Technology in the schools

A new report in the journal Education Week rates Maine tops in the nation in outfitting its schools with high-tech hardware, near the bottom in actually using it.

It is inevitable that this finding will generate the old knee-jerk complaint about throwing money at education. Better to view it as a task well begun that simply needs finishing.

The Education Week survey, done in collaboration with the Milken Exchange on Education Technology, finds in Maine more innovation than deficiency: the 4-year-old Maine School and Library Network remains a model for making technology available to poor communities; the new state e-rate program will make an estimated $3 million available to train teachers and librarians in using technology starting in 2001; the $218,000 the Legislature appropriated this year will expand the two-way, direct-connection network between schools; cataloging and reviewing efforts by the Department of Education and the University of Maine will help teachers evaluate Web sites and software. Special mention was given to the Computers for Schools and Libraries program, in which prison inmates retool computers donated by businesses.

Still, the obstacles to realizing the potential of technology remain, in Maine and elsewhere, time and money. There are thousands of CD-roms and Websites designed specifically for educators. The efforts under way to evaluate and rate digital resources are helpful but they do little good if teachers aren’t given the time to incorporate them into the curriculum. This problem becomes especially acute when there are statewide curriculum standards to meet.

The cost of software is the other major problem cited by teachers, especially since 20 percent of teachers nationally often foot the the bill themselves. Combine the out-of-pocket expense with the amount of time it takes just to learn a program well enough to assess its value with the logistics of cycling 25 students through the one or two instructional computers available in most classrooms, and it’s no wonder so many teachers stick with textbooks.

The report concludes that training is the key. Not just training teachers the basics of using computers, but training them on how to integrate digital content into the curriculum and how to tailor its use to the needs and learning styles of indivudual students. Nationally, less than one-third of teachers get more than five hours of technology training a year.

In Maine, a major hurdle to increased training seems to be a lack of comprehensive information on the current status of training efforts. While the state gets high marks for its commitment to making technology available, it gets far too many “incompletes” (information not available) in the section of the report dealing with how school districts plan for the use of technology in the classroom and how they evaluate their success. Maine has distinguished itself by making the tools of technology available to even its poorest, most remote schools. It’s time now to take accurate measurements and finish the job.