National Network of Libraries of Medicine
nnlm.gov
Archives
This page was archived on: May 01, 2008 | View page metadata
Document content is not current. Links may be broken.
| National Network of Libraries of Medicinennlm.gov |
Archives |
|
This page was archived on: May 01, 2008 | View page metadata | Document content is not current. Links may be broken. |
||
prepared for the project
Planning and Evaluating Information Outreach among Minority Communities: Model Development Based on Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest
Stephen T. Kerr
University of Washington
Educational technology is widely perceived to be a powerful force that has the potential to transform the educational system and the work of the teachers and students who work there. Researchers working in educational technology as a field of study have examined a number of variables in an attempt to define "what works," and while there have been few definitive answers from this work, it does allow us to draw certain lessons about the ways in which technology is introduced, used, and conceptualized in the service of bringing information to broad sections of the public. In the particular case of schools, there have been special concerns raised about equity and access to technology by those from disadvantaged or minority communities.
The analysis that follows here is divided into six main sections: (1) a brief general review of the way in which the research literature in the field of educational technology is organized, with special reference to the kinds of issues of concern here; (2) a review of the particular input variables that have been found to be important in using educational technology; (3) a review of process and intervention variables, and their effectiveness; (4) a review of evaluation methods and approaches; (5) an analysis of the kinds of outreach models seen as especially useful in the field of education and educational technology; and (6) conclusions, with a specific focus on the issues of concern in this project. Whenever appropriate, each of these major sections is further subdivided into sections dealing with (1) general conclusions from educational technology research that appear to apply to most situations and for most groups and (2) conclusions specific to the use of educational technology in minority settings or communities. As will be demonstrated, the latter body of work is relatively scant, but nonetheless does provide some useful suggestions.
General research and applications. Early work in the field of educational technology (typically then referred to as "audio-visual education") was focused on a number of relatively straightforward questions -- Can people learn as well, or better, from hardware/software than they can from a "traditional" instructor? Are certain combinations of hardware and software especially helpful in promoting learning? The methodological approach until roughly 1970 was typically experimental or correlational, in the classical mold of behavioral psychology; the outcomes measured were "learning," most often understood as changes in scores on standardized tests.
Over the past 25 years, a new type of work has emerged in the field, "cognitivist" or "constructivist" work that combines a wider variety of methodological approaches (more observational and case studies) and a greater variety of possible outcomes (problem-solving abilities, levels of motivation, etc.)
One especially significant feature of work in the field over the past twenty years has been a sharp turn away from earlier ways of framing the basic questions that educational technologists ask. In earlier decades, those questions were most commonly of the form, "Does method X produce equal or better student learning than traditional teacher-led classroom-based instruction?" In practice, "method X" was typically defined as some new hardware device (film, television) or hardware-based approach (computer-assisted instruction, use of video disks) that was seen to have important new instructional potentials. In spite of years of studies that showed "no significant difference" between "method X" and "traditional" instruction, these studies persisted as the norm in educational technology research until about 1980.
At the beginning of the 1980s, new claims were being made for the power of computers as a valuable new hardware delivery system for education, and there were suggestive new studies that indicated use of computers led to significant improvements (roughly one-half to one standard deviation on standardized tests) in student learning. But using meta-analytic approaches, several researchers offered a powerful new explanation that dealt with both the observed effects and the poverty of earlier "method X" (media-comparison) studies: it was not the hardware itself that caused the observed improvement in student learning, but rather the extra effort at analyzing and designing instructional materials to use with that hardware that brought the result (Clark, 1983; see also Kozma, 1994; Clark, 1994).
As a result of this new perspective, researchers in the field began to make finer distinctions about what kinds of questions educational technology ought to be asking. Many researchers put aside the older "media comparison" approach and began to ask other kinds of questions: If the hardware itself is not so interesting, then could it be that the hardware facilitates certain kinds of student thinking, that using certain kinds of software encourages new ways of conceptualizing or working with problems? Do student attitudes change as a result of using technology-based programs? Are particular combinations of hardware and software particularly useful at moving students toward development of new kinds of conceptual understandings? (See, e.g., Hooper & Rieber, 1995, and Salomon, 1993, for some examples of these new approaches).
