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MULTIMEDIA REPORTS

FROM NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

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THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

If you are black or Hispanic in this country, you are less likely to have a computer. If you live in a household earning over $75,000 a year, you are five times more likely to have a computer. If you live in a city or suburban area, you are ten times more likely to have a computer than in a rural area. In a society where increasingly we are defined by access to information and what we earn is what we learn, if you don't have access to technology, your going to be left in the digital dark ages. That's what the digital devide is all about. Newshours Jeffrey Kaye takes a look at the chasm between the haves and have nots in the world of cyberspace. Listen to this segment in RealAudio. (Requires free "RealAudio" software)

To download the RealAudio Player consult RealAudio's home page. For the free Player go to the download page.

HEAR THE DISCUSSION ON THE CONTROVERSIAL "E-RATE" PROGRAM

Administration to Link Public Schools to the 'Net' -- National Public Radio's Larry Abramson reports on a two billion dollar program announced by Vice President Gore to connect public schools and libraries to the Internet. The awards are part of the controversial "e-rate" program, which some Congressional Republicans have criticized as too expensive. (Requires free "Real Audio" software)

To download the RealAudio Player consult RealAudio's home page. For the free Player go to the download page.

RESOURCES AND WEBSITES OF INTEREST

Access America for Students

Access America for Students is a U.S. Government - wide initiative to deliver electronic services from government agencies and organizations to postsecondary students

K-12 Educators, parents and students will find terrific resources and information including education news and events, lesson plans, international education projects, education products and promotions, and links to solid education sites.

Your Community Guide provides information and support to American communities ready to plan for connections including: real life examples of people and communities using the Information Superhighway, a sample presentation with viewgraphs about the Information Superhighway, and a "Technology Planning Guide" to help communities planning for connection.

K-8 on-line distance learning program in California. As part of the Ready Springs Charter School in Penn Valley, this site is pioneering an innovative learning option for elementary age students. Students and parents who choose this program will find three curricula on-line allowing for choice in education. Offered are options to parents and students to design a specific plan for each child that is age, interest, and academically appropriate. The curricula include Natural Learning Rhythms, a holistic curriculum offering age appropriate teaching techniques, a multi-sensory curriculum based on hands-on learning activities, and a traditional academic curriculum suggesting skills a student should address or master at each grade level. Parents, students, and a CDLP resource teacher coordinate and co-create a course of study based on the student's interests and skill level.

The California Technology Information Project (CalTIP) was implemented in 1993 to provide an on-line educational technology information resource for the California K-12 community. CalTIP now collaborates with the Schools of California On-line Resources in Education (SCORE) in the four major subject areas, the California Technology Assistance Project (CTAP), the Telis Foundation and other projects to disseminate information from and for California educators.

A wonderful guide to high quality instructional technology resources that supports California curriculum frameworks and standards. For the past fifteen years the California Instructional Technology Clearinghouse has assisted California educators to identify the highest quality electronic learning resources. If an instructional program marketed to schools uses a computer, a VCR or laserdisc player, a network or the Internet or any combination of these, the Clearinghouse will evaluate it for use in California schools. The Clearinghouse's evaluation of electronic learning resources is a statewide collaboration.

Canada's SchoolNet is an educational initiative supported by a variety of organizations across Canada, from government agencies - provincial, territorial, and federal, - to industry, and educational establishments and stakeholders. Click on the province or territory of your choice to go to their provincial or territorial educational network. Through the guidance of the SchoolNet National Advisory Board, the Canadian Education Network Coalition, and strong partnerships, SchoolNet helps to facilitate excellence in learning through electronic networking across Canada. The site may be viewed in both Français and English.

CLN is designed to help K-12 teachers integrate technology into the classroom. This website includes over 240 menu pages with more than 4,400 annotated links to educational websites, as well as over 100 original CLN resources ‹ all organized within an intuitive structure.

CALICO is a professional organization that serves a membership involved in both education and high technology. CALICO has an emphasis on modern language teaching and learning, but reaches out to all areas that employ the languages of the world to instruct and to learn. CALICO is a recognized international clearinghouse and leader in computer assisted learning and instruction. It is, by several years, the senior global association dedicated to CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning).

