Two decades of use in K-12 education

Conclusions ILSs are here to stay. School boards, administrators and other decision makers interested in what they perceive as a way of preparing their students to do well on standardized tests will continue to drive the purchases of ILSs upward each year. If ILSs are to become more effective for the rapidly growing number of students from diverse backgrounds (including many students of color) who will spend months and years using them perhaps it is time for ILS companies to consider changes in their approach to design as opposed to “just tweaking” the current design. A good starting point for changes in the approach to the design of ILSs would be to consider the importance of the awareness of cultural diversity in the design and to attempt to integrate cooperative learning into the design as well. If ILS companies seriously consider these suggestions they can create a system for the next two decades that has the potential to be more effective for the large numbers of students from diverse backgrounds who are the main users of these systems. His research interests include cooperative learning, instructional technology, and collaborative learning environments.     

Project 2061: Systemic reform of K-12 education for science literacy

Project 2061 of the American Association for the Advancement of Science is a long-term initiative for systemic reform of K-12 education in science, mathematics, and technology. The project was named after the next return of Halley's comet to envision a future where all Americans are science literate. To fulfill this vision, Project 2061 is developing a coordinated set of reform tools for educators to use in achieving the goals of science literacy.     

美国K-12阶段技术教育:背景、现状与启示

着当代技术的高速发展,技术教育得到了世界各国的广泛重视。美国K-12阶段技术教育以技术素养的培养为目标,在课程内容设置上具有多样性,技术课堂教学强调技术设计,并重视技术教师培养和培训。美国K-12阶段技术教育的许多经验可为我国中小学技术教育提供借鉴。     

Opinions on computing education in Korean K-12 system: higher education perspective

The need for computing education in the K-12 curriculum has grown globally. The Republic of Korea is not an exception. In response to the need, the Korean Ministry of Education has announced an outline for software-centric computing education in the K-12 system, which aims at enhancing the current computing education with software emphasis. In this paper, we review the outline from a higher education perspective and provide insights into its constructive improvement based on our experience in computer science education in higher education and a study of global initiatives on computing education. We also consider the social environment for computing education in Korea. In the proposed implementation, we first discuss goals for software-centric computing education and identify areas of focus. The identified areas are discussed in terms of topics to be covered and appropriate exposure of knowledge depth in the three levels in the Korean K-12 system. We then discuss necessary preparations for the success of the plan from academic, governmental and social perspectives.     

Career education attitudes and practices of K-12 science educators

A random sample of 400 K-12 science educators who were members of the National Science Teachers Association were surveyed regarding their attitude toward and practice of career education in their science teaching. These science teachers rejected a narrowly vocational view, favoring instead a conception of career education which included self-perception, values analysis, and vocational skills objectives. The science educators affirmed the importance of career education for a student's education, asserted career education ought to be taught in their existing science courses, and expressed a willingness to do so. Fewer than one-third of the science teachers, however, reported incorporating career education at least on a weekly basis in their science lessons. The major impediment to including more career education in science teaching was seen to be their lack of knowledge of methods and materials relevant to science career education, rather than objections from students, parents, or administrators; their unwillingness; or their evaluation of career education as unimportant. Thus, in order to improve this aspect of science teaching, science teachers need more concrete information about science career education applications.     

Archaeology in the classroom: An intra-university continuing education workshop for K-12 teachers

In this article the authors describe an innovative program in continuing education for teachers at the University of Georgia. The program, developed by the Museum of Natural History, the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, and the Department of Anthropology within the university and an independent research institute, offered teachers an opportunity to do archaeological field work as they learned about new discoveries in archaeology and Native American history and culture. The workshop design incorporated principles of adult and experiential learning. With the help of the workshop leaders, teachers developed their own materials for presenting integrated thematic units in their classrooms. Teachers responded enthusiastically to the workshops in a two-stage evaluation process. The authors conclude that intrauniversity cooperation is necessary if teachers are to benefit from all the resources of the university.Jacqueline J. Saindon obtained her M.A. in Anthropology at Hunter College, CUNY. She is Associate Director of the Multicultural Population and Resources Project at Georgia State University. Her special area of interest is in developing continuing education workshops and curriculum for teachers on anthropology, archaeology and ecology. Carol M. Downs obtained her M.A. and Ed.D. in Adult Education, and a Graduate Certificate in Gerontology, at the University of Georgia. She is Program Director of the Office of Continuing Education and Public Service at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her special area of interest includes continuing education in the arts, humanities, education and historic preservation.     

中小学远程教育何去何从?