Research and applications specific to minority communities. In spite of these changes, however, there has been remarkably little interest in the field in (and consequently relatively few studies that focus on) sociological aspects of the use of educational technology. Most of the few studies that have been done have considered basic questions such as equity in access, the differential use of various kinds of resources among richer and poorer schools, or the appropriateness of the content of various educational resources (software, web sites) for working with students from various ethnic or minority groups. Almost no work has been done on the more complicated questions of how attitudes, assumptions, and behavioral predispositions affect the use of educational technology by minority groups in school or non-school settings. Only two meta-analyses of any scope have appeared on the issue of minority access to and use of educational technology (Kerr, 1995; Sutton, 1991). It is important to bear this in mind at the outset; the literature in this part of the field is not rich.
Research and development in outreach and the adoption of innovative practice. As a field, educational technology has been much more focused on the psychological correlates of using new technologies in instruction than on the particular ways that new practices of teaching themselves arise and are adopted by teachers. Partly this was due to the focus of most researchers in the field on devices and the materials that could be developed or used with them, and partly it was due to the strong heritage of behaviorist and "systems" thinking that permeated the field between roughly 1945 and 1985. This heritage concentrated the attention of researchers and theorists almost exclusively on processes of learning (first from a behaviorist and later from a cognitive perspective), and allowed scant interest to be developed in the more socially oriented processes through which new teaching practice comes to be defined, how teachers decide to migrate from one instructional perspective to another, how new resources find their way into the curricular armamentarium of teachers, and how organizational and administrative patterns of schooling change to accommodate to the new approaches that technology makes possible.
Early studies of innovation and the adoption of educational technology paid most attention to patterns of teacher usage, often measured via surveys that asked such questions as "How frequently do you use device X in the classroom?" or occasionally "How comfortable are you in using approach Y in your teaching?" While studies carried out with these viewpoints did collect some baseline data, they provided precious little in the way of understanding of how the fundamental processes of schooling shift in response to technology and the new possibilities that it presents (Holloway, 1996). Anthropological, organizational, and socio-cultural interpretations have been largely lacking until more recently, when more balanced reports (e.g., Cuban, 1986; Schofield, 1995; Sandholz, Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1997) have begun to shed some additional light on the processes by which technology becomes an accepted part of classroom life. But there is still much that remains to be explored to give us a more complete picture of how technology is an is not accepted in educational organizations.
General research and applications. Educational technology research has traditionally examined certain kinds of input variables and largely ignored others. The principal foci of interest have included student variables (academic aptitude or achievement, socio-economic status, gender, age, prior experience with computer hardware, certain psychological states or traits [e.g., anxiety, field-dependence or -independence, level of motivation or interest]), instructor variables (familiarity with hardware or software, concerns about its applicability or use, interest in or motivation to use computers as a part of instruction, role or style of classroom teaching), and access (to hardware or software, in a given site; or to resources). In some other studies, funding for educational technology acquisition and implementation has also been a subject of interest.
Research and applications specific to minority communities. The principal input variable examined in the research to date has been that of access -- the ability of minority students to find computers in their schools, and to have the time and support available to use them.
Access. The fact that poorer schools (and hence, usually, poorer students) would not have as much access to educational technology was recognized early on by researchers in the field. The appearance of computers in schools during the 1980s required that the issue of equity in access to technology be addressed. Not only did the machines represent a higher level of capitalization of the educational enterprise than had formerly been the case, they also carried a heavier symbolic load than had earlier technologies, being linked in the public mind with images of a better future, greater economic opportunity for children, and so forth. Each of these issues led to problems vis á vis minority access to computers.