President Clinton defined the mission of Computers for Learning in Executive Order 12999, "Educational Technology: Ensuring Opportunity for All Children in the Next Century," which states his goal to ensure that American children have the skills they need to succeed in the information intensive 21st Century. Computers for Learning will place hundreds of thousands of computers in our Nation's classrooms and prepare our children to contribute and compete in the 21st century. The program is designed to donate surplus Federal computer equipment to schools and educational nonprofits, giving special consideration to those with the greatest need. The Computers for Learning website allows schools and educational nonprofits to register quickly and easily to request surplus Federal computer equipment. Federal agencies will then use the website to donate computers to schools and educational nonprofits based upon indications of need. To find out how to participate and to find out what type of computer equipment is currently available through this program, click on the buttons below.

CoSN is a non-profit organization formed to further the development and use of telecommunications in K-12 education. Members represent educational, institutional, and commercial organizations, all of whom share the goal of promoting the state of the art in computer networking technologies in schools.

Spanish for "From Shore to Shore". This is an international teacher researcher project that has concentrated on documenting promising practices for intercultural and multilingual learning over global learning networks. Since 1985, Orillas has employed modern telecommunications to promote and extend an educational networking model first developed by the French educators Célestin and Elise Freinet in 1924.

Diversity Reviews is a private organization, pooling the resources of various scholars and educators, who use the findings of research in multilingual and intercultural education to advocate for students. Diversity Reviews has been established to promote equal educational opportunities for minority students as well as multilingualism and multiculturalism for all students. The website advances cross-cultural awareness through feature films and distinguished literature.

One of 16 clearinghouses in the ERIC system. ERIC/IT specializes in library and information science and educational technology. ERIC/IT acquires, selects, catalogs, indexes, and abstracts documents and journal articles in these subject areas for input into the ERIC database.

Global SchoolNet's vision of "Linking Kids Around the World" involves promoting development of effective literacy skills in students by fostering development of global, cultural, geographical, environmental, and socio-political understanding (and ultimately world peace!); establishing collaborative partnerships and models between all segments of the community; contributing to a better understanding of communications technologies, and promoting their responsible and effective use in education; and supporting low cost, community-based, electronic data communications networks that provide all citizens equitable access to the basic information tools. Founders of the Global Schoolhouse.

Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is a worldwide network of students, teachers, and scientists working together to study and understand the global environment. GLOBE students make a core set of environmental observations at or near their schools and report their data via the Internet. Scientists use GLOBE data in their research and provide feedback to the students to enrich their science education. Each day, images created from the GLOBE student data sets are posted on the World Wide Web, allowing students and visitors to the GLOBE web site to visualize the student environmental observations. Available in Français y Español.

Get a panoramic view of what K-12 schools across the country are doing with the Web. The site may not be pretty but it gets you where you want to go - and shows just how much creativity our sometimes-disparaged American students actually have.

The IECC (Intercultural E-mail Classroom Connections) mailing lists are provided by St. Olaf College as a free service to help teachers and classes link with partners in other countries and cultures for e-mail classroom pen-pal and project exchanges. The list provides IECC for K-12 and for Institutes of Higher Education.

A virtual school promoting global friendship and 21st century learning. Educators may enter this virtual education site knowing that the site is designed with the classroom teacher and school curriculum in mind. The site provides a safe place on the net for students to begin work quickly and safely, and helps to keep students on task. Educators find a world of educational sites at their finger tips.

A project connecting children from Spanish-speaking countries around the world. Children exchange drawings, pictures, and simple stories. Participants include any student aged four or five, or who is at an emergent literacy level (kindergarten). This project's objectives are to create an awareness of other children around the globe who also speak Spanish as their native language, and to have students gain a basic knowledge of other cultures.

A new "on-line" refereed journal that seeks to disseminate research to foreign and second language educators in the U.S. and around the world on issues related to technology and language education. The site features both a message and a medium. The message is that the use of computers and other new technologies has now moved to the mainstream of language education; research and theory are thus needed more than ever to ensure that new technologies are used wisely and effectively. The focus is to put language learning first; technology is considered not from a technical point of view, but rather as to how its use impacts the process of teaching and learning languages. The journal publishes a broad range of full text articles reporting on original research or linking previous research, learning theory, and teaching practices.