随着信息技术在教育中的不断普及,中小学教育信息化取得了一定的进展,但同时也遭遇了教学、技术、理念等诸多方面的问题,而这其中,以网络教育为主体的中小学网校则更面临着选择发展方向的尴尬.     

中小学信息技术课电子绩效支持系统设计探析

本文阐述了中小学信息技术课电子绩效支持系统的设计思想、设计技术,对系统的功能结构和技术结构设计进行了较为详尽的分析和探讨。     

Use of Web 2.0 technologies in K-12 and higher education: The search for evidence-based practice

Evidence-based practice in education entails making pedagogical decisions that are informed by relevant empirical research evidence. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss evidence-based pedagogical approaches related to the use of Web 2.0 technologies in both K-12 and higher education settings. The use of such evidence-based practice would be useful to educators interested in fostering student learning through Web 2.0 tools. A comprehensive literature search across the Academic Search Premier, Education Research Complete, ERIC, and PsycINFO databases was conducted. Empirical studies were included for review if they specifically examined the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on student learning. Articles that merely described anecdotal studies such as student perception or feeling toward learning using Web 2.0, or studies that relied on student self-report data such as student questionnaire survey and interview were excluded. Overall, the results of our review suggested that actual evidence regarding the impact of Web 2.0 technologies on student learning is as yet fairly weak. Nevertheless, the use of Web 2.0 technologies appears to have a general positive impact on student learning. None of the studies reported a detrimental or inferior effect on learning. The positive effects are not necessarily attributed to the technologies per se but to how the technologies are used, and how one conceptualizes learning. It may be tentatively concluded that a dialogic, constructionist, or co-constructive pedagogy supported by activities such as Socratic questioning, peer review and self-reflection appeared to increase student achievement in blog-, wiki-, and 3-D immersive virtual world environments, while a transmissive pedagogy supported by review activities appeared to enhance student learning using podcast.     

Identification and evaluation of technology trends in K-12 education from 2011 to 2021

Education and Information Technologies - Educational technologies have captured the attention of researchers, policy makers, and parents. Each year, considerable effort and money are invested into...     

Netflixing human capital development: personalized learning technology and the corporatization of K-12 education

Abstract

Advanced by powerful venture philanthropies, educational technology companies, and the US Department of Education, a growing movement to apply ‘big data’ through ‘learning analytics’ to create ‘personalized learning’ is currently underway in K-12 education in the United States. While scholars have offered various critiques of the corporate school reform agenda, the role of personalized learning technology in the corporatization of public education has not been extensively examined. Through a content analysis of US Department of Education reports, personalized learning advocacy white papers, and published research monographs, this paper details how big data and adaptive learning systems are functioning to redefine educational policy, teaching, and learning in ways that transfer educational decisions from public school classrooms and teachers to private corporate spaces and authorities. The analysis shows that all three types of documents position education within a reductive set of economic rationalities that emphasize human capital development, the expansion of data-driven instruction and decision-making, and a narrow conception of learning as the acquisition of discrete skills and behavior modification detached from broader social contexts and culturally relevant forms of knowledge and inquiry. The paper concludes by drawing out the contradictions inherent to personalized learning technology and corporatization of schooling. It argues that these contradictions necessitate a broad rethinking of the value and purpose of new educational technology.     

The emerging fourth tier in K-12 education finance in British Columbia,Canada: increasing privatisation and implications for social justice

This paper examines increasing privatisation of education in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Conceptually, the paper is informed by theories of privatisation and social justice; and methodologically, it uses policy analysis to examine documents and financial records obtained from government departments. The paper critically analyses education policy that has enabled the emergence of private sources of revenue (tuition fees and for-profit revenue) and the establishment of school and programme choice. Analysis of levels of international student tuition generated by school districts in the province reveals differential capacity to produce such revenue. The authors argue that this differential capacity is leading to the development of a fourth tier within a pre-existing three-tier K-12 education system in British Columbia. The article concludes with a discussion of implications related to social justice in education.     

Dilemmas in crossing the boundaries: From K-12 to higher education and back again

For the purpose of reflective analysis, this article, which employs narrative inquiry as a research methodology, combines two “crossing the boundaries” dilemmas I experienced over the course of a decade. While the dilemmas relate to different issues that emerged in my career (standardized testing as a K-12 teacher and the formal evaluation of a reform program as a tenured, full professor), I trace the roots of the dilemmas to the same source: the hegemonic relationship between theory and practice which, despite the passage of time, continues to persist in the field of education and to shape the professional experiences of educators, some of which are miseducative. I argue that until the relationship between educational practices in schools and educational practices in universities are addressed, school reform that benefits children cannot be fully realized.