Initial concerns about the access of minorities to new technologies in schools were raised in Becker's studies (1983), which seemed to show that children in poor schools (schools where a majority of the children were from low-socio-economic-status family backgrounds) had fewer computers available to them. This pattern was found to be less strong in a follow-up set of studies conducted a few years later (Becker, 1986), but it has continued to be a topic of considerable concern.
Other evidence of racial disparities in access to computing resources in schools was collected by Doctor (1992), who noted continuing inequality. The National Assessment of Educational Progress assessment of computer competence (Martinez & Mead, 1988) noted that white students were considerably more likely to have had experience with computers, to have studied them, and to have access to one at home. In 1992, the popular computer magazine Macworld (Borrell, 1992; Kondracke, 1992; Piller, 1992)3) devoted an issue (headlined "America's Shame") to these questions, noting critically that this topic seemed to have slipped out of the consciousness of many of those in the field of educational technology, and raising in a direct way the issue of the relationship (or lack of one) between government policy on school computer use and the continuing discrepancies in minority access.
The fact that race and gender may interact to inhibit minority students' access to computing was the subject of at least one study (Grignon, 1993). native American females were significantly less likely to enroll in computer science classes, and to take courses where complex (but potentially job-related) graphics software was taught.
If the issue of minority access to computing resources was not a high priority in the scholarly journals, it did receive a good deal of attention at the level of federal agencies, foundations, state departments of education, and local school districts. States such as Kentucky (Pritchard, 1991), Minnesota (McInerney & Park, 1986), New York (Webb, 1986), and a group of Southern states (David, 1987), all identified the question of minority access to computing resources as an important priority. Additionally, national reports and foundation conferences focused attention on the issue in the context of low minority representation in math and science fields generally, and linked this with the issue of access to educational technology (Cheek, 1991; Kober, 1991). Madaus (1991) made a particular plea regarding the increasing move towards high-stakes computerized testing and its possible negative consequences for minority students.
A somewhat different take on the issue of access is the example of the Star Schools program, which uses distance learning to deliver courses and shorter instructional experiences to students in both rural and inner-city areas. The fact that most of the former courses are intended for advanced students or cover unusual subjects, while the materials for the latter audience consist mostly of remedial units, suggests that the pattern first observed by Becker of using technology first for remediation with minorities is still in place (Tushnet & Fleming-McCormick, 1995).
General research and applications. Educational technology research has, over the years, considered a large array of variables associated (or hoped to be associated with) improvements in student learning or changes in instructional practices by teachers. Moving from micro to macro levels, these have included: (1) variables of message and information design (typographic elements; use of graphs, charts, illustrations, and animation; content organization and cues to same; screen design features in CAI and video-based materials; and various production values in video-based materials); (2) media attributes, or those variables associated with large-scale instructional design efforts in particular fields (distinctive uses of software or software types for solving particular kinds of problems, or as "cognitive tools"; the interaction between particular curriculum problems and software attributes); (3) learner-control variables such as the ability to structure a "micro-world" in a particular way, to direct the course of action, or to manipulate data and objects in a seemingly "real" micro-environment; (4) learner activity variables such as providing explicit guidance or cues for how to work in a particular technology-rich environment, how to use the tools found there, how to access and assess information, how to transfer that information to other settings and apply previously acquired problem-solving strategies, and so on; and (5) a number of situational or contextual variables that might be important, including ease of use, types of use, and the role and approach used by the instructor.
Outcomes pursued in the kinds of studies described above have ranged considerably. Most educational technology studies are still tied closely to the use of traditional test scores as the primary criterion for measuring success; recently, however, there has been some diversification, and different kinds of outcomes are now often also measured. These include such mainstays of constructivist educational approaches as "meaningful learning" and "reflective thinking" (e.g., the Jasper Woodbury series; Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1992, 1993; Kafai, 1994). These studies also increasingly are willing deal with the thorny problem of transfer from the original situation of learning to new or unanticipated settings (Choi & Hannafin, 1995).
