Spanish-English Dictionary which provides sound files for pronunciation assistance online at http://www.spanishdict.com/ (Tileston, 2000).

Visual support for learning transfer is a powerful advantage of the computer and Internet resources. Attainment of long-term memory and deep understanding can be can be achieved via authentic problem-based projects mediated by and completed using technology. Technology provides a rich research and knowledge production environment. In addition to locating numerous Internet resources, students can use programs like PowerPoint and web authoring software to create, organize, and present knowledge. Growth and quality of work over time can be documented in online portfolios which provide a place to house authentic assessments mediated by technology (Tileston, 2000).

The central tenet of educational visionaries is that education will be learner-centered. The role of teachers will evolve to facilitate learning rather than dispense knowledge and technology will be a primary teaching and learning tool (CEO Forum, 2001; Willis & Raines, 2001). Technology possesses unique capabilities for delivering instruction and designing intellectually stimulating real-world assessments (Tileston, 2000).

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The History of Instructional Technology in Teacher Education

Educational historian Larry Cuban has scrutinized the use of technology in the American classroom since the early 1900s. Cuban notes that teachers have always looked to available technologies to make education more enriched and productive. Beginning with chalk, books, and pictures and progressing through radio, film, and instructional television, these technologies were all believed to be able to enhance the spoken word and engender a greater understanding for students. Obstacles to the uses of these technologies in classrooms included cost, equipment failure and unavailability, lack of familiarity with how to use the equipment, and inadequate or inappropriate content (Cuban, 1986).

In his latest review of computer use in Silicon Valley classrooms, Cuban maintains that school reform for the last two decades has been based on an economic agenda. Technology in education has been driven by a push to sell technology products, a vision of educational transformation, and the social concern of equitable access to technology and technology education. He believes the failure of technology integration is due to a lack of professional development for teachers in technology-supported pedagogy, a struggle to change the values and beliefs of educators, and the notion that technological change in citizen managed, non-profit schools is naturally slower than in for-profit businesses. The greatest futile public assumption was that making computers available to educators would automatically result in their implementation (Cuban, 2001).

Major Studies in Information Technology in Teacher Education

Because technology changes so rapidly and Information Technology in Teacher Education is a recently recognized field of study, I have chosen to review literature from the last decade. There are only two national studies that consider the state of technology education in teacher preparation programs.

In 1993, various members and committees of Congress requested a study by the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) on whether teachers used technology in their classrooms, how teachers learned about technology, and whether teacher preparation programs adequately prepared teachers for technology-enriched learning environments. The OTA made site visits to schools, interviewed hundreds of educators, and conducted two teacher focus groups. Both qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed. The study found that teachers lacked adequate training in using computers in their teaching. Most pre-service teachers had only limited technology education in their teacher preparation programs and were rarely given the opportunity to create lessons using technology or opportunities to practice teaching with these tools (OTA, 1995).

A national survey of 416 schools, departments, and colleges of education (SDCEs) on technology use in education was conducted in 1998. Approximately one third of the SDCEs responded. The data indicated most SDCEs had no written or funded technology plan, most teacher educators failed to model use of technology in teaching, and while most field placements had technology, pre-service teachers did not use technology, nor did they work with master teachers who mentored them in the use of teaching with technology (Moursund & Bielefeldt, 1999).

A New Field Emerges - Instructional Technology in Teacher Education

The field of Information Technology in Teacher Education is in its infancy.

While some people may know more than others in this area, there are few if any true ‘experts.’ This calls for humility, innovation, a willingness to fail, ongoing evaluation, sharing of both positive and negative experiences, and constant revision of teacher professional development programs related to technology. (Carlson & Gadio, 2002, p. 119)

The subspecialty of Educational Technology, Instructional Technology in Teacher Education (ITTE), was identified and given a moniker in 1996 by Willis and Mehlinger. Their report, which determined the scarcity of research examining the state of technology in teacher preparation programs, proclaimed “the virtually universal conclusion is that teacher education, particularly pre-service, is not preparing educators to work in a technology-enriched classroom” (Willis & Mehlinger, 1996, p. 978).

