After much searching, I’ve finally found a piece of research, unfortunately unpublished, that directly addresses my question of technology allocation in K-12 schools.
A professor a Cal State, East Bay wanted to know how to better prepare his pre-service teachers for life in the classroom so he went searching for specific information about computer use in classrooms. He found none that satisfied his needs. So, he developed his own survey of 88 classrooms in 38 schools in the surrounding county of Alameda, CA detailing the number and type of computers available, as well as the actual time children spent on those computers.
This is exactly the data for which I’ve been looking and had not been able to find. Unfortunately, he only details computers actually in the classroom because he says, without corresponding data, that they are the ones with “greater potential to distribute [their] potential effectively.” (Razo, 2006) (The effective impact of classroom vs. other located computers would, of course, be valuable related research.)
In general, the author finds that despite these schools touting instructional computer to pupil ratios of about 1:4, each classroom has only about 3 functional computers that are used for approximately 1 of 30 instructional hours per week.
Is it any wonder why researchers haven’t found conclusive evidence of the positive effects of classroom technology?
Razo, Felipe H (2006). A Survey of Computer Utilization in Elementary Classrooms. Educause, Retrieved April 15, 2009, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/WRC07017A.pdf
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Thank you for the website. I can use it too, although as supporting material. It is so disheartening to find these kind of results so late. I looked at late 80s, turn of the century and contemporary usage and did find improvement. However this article does make me wonder about facts vs. school administration hype.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Mike's state by state scorecard (http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/tc/2009/26stc.pdf), California is in the dregs as far as technology goes. I was of the uninformed opinion that California was way ahead of us "redneck states" in every aspect of Education. This paper really reinforces what the scorecard showed. Good job, Josh.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I know what you mean about finding the research you need. I found this one site that costs $95 to join that has all I need - scads of papers. I am going to go to the Smather's library site and try to find out if UF has a subscription. This is what I am talking about: http://www.editlib.org/?fuseaction=Reader.NoAccess&paper_id=27161. Bummer!