Effective Technology Research

Facilitating Effective Technology Research in the Core Content Areas
by Lynn Bell, Glen Bull, Cleb Maddux, Anita McAnear, Debra Sprague, Ann Thompson, and Lynne Schrum
a SITE 2006 presentation

[I AM RECORDING THIS SESSION AND WILL SHARE AS A PODCAST LATER PENDING PERMISSION FROM PARTICIPANTS]

Overview and background / context:
– for 18 months discussions among editors and others (NTLS, SITE, AERA, NECC)
– goal to identify research agenda; further to explore tech in content areas
– requested assistance of content organizations

Why editors?
– editors read many articles
– editors get asked for information
– already established: mentoring through 3 institutions and blog for all
– Panels at SITE 05, NECC 05, AERA 05, NTLS here and AERA 06, several editories

Now involves Univ of VA, Univ of Florida, Univ of Iowa
Soon will add George Mason (Debbie)
– expand dialog to involve more
– goal is to expand this conversation

like Janet said, we shouldn’t allow others to define our agenda for us

one important aspect
– TPCK: Technology Pedagogy Content Knowledge

Leigh Shulman’s message about teacher education at another conference (?)
– point was: we need evidence of the effects of teacher education programs
– teacher education is under fire, we are seeing lots of challenges
– we tend to not do that, gather that evidence
– need compelling evidence about the effects of teacher education

How do teacher education programs affect teacher and student use of Geometer sketchpad is one example

Glenn’s metaphor about carpenters in relation to qualitative and quantitative research (paradigm debates)
– carpenters don’t come to a situation and say, “wait, I am a saw carpenter” or “I am just a hammer carpenter”

This is the opportunity for collaboration: to talk with others who have different strengths and build on them

Longitudinal studies are very important and needed, but hard / not doable in many cases for grants and those in a tenure process

Observations from Gerald Knezek

Keynote speaker for Sunday PT3 grant pointed out big problem with federal funding now is that everything is just 3 years, hard to

We have a crisis in universities now: they don’t recognize that it takes that long to do a good job
– you can be doubly punished, even if you do a good grant and get baseline, it can be 5 years until
– quantitative studies can tell us what is going on, but qualitative studies can be shown to show us WHY things are going
– policymaker mentalities (not just politicians, but also legislators)

Other observations:

IRB can be a huge barrier to get over, and can inhibit abilities of educational researchers to get connected to the schools

Drs Knezek and Christensen will be having a related followup session at 2:15 on Thursday here at SITE.

Lynn says she loves emails about article ideas, and getting feedback on whether that might be appropriate for her journal
– get your stuff out there, we all get rejected
– quick story from doctoral student days at Univ of Oregon, spent summer in Russia in 1988, sent article to Ed Leadership
– look for encouragement and other notes at the bottom of letters you receive from journal editors!

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