Research and applications specific to minority communities. Process variables and interventions considered by researchers examining the use of educational technology among minority student populations include the type of use, teachers' attitudes, student involvement, and curriculum content. Only the first of these has received much direct attention in the literature; the others are relevant mostly by suggestion, or by inference from related studies.
Type of use. Becker's (1983, 1986) studies were some of the first to address the issue of quality of use by white vs. minority students. He found that students in low SES schools were more regularly assigned to do computer activities featuring rote memorization via use of simple drill-and-practice programs, whereas children in high SES schools were offered opportunities to learn programming and to work with more flexible, business-oriented software. This effect, however, diminished notably between the time of his first study and the second, perhaps suggesting that school administrators had become more aware of the need to deal more equitably with computers. Nonetheless, the tendency of school administrators and teachers to assume that computers are an important tool for remediation has led to continued differences in the experiences of minority and majority students (Strickland & Asher, 1992). The NAEP assessment (Martinez & Mead, 1988) found that 7% of students in Title I (low SES) schools had studied programming, compared with 14% in non-Title I schools.
Teachers' attitudes. While there have been no direct studies of teachers' attitudes towards the different ways in which white and minority students might interact around computers in the classroom, there are some suggestive studies bearing on other factors which might be involved. For example, Cosden (1988), working in a special education environment, found that a large majority of teachers believed that learning basic skills was one major benefit of using computers, and that these same teachers also believed that low achievers would benefit more from computer use than would middle or high achievers.
Student involvement. While the evidence is mostly anecdotal, there have been many suggestions that placing students in a computer environment leads to higher levels of motivation, greater involvement in learning, and heightened feelings of control over one's work (and perhaps by extension over other aspects of one's life as well). Levine (1994) noted the importance of identifying and using approaches that support active and engaged learning, an approach that was also found significant in work with African-American males by Carver (1994). Gale (1995) discussed the interest and involvement that resulted in her students sharing information about Native American traditions and history via the Internet.
Curriculum content. While it is possible that the content of educational computer programs itself may have a differential effect on minority as opposed to White students, that has been little investigated. For example, Oregon Trail, a widely used and highly regarded computer simulation from the mid-1980s (and still popular today), depicts White settlers attacked by American Indians. Studies with earlier technologies such as film suggest that there might be a distinctively Native American approach to such filmic features as cutting and editing (Worth & Adair, 1972).
An interesting perspective on the issue of how to improve minority students' on-campus experiences with computers in higher education is provided by Resta (1992). He recommended such practices as providing special summer programs and "camps" for such students that would focus on computer use, increasing the awareness of college counselors of the importance of having these students accumulate experience, offering special financial assistance for computer acquisition, and providing special in-service training for teachers who work with the students. Some of these approaches were tried out with promising results by Krupar (1996).
General applications. Evaluation models used in educational technology studies generally have used a mix of traditional paper-and-pencil tests and standard exam scores, and more recently have been complemented by use of such qualitative approaches as observational (participant or non-participant) data, classroom interaction analyses, audio and video records of classroom interactions, teacher journals and reflective diaries (occasionally using "stimulated retrospection"), and sets of electronic correspondence. One large-scale study that used such a variety of methods and approaches was the ACOT (Apple Classroom of Tomorrow) project, a "technology-intensive" effort to affect practice in a small number of select schools (see especially the "Methodological Appendix" in Sandholz, Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1997).
Work related to teachers' adoptions of technological innovations in the classroom has generally followed the model developed by Rogers (1995), and as elaborated on for educational contexts by others. Two particular approaches warrant special mention here: the "Concerns-Based Adoption Model" (CBAM), proposed by Hall and Hord (1987), and the "Levels of Use" approach (Hall, 1975). The CBAM method focuses on the problems, fears, and concerns that teachers must deal with as they seek to implement a new technology in the classroom, and uses these as a basis for making decisions about intervention strategies and training modules. "Levels of Use" simply looks at the extent to which a novel practice is actually being used in a classroom setting.