The Mid-Continent Regional Educational Laboratory hosts this directory of some of the best online resources available to help educators, administrators, and parents answer common questions and solve problems related to the implementation and use of technology in education.

The Native American History Archive is designed for use by K-12 students using the Web for classroom projects, in the spirit of the Native American History Archive Inquirer, a model for collaborative group projects in History, offered as a starting point for teachers seeking authentic uses of the World Wide Web in their classrooms.

NetDay is a grass-roots volunteer effort to wire schools so they can network their computers and connect them to the Internet. Labor and materials come from volunteers and support from companies, unions, parents, teachers, students, and school employees.

ON-CALL is published three times a year in January, May and September by the University of Queensland in Australia . Its goal is to enhance Computers and Language Learning (CALL) activity in Australia by providing an appropriate forum for innovative research, development and practice. On-CALL maintains a focus on real teaching and learning contexts, with a special emphasis on developing and refining the principles that underpin excellence in CALL. The journal publishes articles covering a wide range of topics that involve technology, especially computers, and language education with relevance to teachers and researchers in all educational sectors.

Link to learn is a Pennsylvania initiative to provide Pennsylvania schools, libraries, and communities with virtually unlimited access to the information available on global networks.

The Regional Technology in Education Consortia (R*TEC) program is established to help states, local educational agencies, teachers, school library and media personnel, administrators, and other education entities successfully integrate technologies into kindergarten through 12th grade (K-12) classrooms, library media centers, and other educational settings, including adult literacy centers.

Currently there are over 3,500 schools in the United States and abroad with home pages on the World Wide Web. Many of these schools enroll substantial numbers of culturally and linguistically diverse students. These students represent cultural and linguistic assets which should be celebrated and shared with others. NCBE provides links to school Web sites that share information, ideas, and resources related to the education of culturally and linguistically diverse students and that display these students' work.

A compilation of ideas for using WWW resources as a language teaching tool. It also offers links to sites that have pedagogical information.

The World Wide Web sites collected on this page are intended to reflect the considerable variety of uses for computing and related forms of electronic technology in teaching. The links provide information about conferences, publications, and general discussions of teaching with electronic technology.

The Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory (McREL) provides a comprehensive page on Technology and Teacher Education that provides reports, articles, bibliographies, tools for teachers and other useful resources.

Great site for teachers using computers in teaching foreign languages to young students.

Through projects initiated under the Improving America's Schools Act and through long-term programs, the Department of Education promotes the use of technology in schools, libraries, and communities to achieve its mission of ensuring equal access to education and promoting educational excellence throughout the nation.

Writing HTML was created by the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI) to help teachers create learning resources that access information on the Internet. Here you will be writing a lesson called Volcano Web. However, this tutorial may be used by anyone who wants to create web pages.

This website is designed to provide K-12 teachers with the opportunity to learn more about the role of technology in education. Sections include: "Teacher Testimony: true stories of trials and triumphs with technology in the classroom"; "KidsSpeak," where kids share their experiences using technology; and "Feature Teachers!," which is about educators breaking new ground on the electronic frontier.

This site from the City University of Hong Kong has been created to assist instructors use the WWW. It helps instructors use the WWW by providing infrastructure tools, learning to use the web to teach, and basic web features as well as specific techniques to set up WWW tools on a server. Examples include a system for delivering creating and organizing on-line quizzes, a method of collecting assignments, a way of automatically testing student's computer programs and a photo album system to help instructors remember their students.

TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCTION

An Educator's Guide to Evaluating The Use of Technology in Schools and Classrooms

Evaluating educational technology programs can be a challenging endeavor. This guide represents a joint effort among the U.S. Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the Office of Educational Technology, and the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. The guide should be viewed as a tool for individuals who have little or no formal training in research or evaluation. Its intended informal style and accompanying worksheets provide the basic principles of evaluation and are designed to help district and school personnel gain an overview of and ideas for evaluating local technology initiatives. The guide is not meant to be the key to conducting a perfect evaluation. Rather, the goal of this handbook is to provide educators a resource with which to jump into the evaluation process, learning as they go.