In 1983, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) established a special interest group for teacher educators attracted to the potential of computers. This group published the first refereed scholarly journal in ITTE that same year. The first ITTE conference, now known as Society for Information Technology and Teacher Educators (SITE), was held in 1990 (Willis, Thompson, & Sadera, 1999). Current journals in the field include the Journal of Computing in Teacher Education (ISTE-JCTE) published by ISTE, the Journal of Technology and Teacher Education (AACE-JTATE), and Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education (AACE-CITE) both published by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). The International Technology Education Association (ITEA) publishes The Technology Teacher (ITEA-TTT).

Instructional Technology in Teacher Education leaders from ISTE, SITE, and nine content-specific teacher associations participated in technology retreats in September 2000 and March 2001. Broad goals and specific technologies were defined by content area for integration into teacher preparation programs. The group determined that teacher education programs often view technology as a subject to be added to the program rather than a tool to be integrated into current curriculum (Carroll, 2000). Teacher educators remain unconvinced that technology enhances student achievement and conclude that the time investment and cost outweigh the benefits. Teachers and teacher educators do not adopt new pedagogy simply because they possess the skills and knowledge to do so. Teachers tend to teach in the manner in which they were taught and their teaching often reflects their preferred learning style ( Bell, 2001). In order to consider how teacher education programs might be restructured, it is helpful to look at the literature on innovative technology programs. Many of these innovations were made possible by the US Department of Education PT3 Grant Program.

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Conditions Necessary to Educate 21st Century Teachers

Teacher education programs are key to integrating technology into K-12 education. Both curriculum and pedagogy must be reformed in order to take advantage of the benefits of technology (Vrasidas & McIsaac, 2001). The utopian environment for providing technology education to pre-service teachers is described by scholars in this field as technology immersion or infusion (Armstrong 2000; Thomas, 2000). In order for teachers to be effective in their classrooms, pre-service teachers must be immersed in appropriate technology in their coursework. The “most compelling reason” to implement technology immersion in teacher preparation programs is so that teachers can then “provide K-12 students with the tools they need to learn, think, and exchange ideas with peers and experts in our global society” (Armstrong, 2000, p. 115).

Technology Immersion

Key themes surface in the literature on technology immersion. Successful immersion programs maintain evolving technology plans (Bruni, 2000; Thomas, 2000). Pre-service teachers need to observe technology being modeled by teacher educators (McLaughlin, 1998; Schwab, 2000; Smith, 2001). Teachers teach the way they were taught, therefore pre-service teachers need to experience the facilitative paradigm of a constructivist learning environment (Carolson & Gadio, 2002; King, 2002).

In order to provide technology immersion, teacher educators need professional development in both software and hardware as well as in new pedagogical methods of incorporating technology into their classrooms, so that they can meet these same needs for pre-service teachers (Bruni, 2000; Carlson & Gadio, 2002; Snider, 2003). Teacher educators need ongoing technical support, as well as the collaborative support of their colleagues (Bruni, 2000; Tuana, 2000). They also need adjustments in the faculty reward structure to accommodate their professional development time commitment and to acknowledge technology products as contributions to knowledge (Thomson, 2000).

Finally, pre-service teachers need opportunities to develop technology-enhanced lessons and units, to use them in their field placements, to work under the guidance of master teachers in the field, and to receive feedback and mentoring regarding their use of technology in teaching (Gimbert & Zembal-Saul, 2002; McLaughlin, 1998; Tuana, 2000).“Tools are effective for improving student learning only if the new teacher has had opportunities to apply technology for learning in his or her teacher preparation experiences” (Thomas, 2000, p157).

