S I T E 99 Report

Bernard R. Robin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education, University of Houston

SITE 99, the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education’s 10th International Conference was held in San Antonio, Texas, February 28 to March 4, 1999. SITE is an international association of individual teacher educators and affiliated organizations of educators representing all disciplines, who are interested in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education. The conference was jointly hosted by the University of Texas, San Antonio and the University of Houston.

More than 800 educators from 27 countries attended including Australia, Brazil, China, Ghana, Ireland, Latvia, Malta, Romania, South Korea, Turkey, and the United States. This year’s conference included a rich assortment of activities including pre-conference workshops and tutorials, keynote addresses, presentations of papers and posters, as well as panel discussions and Special Interest Group sessions.

Conference Presentations

A series of invited presentations, panel discussions, and general presentations were given at SITE 99. General presentations were made in 24 different topic areas, including Distance Education, Faculty Development, Telecommunications, Technology Diffusion, Educational Leadership, Theory, and Preservice Teacher Education.

Keynote and Invited Presentations

Several notable keynote presentations were given at this year’s conference as a variety of speakers discussed critical issues in the field of technology and teacher education. Eliott Soloway, a Professor in the College of Engineering, the School of Education, and the School of Information, at the University of Michigan, along with Cathie Norris, from the University of North Texas, presented "From NetDay to NextDay: Are We Up to That Challenge?" In their keynote address that kicked off the conference, the presenters noted that 84% of teachers surveyed feel that they need more training in the field of technology. They maintained that in order for teachers to become more comfortable with technology, home use is critical and that this use should include greater access to the Internet, more access to computers, more time to change the curriculum, and more training on the integration of technology into the curriculum. The important research question to examine, according to Soloway, is under what conditions is technology use in the classroom successful. To examine the topic that Soloway and Norris discussed, "Convergent Analysis: Profiles of Research Studies on Technology in Education" is available online at: http://hice.eecs.umich.edu/convergentanalysis/

Links to other articles by Dr. Soloway may be found at: http://hi-ce.eecs.umich.edu/papers/index.html

A panel discussion by a group of deans, who have successfully led technology diffusion, was held on the second day of the conference. In their presentation, "Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way: Building Information Technology in Teacher Education in Colleges of Education," Tom Switzer (University of Northern Iowa), Pat Wasley (Bank Street College), James Cooper (University of Virginia), and Allen Glenn (University of Washington), asserted that technology should provide a framework for thinking holistically about the educational process and that effective technology use should be based on the best principles of learning.

Henry Jay Becker, a Professor in the Department of Education at the University of California, Irvine, presented the keynote address on day three of SITE 99. Becker is a recognized authority in the relationship between computer technologies and instructional reform and has conducted four national surveys of school computer use practices. In his keynote presentation, entitled "Educating Practicing Teachers into Constructivist Pedagogy: A First Look at National Data," Becker examined:

• how teachers come to practice in a constructivist-compatible manner;
• what kinds of backgrounds produce teachers who focus their practice on making learning meaningful rather than on curriculum coverage;
• teachers who attend to critical thinking more than basic skills;
• teachers who recognize that understanding comes through discourse with people and ideas;
• what role does a teacher's experience with computer technologies play in developing a constructivist pedagogy;
• how influential is formal staff development compared to informal teacher culture; and
• what do teachers themselves see as the biggest influences on recent changes they have made in their teaching?

This presentation addressed these questions by examining data from Teaching, Learning, and Computing-1998, a recent national survey of teachers and their use of computer technologies. Data from over 4,000 teachers from grades 4-12 were examined to reveal patterns among their own education, their experiences in using computers, their teaching assignments, the staff development practices and professional climate prevailing at their school, and their current pedagogical beliefs and practices.

