I agree with Alice above, that it’s important that we distinguish between “drill and practice” or courseware, and web 2.0 types of tools or productivity tools–which seem like an entirely different area. I just worry that these kind of studies get generalized to a point that the finer distinctions are completely lost.

Like with this new study simply telling me a law of computers I learned in the 6trh grade “Garbage in Garbage Out”

For more information on the results of the studies conducted, please contact me. Some of these results are also published on our website (www.khanya.co.za).

I’d also like to add that good software design is also key as Will mentioned. To reinforce this point, it may be helpful to check out David Williamson Schafer’s work at the Epistemic Games Blog - http://epistemicgames.org/eg/?cat=63
Schafer is showing every day that games do help students learn in deep ways, but only if the software is designed correctly.

Beyond that, I think we as teachers and school adminstrators need to take a hard look at our evaluation procedures for new software. Most of the software out there is, as noted above, of the “drill and kill” variety. We have to ask a series of hard questions about any software that we are considering purchasing before we purchase it - first and foremost - what goal is the software going to help us acheive and how is it going to do this? Even a cursory use of most of these pieces of software will give you a pretty good idea of the answer to this question, but I’d say that most who are purchasing don’t actually use the software themselves first. Taking the salesperson’s demo at face value is a BIG mistake.

“…focused on doing things “right” but were dedicated to doing the right things….They didn’t necessarily reject commercial instructional packages or the directions that invariably accompany them, but they were rarely observed actually following such advice with any fidelity. Instead, they took their cues from the children they were teaching.”

Even though this is about scripted reading programs, I think it hold true for computer instruction. We are the ones who can give these tools meaning.

In my years in the classroom and as an administrator the most effective use of technologies that I have seen and/or experienced relies on the following questions asked:

1) How realistic is the experience that students are placed in?
2) How many individuals are involved in the activity?
3) How much is the student responsible for their own learning?
4) Who will be the audience that students will be sharing their learning with?
5) The skill of the teacher as a resource provider, facilitator, moderator, networking manager, assessor of progress, etc.

Good learning opportunities with or without technology is still dependent on skilled teachers that have honed their craft and are reflective, flexible, and tuned in to the individual needs of students as learners. Good teaching makes authentic connections, involves many people with diverse backgrounds and skill sets in thought provoking – brain stretching activities in which group and personal responsibility is assumed for learning in order to make decisions and/or create plans of action. These are the two essential adult skills that we all need to do exceptionally well in the context of any set of information we are dealing with at the moment. If student learning translates into it being shared with a large diverse audience world wide and has the potential to contribute to bodies of knowledge and information for global consumption … all the better.

The beauty of today’s Web 2.0 tools is that it can leverage the learning experience for students in very dramatic ways locally and globally. In the pre-digital age effective teaching and application of pedagogy would impact a very limited number of students ( a class at a time) during a very restricted period of time (a class period). Today the learning experiences can occur 24/7 and has the potential to involve anyone in the world of like mind and/or purpose. This educational flattening environment optimizes opportunities for authentic connections, involving many people with diverse backgrounds and skill sets in thought provoking – brain stretching activities that can contribute to the body of public information and could be transformed into a body of knowledge resulting a positive impact on others.

Students respond to this kind of learning … and teachers thrive when afforded the time and resources for this type of teaching.