Innovative Programs

Innovative teacher education programs have taken a leadership role in immersing their students in technology and mandating graduates to be technology leaders in K-12 education. Educators are beginning to write about their experiences at attempting technology immersion in their institutions and their various uses of technology when planning courses, units, or lessons (Bell & Hofer, 2003; Cunningham, 2003). Multimedia provides vivid visual demonstrations and course web pages can include assignments, grades, and downloadable files (Henriques, 2002). Community can be enhanced via email, listservs, and discussion boards, and digital cameras and video cameras individuate imagery in instruction and assessment (Zisk, 2002). Electronic grade books assist in tracking student data (Cherup & Synder, 2003). Curriculum planning resources exist on the Internet to assist teachers and pre-service teacher technology projects can be contained in online e-portfolios (Baeers, Browne & Cooper, 2000; Bucci, Copenhaver, Lehman, & O’Brien, 2003; Smith, 2001).

Some programs have hired tenure-track instructional design faculty in order to facilitate the transformation to technology infusion. Technology courses are restructured, faculty are trained and provided with technical support, multimedia labs are designed and made available for instruction, laptops are required for students, and new laptops and software made available to the faculty every few years. A compelling practice in the infusion process is where some SCDEs hire technology professors to do technology instruction for students and technology consultation for the faculty.  They then work with the teacher educators, particularly the methods instructors, to incorporate technology into assessments in their courses.  Technology instructors have also provided technology labs to assist pre-service teachers in developing lessons and units for use in their field experiences. The professional development of the faculty can progress, and the pre-service teachers gain the skills and the experiences they need until the curriculum is redesigned with a technology-infused constructivist emphasis (Cunningham, 2003; Drazdowki, Holodick, & Scappaticci, 1998; King, 2002).

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Conditions Necessary to Education 21st Century Students

The transformation of American society from the Industrial Age to the Information Age compels a change in the roles and responsibilities of K-12 teachers, and therefore, teacher educators. Educators will become facilitators of knowledge acquisition and perform much like consultants to learners. Making these changes will involve innovation and risk-taking (Mehaffy, 2000). While teacher educators have utilized technology in research and service, they have not adopted technology as a tool to assist them in their teaching. Technology enhances the human capacity to perform as tools and machines have in the past. Each of the four teaching tasks, planning, communication, guidance, and evaluation, can be augmented with technology (Romano, 2003). Those innovators who have embraced technology in their learning environments report the benefits of posting student work on the Internet, student communication, and distance collaboration (Mehlinger, 2002). “No teacher involved in the exploration, evaluation, excitement, and individualization of technology as a tool can fail to see the effects on students” (Bracey, 2000, online). To be successful in our ever-changing and challenging world, students (including teachers) must “have the ability to use technology as an extension of themselves, be information literate, be an efficient collaborator, be able to learn how to learn, and have the ability to help others” (Weis, 2000, p. 172).

American teachers report on their technology use, pre-service technology education, and technology professional development in a new survey conducted by NetDay in April and May of 2004. The Speak Up Day for Teachers online survey was completed by 11,132 teachers in 1,185 schools from all 50 states. The participants include teachers in grades K-5 (40%), grades 6-8 (25%), and grades 9-12 (46%). The gender distribution is 80% female and 20% male. The distribution of experience is remarkably even with 29% of the teachers having 5 or less years of teaching experience, 34% with 6-15 years of experience, 21% with 16-25 years of experience, and 16% with over 25 years of experience. The community profile is 26% urban, 34% rural, and 40% suburban. The school profile is 87% public, 5% Catholic, 4% Department of Defense, 3% private, and 1% charter schools. As to technology access for this group of educators, 98% report having at least 1 Internet connected computer in their classroom; 98% have school supplied email; 93% have an Internet connected computer at home; and 92% have personal email addresses (NetDay, 2004).