A somewhat different perspective on why educational technology does and does not get used in classrooms is provided by a series of studies that might be called contextual, institutional, or policy-based studies. Such work looks at the context within which technology must be used in schools, and looks not only at the particular motivations and problems surrounding teachers' use of new practices, but also at institutional norms, patterns of professional and bureaucratic expectations, and outside (community, parent) influences. Some of those who have taken this approach include: Larry Cuban (1986, 1993), who judges teachers' work to be closely hemmed in by strong institutional constraints and patterns of professional expectations that militate against experimentation with new technologies; David Cohen (1987), who argues that teachers' work is socially structured in such a way as to make instructional innovation a hugely difficult task; and Knapp and Glenn (1996), Kerr (1991), and Sheingold and Hadley (1990), all of whom focus on the situational problems of teachers' work and the pressures that inhibit rapid change. In all of these cases, the process of educational change to incorporate new technologies is seen as a much longer one (i.e., several years of slow development, experimentation, and adaptation, rather than a few afternoons of quick "in-service" workshops).
Research and applications specific to minority communities. There is little novel that has been tried in the educational technology community in the way of evaluation approaches for getting at the issues under consideration here. A few comments are warranted on general approaches in the context of cultural differences.
One seemingly promising construct that has not yet been applied to minority populations is the notion of perceived computer-self efficacy. Studies using the few available scales and inventories so far have not broken out results for minority students (e.g., Houle, 1996).
At least some researchers have raised questions about the adequacy of the research methods used to unpack these key questions. Kay (1992), for example, found that scales and construct definitions were frequently poorly handled. Ultimately, the more complex issue of innate differences in social experience and ways of perceiving and dealing with the world will be extraordinarily difficult to unknot empirically, especially given the fundamental importance of initial definitions and the shifting social and political context in which these questions are being discussed.
There may also be distinctive cultural preferences within various groups that suggest more or less appropriate ways of evaluating educational technology and its impact. A clear example is provided by the experience of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). In response to suggestions from several sources, AIHEC (1993) proposed launching a major initiative that would have allowed all 27 tribal college campuses represented by the organization to join in a satellite telecommunications network. The network was intended to allow the institutions to share in offering for-credit telecourses, with initial emphasis on "downlink" (i.e., receive-only) capabilities. But the initial enthusiasm for the project on the part of the colleges' presidents was not mirrored by all the academic deans involved when they had the chance to discuss the proposal. In fact, the deans noted a number of concerns that they indicated might compromise the value and utility of the project, and not least among these was the issue of cultural appropriateness. As one dean remarked, "We've been downlinked for 200 years" (Ambler, 1994). While the concerns of the deans and others were eventually satisfied in this case by building in places for consultations with tribal elders about the spiritual nature of the project and the values it incorporated, the case shows how critical it can be to address these sort of issues at the very beginning of the work.
General applications. There has been a significant change over the past twenty years in the kinds of models seen as being most effective for conducting outreach efforts among educators. In the past, such models typically were organized on a "top-down" principle, with central authorities or staffs of researchers and training coordinators deciding on the content of the continuing education or in-service programs to be delivered to teachers. More recently, the focus has shifted along with changes in the educational environment -- as school administration has become more decentralized, there is more emphasis on local control and decision-making on the content of programs; as concerns for standards and academic achievement for all students have grown, so have demands that in-service efforts be connected more directly with improvements in student learning; as technologies have become more complex, coordinators have realized that educators need additional time to adapt them and make them integral to their efforts.
Several recent surveys and meta-analyses (e.g., Sparks & Hirsh, 1997) have summarized the kinds of factors now seen as being essential to successful outreach efforts in education. A composite list would include the following elements:
A number of recent studies of educational technology have also stressed the need for more intensive, detailed, and long-term work with teachers to encourage widespread use of educational technology in classroom settings. For example, a large part of an OTA study (Teachers and Technology, 1995) was focused on the need for new, concentrated efforts to move teachers into being more intensive users of educational technology. That study suggested a number of essential characteristics of outreach programs for teachers:
Another report, prepared by the RAND Corporation (Glennan & Melmed, 1996), made similar recommendations. Educators, they noted, should be provided with:
A third recent report (Report to the President, 1997) pays special attention to the issue of teachers' insufficient time to learn not only how to use technology, but how to integrate it with curriculum and instruction. As an example, the authors ask what would happen if all teachers across the country were to be provided with two hours per week of release time in order to figure out how to use educational technology more effectively (as is being done in a small number of school districts nationwide). The resulting $9 billion dollar per year expenditure would be roughly three times all current outlays for educational technology programs in US schools.
