Research on Ed Technology, Part 1
I spent a fair amount of time doing a research report on the impact of educational technology on student achievement, and was honestly surprised by the amount of information I could find. I’ll put a link to the PowerPoint presentation after I fix a few errors, but for the meantime I’m here are links to some of the best reports and overviews that I found. (I wouldn’t read then all at once unless you want to risk an attack of narcolepsy.) What was interesting to me was how some themes came up over and over. However, is it surprising to find out that one common finding was “it isn’t what you have, it’s how you use it”?
What was informative was how important it is to have strong leadership, a school or district-wide shared vision of the use of technology, and tying the use of technology directly to desired learning goals. As an overall finding, the use of technology has the greatest impact on student achievement (yes, even on standardized tests and the WASL) when it is used in constructivist/student-centered/project-based learning. Then again, students learn better in that kind of environment without technology, so again this shouldn’t be a big shock.
Ed Tech Clearinghouse. Put together by Rita Hale from ESD 112, this site gives an overview of the research on educational technology, with links to resources. A great starting point, and there will be some overlap with the resources I list. www.edtech.wednet.edu/Resources/research.
Research on computers and education: Past, present, and future. A research report for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation by the Washington Schools Research Center and Jeff Fouts. www.gatesfoundation.org/nr/downloads/ed/evaluation/Computer_Research_Summary.pdf.
The Learning Return on Our Educational Investment. This report looks at the question of educational technology on a cost-for-return basis. One of a number of good papers from WestEd. www.wested.org/online_pubs/learning_return.pdf.
More tomorrow -