Teachers place a high value on technology use in their professional lives: 87% rank technology as important or very important to their teaching responsibilities; 49% believe technology’s greatest impact to be on teaching and instructional support; and the second greatest impact is in communications (24%). The highest ranked advantages to technology utilization in teaching include richer lesson plans, more engaged learners, personalized education, and greater communication with parents regarding student performance. Teacher’s number one use of technology is to email colleagues, followed by word processing of instructional documents, communication with administrators, record management, and curriculum development research. One third of teachers report that their pre-service training did not adequately prepare them to use technology in their teaching and learning environments. Approximately the same percentage of teachers felt their school district in-service technology training to be satisfactory (NetDay, 2004).

The challenge may not be technology integration, but a “redefinition of what it means to be educated in a knowledge-based, digital age” (enGuage, 2000, online ). Twenty-first Century skills must be deemed a critical component of the education of 21st Century students. Schools must develop technology-enriched learning environments which incorporate 21st Century skills in the context of demanding academic content (enGuage, 2000). To prepare students to become educated and to work in the Information Age, six fundamental conditions are critical in high-performance learning environments:

• vision;
• systems and leadership;
• effective practice;
• educator proficiency;
• access; and
• equity. (enGauge, 2000, online)
  

Finally, policymakers must evaluate schools based on assessments that measure 21st Century skills as well as academic achievement (enGauge, 2000).

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Visions of the Future

Chris Dede, the Timothy E. Wirth Professor of Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, provides the education community with an idea of what education will look like in the future. He believes that three interfaces will be at the forefront of learning:

• the world to desktop interface, which gives learners access to archives and experts and provides a virtual space for collaboration, mentoring, and practice;
• Multi-user virtual environments interfaces, where digital spaces are filled with avatars and artifacts; and
• Ubiquitous computing interfaces, in which portable wireless devices such as wearables augment our reality and allow us to interact with smart objects (Dede, 2002; Dede 2004).

Dede describes computer-supported collaborative projects where students input experiment data to multi-user databases at school from remote locations and participate in simulations while being observed and coached by their virtual mentor, the class instructor. Powerful handheld computers monitor traffic during the commute; link wirelessly to work at our offices and schools; respond to offerings of information from smart objects such as artifacts in a museum; utilize telltales which monitor and notify us of activities (the espresso is ready, a meeting is about to begin, etc); and transmit our video-mail (Dede, 2002).

Dede asserts that the values and assumptions of the current educational culture will need to be “unlearned” by educators as they tend to teach the way they were taught and their beliefs are deeply ingrained in practice. If teachers are to prepare students for the digital age, they must possess 21st Century skills such as creativity, collaborative ability, and the capability of higher order thinking. A shift to constructivist learning environments and the mediation of knowledge creation can be accomplished via the development of learning communities and the design of distributed learning experiences (Dede, 2004).

Recognition and respect for teaching as a profession will depend to a considerable extent on whether the objectives, content, methods, and assessment of teacher education, induction, and professional development alter to take full advantage of these new technological capabilities. (Dede, 2004, p. 3)

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Research Gaps

Now that academics, policy makers, educational agencies, and think tanks have identified technology acquisition goals for students and teachers and innovative programs have provided some guidance regarding their efforts toward technology immersion, studies of the state of technology education in pre-service programs are appropriate to determine how various jurisdictions are preparing their teachers to use technology in teaching. Research has been conducted that determines that teachers acknowledge the need for technology education, but have few opportunities to gain this type of professional development or pre-service training (Cuban, 2001; Moursund & Bielefeldt, 1999; OTA, 1995). Studies needed in this discipline include surveys of the current status of technology education in teacher preparation, of innovative programs and instructional design products, and of diffusion of innovations (Willis, Thompson, & Sadera, 1999). There is a paucity of research probing the state of technology in teacher education programs (Willis & Mehlinger, 1996).

Colorado has been recognized as a leader for its technology businesses, infrastructure, and government use of technology for operation. The Governor is intent on enticing technology enterprises to the state (CDG, 2003; Lock, 2003; OIT, 2003). These businesses will employ technology proficient individuals. There are presently no studies which examine the state of technology education for the new teachers who will instruct Colorado’s 21st Century students.

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