Perhaps the most promising approach to thinking about the integration of technology into education generally is that provided by Larry Cuban of Stanford. In a number of works (Cuban, 1986, 1988, 1993; Tyack and Cuban, 1995), Cuban has articulated a model of how schools change and how teachers' practice evolves over time. It is a vision that tries to shift attention away from the mechanical and "managerial" image of schools as organizations comparable to, say, automobile factories, where products are produced and policies implemented in a straightforward way by compliant workers. Instead, Cuban suggests that schools are in fact organic and intensely humanistic assemblies of educators who struggle to cope with uncertain demands from the public and the school administration, unruly children beset by a myriad of social problems, changing curricula and standards, increasing burdens of paperwork and bureaucratic requirements, and an omnipresent lack of the time and resources that might allow them to make sense of it all, or (more importantly here) to shift their practice to make room for new models, new approaches, or new technologies. As Cuban notes in his 1986 Teachers and machines, the most historically successful educational technologies have been those that buttressed and solidified teachers traditional roles, rather than those that offered to radically revise those roles. Whether newer technologies will work differently in education, suggests Cuban, depends largely on whether schools can recognize and alter the patterns of "situational constraints" and strong institutional expectations that so powerfully shape teachers' patterns of activity.
Applications specific to minority communities. In thinking about outreach efforts to predominantly minority communities, the literature in educational technology offers few direct suggestions. A few studies, however, indicate that the questions may in fact be deeper; "outreach" may need to expand to include also how images of the usefulness of information generally are interwoven with one's early personal, family, and cultural experience.
Children grow up in varied environments -- some are poor not only in money, but also in information. This is true in a literal sense -- in some homes, there are likely to be few books, magazines, newspapers, or encyclopedias (to say nothing of computers, software, access to Internet providers). But it is also true in a larger and more metaphorical sense: not all cultures think about and use information in the same ways, and not all attach the same kind of importance to seeking and working with information as do others.
In a home with lots of information, children learn to value not only the information itself, but also how one finds it, works with it, turns it to one's own use and advantage. For example, a child growing up in a home where there is a regularly used encyclopedia learns by observation that one looks things up for various reasons -- sometimes because one is just interested, sometimes to settle an argument, and sometimes because there is a need at that moment to know which vegetables belong to the family of crucifers or when Edward I ruled England. Any use of information accessed via computer falls into this same class. And finding the information itself is only the first step; one then must decide what to do with it. Change one's diet? See the movie? Support the proposed law? All these are decisions that may depend not just on the information itself, but more importantly on the processes of sifting, weighing, judging that many upper-SES children see their parents and teachers make daily.
A productive initial effort toward addressing this issue of differing "information cultures" is the work of Gonzalez et al. (1995), who used home visits to survey the "funds of knowledge" available for education, broadly conceived, in the homes of working-class Latino students. While the types of resources identified were different from what one might imagine as "educational resources," they were in fact significant, and were clustered in such domains as practical information (cookbooks, repair manuals), religious information (Bibles, prayer books), and news (newspapers). Interventions with teachers were then constructed to encourage parents to use the available resources in working with their children. Studies such as this suggest that educators need to be able not only to teach students how to use computer-based sources of information, but also to help them transcend their own local "information cultures." The possibility of encouraging a radical transformation of this sort was embedded in the considerations that led RAND to suggest that all citizens should be given access to electronic mail (Anderson, Bikson, Law, & Mitchell, 1995).
