Walking the talk is tough: From a single technology course to infusion

I can't believe we are still studying this stuff 20 years later! Aren't we all on the same page by now?

I'm pretty skeptical that technology is going to solve any of the problems that plague us.

I want to learn how to do things like make a Web page, because I read in the Chronicle of Higher Education that students like professors better when they use Web pages.

These disparate statements, made by three faculty members in a single school of education, are representative of the manifold attitudes teacher educators have toward technology in classrooms. These professors represent a variety of attitudes about technology's role in the preparation of teachers as well as a range of experiences in pre-K-12 classrooms and ranks in higher education. Despite that relative diversity, all are members of a single faculty that publicly voices a single intention with regard to technology: to infuse it judiciously throughout their students' courses of study rather than relying on the previous standard, an isolated technology course. In noting that no single school of education can possibly measure up to all the technology standards being floated presently, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA 1995) proposed that there is, therefore, much to be learned from looking at individual case studies and seeing what is extendable. Willis and Mehlinger (1996, 1,020) further posited that, rather than constantly revisiting threshold questions related to the need for infusing technology into education courses, "We need to know much more about what is taught in which classes using what methods." So what happens to the technologically related knowledge, skills, and dispositions of an education faculty that moves abruptly from a stand-alone technology course to an infusion model of delivery?

CURRENT STATE OF AFFAIRS

Surveying the current state of technology in teacher-preparation programs, Willis and Mehlinger (1996, 978) conceded that what we know "could be summarized in one sentence: most preservice teachers know very little about effective uses of technology in education." This bleak observation might apply equally well to teacher educators. OTA (1995) observed a general inadequacy among teachers with regard to the skills and imagination of possibilities required to use technology meaningfully in their classrooms. OTA attributed this situation, at least partially, to the fact that most technology instruction in colleges and departments of education takes the form of isolated courses rather than integration into the programs, which limits best-practices modeling by faculty to students. Furthermore, OTA noted with displeasure that, even when technology was ostensibly a part of methods courses, for instance, it was a topic rather than an integral part of the course. This point echoes Pellegrino and Altman's (1997) exhortation that we must teach with technology, not about it, in schools, colleges, and departments of education. They observed that future realities will demand teachers be equipped to use available technologies in support of their teaching and students' learning. To ensure this, they argued, that vision of technology use must play a key role in institutions that prepare teaching professionals.

One often-expressed aim of technology in classrooms is that it is a transferable skill, much like reading and writing (Kuhlthau 1997; Wilkinson, Bennett, and Oliver 1997). If transfer is to occur, however, the technology must be learned in situation-specific contexts (Brown, Collins, and Duguid 1989), which implies the need for ubiquitous technologies to be applied in multiple contexts. Though technology remains a means rather than an end, Pellegrino and Altman (1997), like their peers elsewhere, were unequivocal: unless students of education see technology modeled and practice using it, they will graduate with limited professional skills and imagination in that area and will perpetuate ambivalent attitudes toward the use of technology in education.

DISCORD IS NOT NEW

Skepticism about the value of using new technologies to teach has a long history. Gutenberg's invention of the printing press was simultaneously lauded for reducing gaps between the literate and nonliterate and for creating those very gaps. No less a teacher than Socrates claimed that the god who invented writing was rebuked because the new technology would destroy the nature of learning itself (Clanchy 1979). People had to be persuaded that printed words were a sufficient improvement over existing methods of dissemination to merit its expense and mastery of the novel techniques involved. This reluctance has not changed in the present, though the timeframe suggested for significant changes to take root has decreased exponentially, from decades to the three-to-five years now typically promulgated (OTA 1995). Even highly motivated teachers require substantial amounts of time before they feel fully versatile with a complicated new technology and are able to employ it to fit their particular teaching goals. That, combined with the other conflicting demands on faculty time, makes it difficult for technological neophytes to think about the natural integration of technology into their teaching (Falba, Strudler, Bean, Dixon, Markos, McKinney, and Zehm 1999). Bean (in Falba et al. 1999, 66) pondered the paradox he found in his own courses, which sound uncannily like those encountered by the first disciples of writing and printing: "I found myself thinking about the ways technology could enhance teaching or distance the instructor from students. This double-edged sword dimension of technology intrigued me.... People lurk on the various internet listservs [and] e-mail remains a substitute for face to face communication." This description is quite a contrast to other portrayals proposing that electronic-communication technology increases the efficiency of student interactions with others (Schrum and Berenfeld 1997), motivates better communication (Cohen and Reil 1989), reduces barriers to group. participation (Pfaffenberger 1996), and may even improve the use of standard written English (Reil 1990).