by Matthew Soska. For many years, teachers used the computer to provide supplemental or additive exercises. In recent years, advances in computer technology have motivated teachers to reassess the computer and consider it an integral part of daily learning. Today, technology gives teachers the capacity to significantly enhance their students' language and cognitive development. They can utilize the technologies briefly described here for instructional testing and assessment; to teach culture; to help students learn academic content and develop critical thinking skills; and to expand students' speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills.

by Jim Cummins. This paper outlines the rationale underlying an innovative approach to computer assisted language learning that proposes to use target language text as input for learning. The text is made comprehensible to learners as a result of dictionary and learning strategy supports built into a multimedia CD-ROM design. The dictionary supports can be provided in learners' first and second languages (L1 and L2) and learning strategy supports include graphic organizers to facilitate comprehension of content as well as a variety of vocabulary building and grammar learning supports. These supports represent scaffolding that enables the learner/reader to process the meaning of texts that otherwise would have been inaccessible. Any text in electronic form can be imported into the system and used as authentic input for target language learning. A summary Computer Assisted Text Scaffolding for Curriculum Access and Language Learning/Acquisition is available.

by Courtney Macavinta. Although more Americans are getting online, race and class lines still are sharply segregating those who have access, according to a report issued today by the Commerce Department. In the agency's third annual look at the so-called digital divide between technology "haves" and "have-nots," the 1998 data shows that those living in rural areas and those at the lowest income levels have much less access to computers and Net connections in comparison to upper-income households in urban areas. Although 40 percent of U.S. households were online last year, there is a perpetuating trend in which whites are on the Net at a much greater rate than African Americans, Latinos, or those of Asian/Pacific Islander descent, according to the report, Falling Through the Net: Defining the Digital Divide, which is based on U.S. Census data.

by Manuela González-Bueno. This paper analyzes the effectiveness of using e-mail as a tool to promote foreign language learning in and out of the classroom. The study identifies the following features of the foreign language generated through the electronic medium, some of which have already been observed in previous studies: (a) greater amount of language; (b) more variety of topics and language functions; (c) higher level of language accuracy; (d) more similarity with oral language; (e) more student-initiated interactions; and (f) more personal and expressive language use. These observations are expected to expand the generalizations made in previous studies, and more finely tune theoretical propositions, about how to integrate electronic communication in the classroom in order to facilitate foreign language learning.

by Jim Cummins. The "e-Lective Language Learning" system described in this paper proposes to use target language text as input for language learning by incorporating a variety of L1 and L2 dictionary and learning strategy supports into a multimedia CD-ROM design. Any text in electronic form can be imported into the system and used as authentic input for target language learning. The built-in supports permit learners to comprehend text that would otherwise have been inaccessible. As considerable research has demonstrated, the more target language text learners read and comprehend, the more of the target language they learn.

This full-text guide features an 11-step process for making online collaborative projects successful. Offerings include: explanations of various kinds of online collaborations -- discussion groups, data collection and organization, document sharing, synchronous communication, and online workshops and courses, tools and websites that can be resources for creating each of these forms of collaborative environments, and tips for moderating online collaborations. Examples of school-based online collaborations appear throughout the guide, which was produced by the Northeast & Islands Regional Educational Laboratory at Brown University, the National School Network, & the Teacher Enhancement Electronic Community Hall.

You can download/view the full report in a PDF file also.

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by C. Meskill, J. Mossop, R. Bates. School-age children for whom English is not the native language have immediate and critical needs regarding English language and literacy. The majority of these children are not in any of the nation's bilingual programs. Thus they are restricted in their participation in academic activity during the period needed for their second language and literacy acquistion, a period which is typically from five to seven years. During this time, English as a Second Language (ESL) learners receive instruction in second language and literacy through specialized English as a second language instruction as well as "incidentally" in regular mainstream classroom classes. Providing opportunities for ESL learners to develop English language and literacy skills is a continual challenge and concern for schools. Recent interest in technologies as a means of supporting language development has brought ESL teaching professionals around the country to include computers, multimedia, and telecommunications as tools for instruction. In addition to ESL specific instruction, non-ESL or mainstream teachers are coming to view these technologies as a means by which ESL learners who cannot otherwise participate in class activities can be actively involved in language and literacy practice.

