Classroom Computers

Computers and Classroom Culture, first published in 1996, explores the meaning of computer technology for our schools.

A comprehensive guide for integrating educational technology in the K-12 classroom This is a must-have resource for all K-12 teachers and administrators who want to really make the best use of available technologies. Written by Doug Johnson, an expert in educational technology, The Classroom Teacher's Technology Survival Guide is replete with practical tips teachers can easily use to engage their students and make their classrooms places where both students and teachers will enjoy learning. Covers the most up-to-date technologies and how they can best be used in the classroom Includes advice on upgrading time-tested educational strategies using technology Talks about managing "disruptive technologies" in the classroom Includes a wealth of illustrative examples, helpful suggestions, and practical tips This timely book provides a commonsense approach to choosing and using educational technology to enhance learning.

Since 1979, Apple Computer's Educational Grants program has provided computer equipment and training to schools through a nationwide competitive process. Computers in the Classroom tells the inspiring stories of some of these schools, showing how technology has revived the classroom. This illustrated book is an indispensable resource for teachers and parents, showing examples of students' work and with information on funding resources, technical support, software, and where to find electric and print data. 100 illus.

Impelled by a demand for increasing American strength in the new global economy, many educators, public officials, business leaders, and parents argue that school computers and Internet access will improve academic learning and prepare students for an information-based workplace. But just how valid is this argument? In Oversold and Underused, one of the most respected voices in American education argues that when teachers are not given a say in how the technology might reshape schools, computers are merely souped-up typewriters and classrooms continue to run much as they did a generation ago. In his studies of early childhood, high school, and university classrooms in Silicon Valley, Larry Cuban found that students and teachers use the new technologies far less in the classroom than they do at home, and that teachers who use computers for instruction do so infrequently and unimaginatively. Cuban points out that historical and organizational economic contexts influence how teachers use technical innovations. Computers can be useful when teachers sufficiently understand the technology themselves, believe it will enhance learning, and have the power to shape their own curricula. But these conditions can't be met without a broader and deeper commitment to public education beyond preparing workers. More attention, Cuban says, needs to be paid to the civic and social goals of schooling, goals that make the question of how many computers are in classrooms trivial.

The cry for and against computers in the classroom is a topic of concern to parents, educators, and communities everywhere. Now, from a Silicon Valley hero and bestselling technology writer comes a pointed critique of the hype surrounding computers and their real benefits, especially in education. In High-Tech Heretic, Clifford Stoll questions the relentless drumbeat for "computer literacy" by educators and the computer industry, particularly since most people just use computers for word processing and games--and computers become outmoded or obsolete much sooner than new textbooks or a good teacher. As one who loves computers as much as he disdains the inflated promises made on their behalf, Stoll offers a commonsense look at how we can make a technological world better suited for people, instead of making people better suited to using machines.

The Flickering Mind, by National Magazine Award winner Todd Oppenheimer, is a landmark account of the failure of technology to improve our schools and a call for renewed emphasis on what really works. American education faces an unusual moment of crisis. For decades, our schools have been beaten down by a series of curriculum fads, empty crusades for reform, and stingy funding. Now education and political leaders have offered their biggest and most expensive promise ever—the miracle of computers and the Internet—at a cost of approximately $70 billion just during the decade of the 1990s. Computer technology has become so prevalent that it is transforming nearly every corner of the academic world, from our efforts to close the gap between rich and poor, to our hopes for school reform, to our basic methods of developing the human imagination. Technology is also recasting the relationships that schools strike with the business community, changing public beliefs about the demands of tomorrow’s working world, and reframing the nation’s systems for researching, testing, and evaluating achievement. All this change has led to a culture of the flickering mind, and a generation teetering between two possible futures. In one, youngsters have a chance to become confident masters of the tools of their day, to better address the problems of tomorrow. Alternatively, they can become victims of commercial novelties and narrow measures of ability, underscored by misplaced faith in standardized testing. At this point, America’s students can’t even make a fair choice. They are an increasingly distracted lot. Their ability to reason, to listen, to feel empathy, is quite literally flickering. Computers and their attendant technologies did not cause all these problems, but they are quietly accelerating them. In this authoritative and impassioned account of the state of education in America, Todd Oppenheimer shows why it does not have to be this way. Oppenheimer visited dozens of schools nationwide—public and private, urban and rural—to present the compelling tales that frame this book. He consulted with experts, read volumes of studies, and came to strong and persuasive conclusions: that the essentials of learning have been gradually forgotten and that they matter much more than the novelties of technology. He argues that every time we computerize a science class or shut down a music program to pay for new hardware, we lose sight of what our priority should be: “enlightened basics.” Broad in scope and investigative in treatment, The Flickering Mind will not only contribute to a vital public conversation about what our schools can and should be—it will define the debate.

Discover new and immediately applicable tools and practices to support collaborative, student-centered learning. Teachers possess unique skills, knowledge and experience. So why should their approaches to classroom technology look the same? In this new edition of the popular book Integrating Technology in the Classroom, author Boni Hamilton presents technology tools and projects that resonate with your teaching style, classroom context and technology skill level all while helping students achieve academic growth. In this new edition, you’ll find: • Coverage of programming, game creation, and augmented and virtual reality. • Stories of teachers who have successfully employed technology in the classroom, with more examples from secondary-level teachers, including visual learning preferences and kinesthetic/tactile learning. • Deeper explanation of how to leverage technology to meet multilingual needs. • A new chapter on leveraging technology to meet adaptive needs, including examples from teachers who use adaptive technologies in regular classrooms. • Strategies that address efficiency needs of teachers, to help make administrative tasks less onerous, and coverage of learning management systems, formative assessment sites, and planning tools. • Professional development coverage that includes information on ISTE offerings, social media, and other supports. Explore how technology tools can support your instructional goals and help you meet the individual needs of all learners.