3.1. Read the text and find the facts proving the great influence of educational technologies on the lives of students and teachers. U.S. Students and the Technological Evolution

From the hand-held devices that allow us to read our favourite books, check the latest stock quotes or send electronic mail across the globe, to the vast array of resources, discussion groups and software available on the World Wide Web, clearly technology is transforming the landscape of life in the United States at an ever faster pace. Technologies also are influencing the lives of students and teachers in U.S. schools. Personal computers, the Web and related digital innovations are helping to unleash creativity and broaden the curricula in many classrooms.

Computers in schools today are far more numerous and more powerful than they were less than a decade ago. One reason for this electronic outpouring is the affordability of equipment. Computer prices have dropped dramatically. In addition many funding opportunities have emerged to support greater use of educational technologies. While U.S. public schools are funded primarily by tax money (and private schools by tuition payments), numerous businesses, non-profit organizations and government agencies offer grants to support the use of innovative technologies in schools.

With all this equipment and capability in students’ hands, experts emphasize that the key to unleashing technology’s power in schools is a commitment to new views of teaching and learning. Technology can help shift the students role from passively absorbing material to constructing new knowledge as part of a larger community of learners that includes experts in the disciplines, adult “telementors” and even peers across the globe.

The resources available on the Web and on CD-ROMs burst with material to fit any topic in the curriculum. With the click of a mouse, students can tour art galleries view primary source documents for a history project, or download highly specialized information they never could have found five to 10 years ago.

In another exciting development, students, increasingly, are filling the role of producers, and not just consumers, of useful content, particularly on the Web. Florence McGinn, a high school English teacher in Flemington, New Jersey, firmly believes that creating and publishing their work “intensifies the learning process” for her students. In McGinn’s honors class for 11^th and 12^th graders, students videotape presentations and then make them available on the Web to students who were absent.

With all the emphasis on the students, educators, too, need support – hands-on training, as well as relief from some of the headaches that impede instruction. Training of teachers in educational technologies basically began with fundamentals two decades ago. Since that time, modest gains have been made. Among teachers who received this kind of training, 54 percent said they felt “somewhat better prepared” and another 37 percent reported being “much better prepared” than they did the previous year.

Compared to a decade or two ago, school districts and state education departments are putting a much stronger emphasis on providing training and assistance to teachers in how to incorporate technologies into their curriculum. And virtually all of the leading Web-based programs incorporate a strong teacher-training element.

When will we know how much influence these new technologies are having in shaping new ways of teaching and learning? Perhaps the most telling sign will be when they are so integrated that they become almost transparent; when students and teachers use these tools on a routine basis to enhance their work. After all, everything from blackboards to yellow school buses were considered “technologies” in their infancy, but they gradually became part of the fabric of education. Students themselves are likely to instigate change. They are different from any generation before them. They are the first to grow up surrounded by digital media. Computers are everywhere – in the home, school, factory and office – as are digital technologies – cameras, video games and CD-ROMs. Today’s students are so bathed in bits that they think technology is part of the natural landscape.”

Source: U.S. Society and Values 2000, June

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