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Escrito por el Departamento de Educación de los Estados Unidos, esta guía sobre el Internet para padres de familia tiene como fin ayudar a los padres‹sin importar su nivel de conocimientos tecnológicos‹a utilizar el mundo en línea como una importante herramienta educativa. La guía simplifica la abrumadora cantidad de información para los consumidores y ofrece a los padres una introducción al Internet y la forma de navegar por él. La Guía sugiera la forma en que los padres pueden permitir a sus hijos explorar los prodigios del Internet al mismo tiempo que los protegen de sus peligros potenciales.

ERIC/IT Digests provide brief overviews of topics of current interest in the fields of library science and educational technology and highlight references for further reading. Each Digest is written according to clearinghouse guidelines and reviewed by subject matter specialists using established criteria. Be sure to review the dozens of useful articles available here. ERIC, the Educational Resources Information Center, is a national education information system sponsored by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education (ED). ERIC is part of the National Library of Education (NLE).

by C. Meskill, J. Mossop, S. DiAngelo, and R.K. Pasquale. This study compares and contrasts the "technology talk" of novice and expert teachers of K-8 language and literacy (ESOL). Interview data with eight teachers - two expert (experienced teachers and technologies users), five novice (limited experience in teaching and teaching with computers) and one transitional expert (experienced teacher and non-technology user) serve to illustrate the conceptual and practical differences between those who have adapted technologies as powerful teaching and learning tools and teachers who, in spite of specific formal training in instructional technology, speak about it and its application in starkly contrasting ways. These contrasts are presented as a set of four conceptual continua that can help in explicating novice starting points, transitional issues, and the expertise of computer-using language professionals.

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by J. Egbert, T. M. Paulus, Y. Nakamichi. The purpose of this study is to examine how language teachers apply practical experiences from computer-assisted language learning (CALL) coursework to their teaching. It also examines ways in which teachers continue their CALL professional development.

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This Digest examines the relationship between K-12 teachers' use of computer-based technologies to deliver and support classroom instruction and the training provided to prospective teachers by teacher education institutions. It offers an overview of obstacles faced by teacher educators in providing appropriate technology instruction and outlines approaches to addressing these obstacles.

by C. Piper, and S. Eskridge. Helping prospective teachers become aware of the uses of technology in education is an important goal of today's teacher preparation programs. Three education reform themes concerning the preparation of teachers for the 21st Century converge in this study: teacher accountability to professional certification standards, authentic assessment, and understanding of advanced technologies. The question of how to use technology effectively in the assessment of teacher candidates in order to demonstrate achievement of course objectives based on state certification standards led to the development of an electronic portfolio project in two small university teacher training programs. The potential for using technology in assessment is examined through analyses of electronic portfolios created by teacher candidates as well as interviews to gather information concerning experiences of collecting and preserving electronic evidence. The researchers' process of designing templates in hypertext markup language (HTML) and Hyperstudio, a multimedia authoring software program, provides further insight into the design and implementation of the electronic portfolio project.

by D.J. Villa. The recent explosion in technology, in particular in computer and digitizing systems, has many implications for heritage language maintenance and learning. In particular, authentic language usage can be easily recorded and preserved for those goals. That same explosion, however, can lead to a less than appropriate implementation of technology for language maintenance and learning. Further, certain cultural boundaries can make it difficult to have access to authentic language usage, particularly by out-group individuals who work on indigenous languages. This paper presents a pilot study that attempts to both implement technology in an appropriate manner and surmount the problems faced by out-group language researchers by training an in-group member, in this case a speaker of Navajo, in the methodology and technology necessary for recording and preserving her heritage language. The results of this work are discussed, as well as the role of computer and digitizing technology in language maintenance and teaching.

