Beyond the Classroom: Restructuring Schools with Technology

Technology is no "silver bullet" for transforming education, the authors assert. Observations in technology-using schools suggest that, for technology to serve the purposes of reform, it must be tied to a coherent, schoolwide instructional agenda. Reformers advocate classroom activities organized around important, multidisciplinary themes, with students working singly and in groups on long-term projects that involve meaningful, challenging content and that draw on and develop such higher-order skills as analysis, interpretation, and design. Technology can play an important role in achieving this vision. Giving students authentic tasks that involve the design and development of products for an audience beyond their classroom walls creates pressure to furnish students with the tools used to create such products in the society at large. Increasingly, these tools are computers, software, and network resources. Technology can provide students with supports for storing and manipulating information (e.g., database and spreadsheet software), tools for writing and editing (e.g., word processing software), access to a wide array of information (e.g., through Internet searches), capabilities for communicating with content experts and other investigators (e.g., through electronic networks), and representations that give tangible form to concepts that are otherwise difficult to visualize (e.g., interactive graphic representations of such variables as acceleration). Yet technology is no "silver bullet" for transforming education. Many instructional uses of technology merely reinforce traditional didactic modes of instruction (e.g., one-way-video distance learning or integrated learning systems).(1) Often, the use of technology is reserved for special students or regarded as an enrichment activity. Thus it has little effect on how the core curriculum gets addressed in regular classrooms.(2) SRI's Study of Technology and Education Reform included case studies of nine sites where technology has been used as a strategy for achieving an education reform agenda. We were interested in schools that were moving toward student-centered, curriculum-rich, technology-based projects, such as the one described in the accompanying sidebar, "Exploring Cultures with Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments." As exciting as this classroom picture is, we need to recognize that it is one thing to use technology in isolated classrooms and quite another to make technology a potent force in transforming an entire school or an entire education system. All schools that choose to make technology part of their reform strategies face important challenges with respect to physical infrastructure, funding, equity, and ongoing maintenance. But our case studies suggest that the deciding factor in successful implementations of technology is the creation of a coherent schoolwide approach to using technology in the core curricula for all students. Most schools have a few teachers who are interested in technology. Given modest resources and support, these teachers may develop technology-based activities (sometimes very creative ones) for their students. While such isolated gems are to be encouraged, a single class or a single year in school constitutes only a small part of a student's educational experience. Students become frustrated when they enter other classrooms without technological activities, and it is certainly not worth investing the time to learn computer skills such as keyboarding and Internet searching only to have them fall into disuse in the following year. Creating a Schoolwide Vision Project-centered classrooms with students using the tools of technology make extensive demands on teachers. Teachers are expected to orchestrate classrooms in which students pursue different questions, work at different speeds, use different technologies, and work in flexible groups. Working with original data sources, students often push beyond the limits of their teachers' knowledge of technology and content. …