September 2001 — Features

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Technology in Secondary Teacher Education

Elizabeth M. Willis, Ph.D., Peggy Raines, Ph.D.

Perhaps the time has come for the goals of education to change. Just as the invention of the printing press in the 1400s transformed the intellectual life of the world, so has the invention of the computer in the 1950s. The computer reinvented knowledge by giving us a new way to view the world and ourselves. Education must move from the static, mechanical view of teacher as giver of knowledge to teacher/learner as integrator, guide, architect and facilitator. However, for this change to occur, educators must accept the computer and its software not as replacements for the content of the disciplines at the core of the curriculum, but as useful extensions that complement content.

Those that drive the Information Age continue to invent intelligent technologies and strategies as quickly as the maturing fields of cognition and learning reveal new learning systems and processes of knowledge acquisition. Opportunities and needs are therefore expanding for the professional development of educators that will enable them to recognize and utilize these tools and informational representations effectively in the classroom.

Educators at all levels may need to rethink the central mandate of the educational process. Learners should now be taught how to learn, how to search for appropriate information, sort it according to their needs, create knowledge from it, and then report it in a way that has individual and collective meaning. The static approach to learning is well on its way to making schools as we know them obsolete.

Schubert (1986) suggests that curriculum improvement in schools lies in the education of teachers and, while much of that education occurs on the job, pre-service teacher education really begins the professional journey. The current pre-service teacher curriculum usually consists of general education courses (liberal arts), professional education courses (foundational methods), student teaching and other clinical experience. The program follows recommendations made by James Bryant Conant in his 1963 study "The Education of American Teachers," which reinforces the idea that any reform in the general educational curriculum must be preceded by reform in teacher education.

Although most teacher education programs provide some computer education for pre-service educators, many do not have up-to-date equipment or faculty with technology expertise. This makes the situation no more promising for those just entering the teaching profession than for in-service teachers who report their technology training as being about computers, not learning with computers.

The concerns about pre-service teacher education and the integration of technology are well documented in research literature:

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