March 2005 — Exclusive
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The Changing Classroom: Challenges for Teachers
Since the emergence of the Internet and the dramatic expansion of PCs in education, business and everyday life, there have been fierce debates about whether and how to employ computers in K-12 education. At first, there was a generational divide with younger teachers and some students putting computers to use in the classroom and discovering along the way how information technology could contribute to learning. However, for many educators comfortably conditioned by traditional teaching methods, the advent of technology was not a welcomed change. Yet with the explosive development of the Internet in the '90s and the enthusiastic embrace of the "information superhighway" by the Clinton administration, many educators noticed that computers could play a critical role in teaching. As the classroom began to change with the integration of technology, the role of the teacher has inevitably changed too. With technology delivering an ever-accelerating learning curve which everyone must keep up with, teachers have begun to see that they must learn to work differently with their students in order for education to remain relevant and effective.
Changing the Learning Process
In the late '90s, many in the education field and government, as well as in the media and public, recognized a "digital divide" in which some school districts and classrooms were "wired" and had up-to-date computer technology, while others did not. Accordingly, there were efforts undertaken by government, business and educators to wire classrooms and make computer technology available to a greater number of students and teachers.
While many teachers and students are engaging in innovative forms of research and novel projects, there are still many traditional teachers who resist learning new computer skills and do not want to bring computer-based technologies into their classrooms. Yet, these technologies carry a transformative power, and many schools recognizing this are now requiring that teachers make use of computer-mediated instruction. Students today are exposed to a barrage of new technologies outside of the classroom, including home computers, e-mail and text messaging, and many possess greater technological skills than their teachers. This has shifted a dynamic between teachers and their students, forcing teachers to engage in the learning process themselves.
Teachers have to develop the ability to demonstrate how these technologies can be used for academic purposes and convey the educational advantages of computers and the Internet to their students. This means acquiring and teaching new literacies involving teachers and students in innovative types of research projects, and interacting in novel ways as everyone learns to use new technology and media.
Indeed, to meet the challenges of an always-evolving high-tech society, teachers today need to develop multiple forms of computer and information literacy to help improve education. This means using technology in the classroom to illustrate lesson topics; teaching students how to use the Internet and information technology to research topics; and using technology to enhance education outside the classroom, ideally in ways that involve students in the learning process.