Dr. Becker’s web page includes a description of his research and scholarly activities. It is available at: http://www.gse.uci.edu/VKiosk/Faculty/hank/

The national survey, Teaching, Learning, and Computing--1998, a study of teachers' use of computer technology, their pedagogies, and their school context is also available online at: http://www.crito.uci.edu/TLC/

Avril Loveless, a lecturer in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Education at the University of Brighton, presented the keynote address on the fourth day of the conference. In "Changing the Subject: Creativity and Collaboration in Teaching with ICT," Loveless examined the potential of ICT to support learning and teaching in schools and explored the challenges to pedagogy that might arise. The context of teachers' experience of these policies and the role of higher education in teacher development was also discussed. For more information on this topic, "ICT in Education in the UK: Policy, Perceptions, Potential and Pedagogy" is available on the web, at: http://www.vslib.cz/tul/confer/rufis98/papers/loveless.html

More information about Avril Loveless is also available online, at: http://www.bton.ac.uk/education/LovelessA.html

Other invited presentations, included: "Towards a Model of Exemplary Technology Integration in Teacher Education Programs", by Neal Strudler and Keith Wetzel; "Writing for the Journals in Information Technology and Teacher Education" with panelists Jerry Willis, DeeAnna Willis, Ann Thompson, Niki Davis, and Cleb Maddox; "A Technical Report: Professional Development: The need for standards for inservice teacher training in new technologies", by Joyce Pittman, Ann Thompson, and John Cradler; "The Relationship of Teachers and Technology: Survey Findings and Reflections", discussed by Cathie Norris, Elliot Soloway, Henry Becker, Margaret Riel, and Barbara Means; and "Diffusion of Educational Technology: Student Perspectives on Collaborative Education", With panelists Laura Blasi, Lori Howard, Muktha Jost, William Sadera, Rhea R Walker, and Lisa Washington.

The Adobe-SITE Educational Partnership

At last year’s SITE conference, the SITE/Adobe Educational Partnership was created. The purpose of this pilot project was to facilitate the integration of educational technologies into the teacher education curriculum and explore ways in which software programs from Adobe Systems could be used to support this integration. The Adobe partnership with SITE enabled a pilot group of ten teacher education programs to acquire Adobe software at revenue-neutral prices, where Adobe did not generate a profit. The pilot schools selected were able to purchase site licenses for any Adobe product and agreed to develop curricular projects using the Adobe tools. At this year’s conference,

A workshop was held for participants from the ten schools that made up the partnership. Nine of the ten schools that received awards from Adobe Systems, attended and presented the curriculum projects they developed using Adobe software. In addition, Bernard Robin and Sara McNeil demonstrated creating educational animated GIFs with Adobe ImageReady, and Katie Bussen, from Adobe Systems, showed how Adobe ImageStyler can be used to customize web sites. All of the participants felt that the workshop was a tremendous success and enjoyed sharing ideas and the many different applications of Adobe software in their teacher education programs. The catered lunch that Adobe provided contributed to the success of the workshop and discussions are underway with Adobe representatives to determine if the partnership will continue next year. In addition, a web site that will showcase the work of the ten partnership schools is being developed and an article that describes this work is being written. Both the article and the partnership web site will be available to SITE members when completed. More information about the Adobe/SITE Educational Partnership may be found at: http://www.aace.org/site/adobe.htm

M/SET – The International Conference on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology

M/SET 99 – The International Conference on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology was held concurrently with SITE 99. This year’s conference in San Antonio served as a forum to discuss and exchange information on the current research, theory, issues, classroom applications, developments, and trends related to using information technology in mathematics, science, and computer science education. Conference participants at M/SET 99 explored how information technology can best be used in mathematics, science, and computer science learning and teaching across all educational levels and settings, including elementary, secondary, college, and teacher education.

Nora Sabelli, of the National Science Foundation, presented a Keynote presentation, "Education Research on Cognition, Content, Practice, Systemic Change: What Constitutes an Appropriate Research Balance?" A PowerPoint slide show of this presentation is available online at: http://www.aace.org/conf/mset/sabelli/index.htm

Conference Proceedings

As in previous years, the conference proceedings were distributed to attendees at the conference. A printed version and a CD-ROM version of the conference proceedings were available to attendees in San Antonio. In addition, an HTML version of the conference proceedings for both SITE and M/SET is now online, at: http://discovery.coe.uh.edu/downloads/aace/

SITE 2000 and M/SET 2000

Next year, SITE 2000 will be held February 8 – 12 in San Diego, California. More information about next year’s SITE conference may be found at: http://www.aace.org/conf/site/site2000call.htm

Also, next year’s M/SET 2000 - International Conference on Mathematics/Science Education and Technology will be held immediately prior to SITE 2000.