Technology In Education

Background of Technology in Education
Over the past decade, many new technologies have been developed that have changed the way we live. Many of these same technologies have been finding their way into America’s classrooms. These technologies promise to change the way we educate in a similar manner that they have changed the way we do business. Most schools are still designed for the industrial or even the agrarian era. These schools will have to change in order to prepare students for the future instead of the past. Although it may be hard to believe that technology could have such an effect on the education process, several years ago, “we had the same controversy whether the computer would transform work, and critics argued that all those investments were a waste� (Symonds, 2000, pg. 118).
The idea of using technology to enhance education is not new. In 1971, Seymour Papert, a influential professor from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that every student should be given a computer in order to provide them with the kinds of experiences that teachers are seeking for their students (Online, 2000). Educators have moved with surprising speed to join the high-tech revolution. Some 95% of public schools are n

Perhaps the only way for us to overcome the challenges that implementing technology in education presents is to provide adequate training for teachers. While zealously trying to implement technology in schools, decision-makers have overlooked this major force for it to be successful. Many current administrators completed their educational administration programs when there was no emphasis in computer applications or there were no computers used in the college or university preparation programs. Training programs only recently began to provide school leaders with technology management skills. As a result, those who decide about technology policies often have little or no technology training and few resources to help make informed decisions. Therefore, teachers may actually create barriers to implementing technology in schools (Timothy, 2001)

The Digital Divide is described as a gap in access to technology and information between groups by and of the following: income, race, gender, location, or education. The term “digital divide” became common after publication of the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s “Americans in the Information Age: Falling Through the Net”. These reports refer to the digital divide that exists in U.S. households, but the term also applies to education, according to the U.S. Department of Education (Pessin, 2001). Included in the report are some very interesting finding that illustrate the growing gap. For example, people with college degrees are more than eight times more likely to have a computer than those without. 61.6% of those with a college education use the Internet, as compared with only 6.6% of those with a high school diploma or less. Urban households with an earning income of more than $75,000 are more than 20 times more likely to have home Internet access than those in rural households with lower levels of income. Only 31.7% of single-parent households have a computer, compared with 61.8% of married couples. Hispanic houselholds are half as likely to include a computer as their white counterparts. African –Americans have less Internet access at any location, including home, work, school, and library, than whites (Pessin). These differences also spill into U.S. public schools. Norris Dickard, a senior associate in a education consulting firm, points out that schools with high numbers of low income-students, those where at least 75 percent of student are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, and with high numbers of minority children are less likely to have access to computers and the Internet than schools whose students are mostly better-off and white. In schools with high numbers of poor students, 60 percent of classrooms were connected to the Internet, compared with a range of 77 percent to 82 percent for schools with lower concentrations of poverty. Also, for schools where minority children make up at least 50 percent of the student rolls, 64 percent of classrooms had Internet access. At schools with lower percentages of minority children, 79 percent to 85 percent of classes were linked to the Internet. “It underscores the difference of continuing the investments we’ve made until we reach the goal of equal access for all,” Dickard said. “We still have a digital divide in our schools. Still, in one year, from 1999 to 2000, the proportion of schools with higher percentages of poor students that could access the Internet from their classrooms jumped from 38 percent to 60 percent. For schools with predominantly minority enrollments, that percentage increased from 43 percent to 64 percent during the same period” (Reid, 2001). Until we enjoy universal access to technology, the internet, and ideas on how to use them responsibly and productively, many people will wield an unfair advantage in their learning environment, in the job market, and in their daily lives. The cor