Ultimately, the issue of local information context may be seen as both an additional input variable (the images and assumptions about the uses of information which one brings with one into the new context of computer-based information systems), and as a process variable (an issue to be addressed through explicit activities and coaching as a part of program implementation). It may also be a useful outcome variable to assess at the conclusion of programs, in order to see if a person's fundamental outlook has changed as a result of participation in the program.
Educational technology research offers a number of clues to the design and evaluation of outreach efforts among health professionals working in predominantly rural and minority communities. Interestingly, the factors that promote student learning from educational technology programs often run parallel to the practices that encourage teachers to make use of those programs most effectively. There is fairly clear evidence that more successful implementation of educational technology programs results when:
Ambler, M. (1994). Going the distance: Tribal College educators approach telecommunications with caution, but most like what they see. Tribal College, 5(4), 11-17.
American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). (1993). American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC) telecommunications planning project. Year one. Final report and recommendations. Lincoln, NE: Author. (Available as ERIC ED No. 360 135).
Anderson, R. H., Bikson, T. K., Law, S. A., & Mitchell, B. M. (1995). Universal access to e-mail: Feasibility and societal implications. RAND, Center for Information Revolution Analyses. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Becker, H. (1983). School uses of microcomputers: Reports from a national survey. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for the Social Organization of Schools.
Becker, H. (1986). Instructional uses of school computers. Reports from the 1985 national study. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, Center for the Social Organization of Schools.
Carver, B. A. (1994). Defining the context of early computer use for African American males in urban elementary schools. Journal of Negro Education, 63(4), 532-545.
Cheek, D. W. (1991).Broadening participation in science, technology, and medicine. University Park, PA: National Association for Science, Technology, and Society. Available as ERIC ED No. 339671.
Choi, J., & Hannafin, M. J. (1995). Situated cognition and learning environments: Roles, structures, and implications for design. Educational Technology: Research and Development, 43(2), 53-69.
Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53, 445-459.
Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology: Research and Development, 42(2), 21-29.
Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1992). The Jasper experiment: An exploration of issues in learning and instructional design. Educational Technology: Research and Development, 40(1), 65-80.
Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt. (1993). Anchored instruction and situated cognition revisited. Educational Technology, 52-70.
Cohen, D. K. (1987). Educational technology, policy, and practice. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 9(2), 153-170.
Cosden, M. A. (1988). Microcomputer instruction and perceptions of effectiveness by special and regular elementary school teachers. The Journal of Special Education, 22(2), 242-253.
Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and machines: The classroom use of technology since 1920. New York: Teachers College Press.
Cuban, L. (1988). The managerial imperative and the practice of leadership in schools. Albany: SUNY Press.
Cuban, L. (1993). Computers meet classroom: Classroom wins. Teachers College Record, 95(2), 185-210.
David, J. L. (1987). Annual report, 1986. Jackson, MS: Southern Coalition for Educational Equity. Available as ERIC ED No. 283924.
Doctor, R. D. (1992). Social equity and information technologies: Moving toward information democracy. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 27, 43-96..
Gale, V. (1995). Plains speaking: Crow students go on-line to meet the world. School Library Journal, 41(1), 28-31.
Glennan, T. K., & Melmed, A. (1996). Fostering the use of educational technology: Elements of a national strategy. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.
Grignon, J. R. (1993). Computer experience of Menominee Indian students: Gender differences in course work and use of software. Journal of American Indian Education, 32(3), 1-15.
Hall, G. E. (1975). Levels of use of the innovation: A framework for analyzing innovation adoption. Journal of Teacher Education, 26(1), 52-56.
Hall G. E., & Hord, S. M. (1987). Change in schools: Facilitating the process. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Holloway, R. E. (1996). Diffusion and adoption of educational technology: A critique of research design. In D. Jonassen (Ed.), .), Handbook of Research on Educational Technology (pp. 1107-1136). New York: Simon & Schuster/Macmillan.
