Teaching or Tools?
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Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 4/11/2007
Prominent educational technology groups are fighting against a recent U.S. Department of Education study that showed that reading and mathematics software products have no discernable effect on student learning.
Their concern? That the software products may not have been tested fairly.
"This study misestimates the value of information and communication technologies by focusing exclusively on older approaches that do not take advantage of current technologies and leading educational methods," said Dr. Chris Dede, Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard University. His comments appeared in a news release by the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA).
The study, titled "Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software Products," followed 132 schools over one year, testing 16 software products on 9,424 students in first, fourth, and sixth grade, and in algebra classes. The testing compared students' reading and math skills to those of students who did not use the software. The results? The study found that "…products did not increase or decrease test scores by amounts that were statistically different from zero," the report says. The findings reflected what many early childhood educators and critics have long argued: that technology alone cannot take the place of teaching.
The report noted that teachers in the test group were using the software for the first time and that observers would continue to follow their progress for a second year. "It is important to remember that educational software, like textbooks, is only one tool in the learning process," said Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN, in the release. "Neither can be a substitute for well-trained teachers, leadership, and parental involvement."
