Educational Technology Over 25 Years: Understanding the Conditions When It Works

Univ. of North Texas,  Univ. of North Texas

Univ. of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Ml

The debate continues to swirl in the popular press: what has

been the contribution of technology to teaching and

learning? The evidence from the field is in disparate

locations and reported in highly-diverse styles. It is no

wonder that there is confusion.

Towards making concrete, defensible statements about the

impact that technology has had on education, we are

reviewing the literature with a new tool that we have

developed. IJsing our "Conditions Profile" we are

analysing empirical studies to ferret out the key factors that

contributed to the impact (or no impact) of the technology

on learning. Thus, rather than focusing on what works, we

are trying to understand the conditions when the technology

works (and doesn’t’ work).

There have been meta-analyses, for example, of CA1 with

the goal of trying to deduce whether it was or was not

effective. While clearly important, those sorts of horse-race,

win/lose, analyses do not provide information with respect

to guiding new development and deployment. In contrast,

however, our Conditions Profile enables the educational

technology community to create the contextual factors that

stand a better chance of seeing positive impact.

Currently, there are approximately 65 factors in our Profile!

For example, we have categories of factors that deal with

the human element (How expert is the teacher with

technology? With classroom management? With the course

content? How diverse in expertise are the students in the

study? Who was responsible for maintaining the network in

the study? Etc. etc. etc.) And, we have categories of factors

that deal with the technology, course content, etc.

These details are key; they enable us to make inferences

about what it takes to make technology work in the

classroom. Now, no study in the hundreds that we have

reviewed, provides information on all these factors. That’s

most unfortunate: if we are truly to learn from the past -

and benefit from all the hard work that goes into running a

study - the community does need information on all 65

factors.

We will report on our progress using the Conditions Profile

to analyse the literature in K-12 in the four core academic

areas: language arts, social studies, math, and science.

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