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by Mary Queitzsch. This report briefly reviews recent literature concerning the integration of technology into the preservice teacher program, identifies some of the challenges encountered by colleges of education in seeking to reach this goal, and describes some of the model for infusing instructional technology into the curriculum. The literature review provides a context for technology use in preservice teacher education programs in the Northwest.

by Margaret Riel. Current developments in communication technology now provide new options for students to extend themselves across distances and through time. This technology invites children to leap off the "shoulders of giants" onto satellites and use this global perspective to participate in new ways with their peers and other experts in distant locations. It is possible that these experiences will help make the power or the written word more apparent to new generation of citizens This paper on the Internet and the humanities focuses on the human side of networking. How do classrooms change when they are part of a global network like the Internet? What future images of schooling can we see from the vantage point of satellites? The paper is organized around two general topics followed by some reservations about technological solutions and problems.

by Dennis Sayers. How can other languages be used in conjunction with English to further intercultural and multilingual learning when teachers and students participate in computer-based global learning networks? Two portraits are presented of multilingual activities in the Orillas and I*EARN learning networks, and are discussed as examples of the principal modalities of communication employed in networking projects between distant classes.

by Beverly Hunter and John Richards. The nature of work and learning in our knowledge-based society and economy requires active participation by individuals and groups in the construction of knowledge. Active construction of knowledge, participation in collaborative learning, and building on learners' interests and experiences outside of school are major threads in educational reform and new curriculum standards. This paper provides examples of student work that not only demonstrates their own learning as young "knowledge" workers, but also makes a contribution to their community, to the learning of others, and to the base of knowledge available on the Internet.

by B. Bertram and J. K. Peyton. Electronic communication networks are in wide use for college-level language and writing instruction and are being adopted for use in elementary and secondary school classes. Teachers use network-based approaches to literacy instruction to support authentic reading and writing, collaboration, student-centered learning, writing across the curriculum, and the creation of classroom writing communities. A case study of network-based college classrooms identified great diversity in the ways these goals were realized. Nevertheless, common factors shaped all of the implementations: institutional goals, practices, and gateposts; theories, personalities, and established practices of teachers; student characteristics and expectations; features of the technology; and available resources. These factors suggest that like any innovation, the introduction of computer technology to promote interaction and learning in educational settings is a complex process that cannot be divorced from the users or the setting. The authors suggest this complexity needs to be understood so that perceptions of and expectations regarding the value of the innovation are neither idealized nor superficial.

by Carol A. Chapelle. This paper suggests that some design features and evaluation criteria for multimedia Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) might be developed on the basis of hypotheses about ideal conditions for second language acquisition (SLA). It outlines a relevant theory of SLA and enumerates the hypotheses it implies for ideal conditions such as input saliency, opportunities for interaction, and learner focus on communication. Implications of each hypothesis for multimedia CALL design and evaluation are outlined and exemplified.

by Beau Fly Jones, Gilbert Valdez, Jeri Nowakowski, & Claudette Rasmussen. This publication introduces what we know about effective learning and effective technology, and puts it together in a planning framework for educators and policy makers. After reading about effective learning and technology, educators can follow the instructions to actually use the framework to plan technology and technology enhanced programs that complement learning. Published in 1995 by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.

This study demonstrates that students with online access perform better. The study, conducted by CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology), an independent research and development organization, and sponsored by the Scholastic Network and Council of the Great City Schools, isolates the impact of online use and measures its effect on student learning in the classroom. The study compared the work of 500 students in fourth-grade and sixth-grade classes in 7 urban school districts- half with online access and half without. The results show significantly higher scores on measurements of information management, communication, and presentation of ideas for experimental groups with online access than for control groups with no online access. It offers evidence that using the Internet can help students become independent, critical thinkers, able to find information, organize and evaluate it, and then effectively express their new knowledge and ideas in compelling ways.

In the early 1980s, relatively inexpensive microcomputers came on the market, the personal computer was selected Time magazine's "man (machine) of the year," and school administrators rushed to buy early generation Apple, TRS-80, Commodore, or similar computers for their schools. Educational software was limited, and what little there was consisted mostly of "drill and practice" electronic worksheets. Teachers often selected software from catalogs, choosing almost any software that remotely touched on the subjects they were teaching. Often they were disappointed when the software arrived. Microcomputers in schools are no longer a novelty, but contribute significantly in the learning process, and software selection is taken as seriously as the selection of text books. This Digest will outline a seven step process for responsible software selection.

This Rand report summarizes the first of four workshops organized to take advantage of the experience and insights of those already implementing new technologies in the schools. This workshop examined professional development needs and consisted of a one and one-half-day conversation with educators and experts working to apply communications technology to the school system.