Hooper, S., & Rieber, L. P. (1995). Teaching with technology. In A. Ornstein (Ed.), Theory and practice of teaching, 154-170. New York: Allyn & Bacon.
Houle, P. A. (1996). Toward understanding student differences in a computer skills course. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 14(1), 25-48.
Kafai, Y. (1994).. Minds at play. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kerr, S. T. (1990a). Alternative technologies as textbooks and the social imperatives of educational change. In D. L. Elliott & A. Woodward (Eds.), Textbooks and schooling in the United States (pp. 194-221). 89th NSSE Yearbook, Part I. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kerr, S. T. (1991). Lever and fulcrum: Educational technology in teachers' thinking. (1991). Teachers College Record, 93(1), 114-136.
Kerr, S. T. (1996). Toward a sociology of educational technology. In D. Jonassen (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Educational Technology (pp. 143-169). New York: Simon & Schuster/Macmillan.
Knapp, L., & Glenn, A. D. (1996). Restructuring schools with technology. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Kober, N. (1991). What we know about mathematics teaching and learning. Washington, DC: Council for Educational Development and Research. Available as ERIC ED No. 343793.
Kozma, Robert B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology: Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19.
Krupar, K. (1996). Classism and lost opportunity: Addressing the unintended outcomes of campus computing. Metropolitan Universities, 6(4), 35-46
Levine, D. U. (1994). Instructional approaches and interventions that can improve the academic performance of African American students. Journal of Negro Education, 63(1), 46-63
Martinez, M. E., & Mead, N. A. (1988). Computer competence: The first national assessment. Princeton, NJ: NAEP/ETS.
Madaus, G. F. (1991). A technological and historical consideration of equity issues associated with proposals to change our nation's testing policy. Paper presented at the Ford Symposium on Equity and Educational Testing and Assessment (Washington, DC, March, 1992). Available as ERIC ED No. 363618.
McInerney, C., & Park, R. (1986). Educational equity in the third wave: Technology education for women and minorities. White Bear Lake, MN: Minnesota Curriculum Services Center. Available as ERIC ED No. 339667.
Pritchard Committee for Academic Excellence. (1991). KERA Update. What for.... Lexington, KY: Author. Available as ERIC ED No. 342058.
Report to the President on the use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. (1997, March). Washington, DC: President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology, Panel on Educational Technology.
Resta, P. (1992). Organizing education for minorities: Enhancing minority access and use of the new information technologies in education. Education and Computing, 8, 119-127.
Salomon, G. (1993). On the nature of pedagogic computer tools: The case of the Writing Partner. In S. Lajoie & S. Derry (Eds.), Computers as cognitive tools. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sandholz, J. H., Ringstaff, C., & Dwyer, D. C. (1997). Teaching with technology: Creating student-centered classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press.
Schofield, J. W. (1995). Computers and classroom culture. New York: Cambridge.
Sheingold, K., & Hadley, M. (1990, September). Accomplished teachers: Integrating computers into classroom practice. New York: Bank Street College of Education, Center for Technology in Education.
Sparks, D., & Hirsh, S. (1997). A new vision for staff development. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Strickland, D. E., & Asher, C. (1992). Low income African-American children and public schooling. In P. W. Jackson (Ed.), Handbook of research on curriculum (pp. 609-625). New York: Macmillan.
Sutton, R. E. (1991). Equity and computers in the schools: A decade of research. Review of Educational Research, 61(4), 475-503.
Teachers and technology: Making the connection. (1995, April). Report No. OTA-EHR-616. Washington, DC: US Congress, Office of Technology Assessment.
Tushnet, N. C., & Fleming-McCormick, T. (1995). Equity issues in the Star Schools distance learning program. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 13(2), 173-183.
Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.
Webb, M. B. (1986). Technology in the schools: Serving all students. Albany, NY: Governor's Advisory Committee for Black Affairs. Available as ERIC ED No. 280906.
Worth, S., & Adair, J. (1972). Through Navaho eyes: An exploration in film communication and anthropology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.