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Task Force on Technology and Teacher Education, a group of educators from diverse institutions and backgrounds, was assembled to consider ways that NCATE can provide leadership and support initiatives to meet the technology challenge facing teacher education institutions. The first section of the report presents the task force's vision of what teachers must be able to do in order to take advantage of technology for instruction and student learning, identifies current teacher education program deficiencies, and suggests what teacher education programs need to do to correct the deficiencies and bring vision into reality. The second section advances three broad recommendations regarding what NCATE can do to: (1) stimulate more effective uses of technology in teacher education programs, (2) use technology to improve the existing accreditation process and to reconceptualize accreditation for the 21st century, and (3) improve and expand its own operations through greater uses of technology. Brief case illustrations that demonstrate innovative technology use in a variety of teacher preparation programs appear throughout the text to highlight and illustrate points made in the report. The task force finds that a watershed for education and training has been created by rising costs for P-12 and higher education, by educational reform efforts at the state and federal levels, and by developments in modern information technology that have already affected the U.S. economy and society.

ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education article by Gary Burnett providing a synopsis of how technology can be used as a powerful tool in urban classroom settings including characteristics of good technology programs, various links to articles and successful programs implementing such techniques, as well as strategies for adapting programs for schools.

Decisions about technology can be daunting for a school, particularly if no one there has experience with hardware, software, or networking. That's why the Department's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) produced a publication now available (in HTML) on the web. The 100-page publication tells how to.define your needs and technical requirements; develop a "needs assessment"; determine what resources you have and what resources you will need; implement, support, and maintain your technology solution; provide effective training, and more.

You can download/view the full report in a PDF file also (1,053K)

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Office of Educational Research and Improvement U.S. Department of Education paper suggesting that computers and access to the Internet provide tremendous opportunities for after school learning to reinforce reading, math, and writing skills as well as to complete homework and school assignments that focus on doing research, gathering information, and writing reports. More complex math, science, and art projects often necessitate simulations and problem solving that can also be enhanced by using computers. In addition, technology can enable schools to reach families at home and bring other community resources such as museums, libraries, and local projects to kids via telecommunications. In a recent survey on after-school programs, parents cited access to technology and computer literacy as their number one priority for after-school activities.

by Ana Bishop. This Issue Brief presents an overview of the latest developments and trends in technology, along with the current uses they are being put to for educational purposes, and the ways in which these can best serve education in this country and abroad. In doing so, it explores the potential benefits of technology not just for bilingual learners, but also for teacher education, administrative planning and oversight, and even parent involvement in the scholastic life of bilingual students.

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ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education article by Gary Burnett providing overview of how the Internet is rapidly becoming one of the most important vehicles for educators and others to communicate and share information. Further, he offers resources and support to urban K-12 educators, bilingual and language minority students and educators, and a brief list of urban schools and districts on the Internet.

by Kerry Hannon. This article suggests using e-mail to communicate with students can make you a better teacher - and increase class participation.

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by Maritza M. Osuna and Carla Meskill. This pilot study investigates the potential role of Internet resources as a means to gain a deeper sense of the culture of the Spanish-speaking world for college students. Thirteen college students enrolled in the first quarter of Basic Spanish were instructed to utilize the Web to complete five activities that expanded on the aspects of culture studied in the class. Data collected demonstrate that the Web is a suitable tool to increase language and cultural knowledge, as well as a means to increase motivation. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

by M.A. DuFon. In recent years increasing numbers of researchers have begun to investigate second language acquisition within the socio-cultural context in which it occurs using qualitative methods and approaches such as an ethnographic approach. This frequently entails audio and/or video recording of the participants in naturalistic contexts. Yet theoretical and methodological issues related to video recording have not yet received a great deal of attention in the second language acquisition literature. The purpose of this paper is to initiate such a discussion among SLA researchers. This is accomplished by reviewing the visual anthropology, educational anthropology, and ethnographic filmmaking literature on three questions concerning the collection of valid video recorded data: a) How should the interaction be video recorded? b) Who should be video recorded? c) Who should do the video recording? Examples are presented to illustrate the kinds of problems that might be encountered in each of these areas. The author presents reflections on the decisions made when videotaping so that other SLA researchers using video recording might gain some insights that will assist them when dealing with the theoretical, methodological and practical considerations of planning and implementing their SLA studies using an ethnographic approach.

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