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Journal of Technology and Teacher Education

Volume 5, Number 4 1997

Articles

Making Technology an Integral Part of Teaching: The Development of a Constructionist Multimedia Course for Teacher Education
Michael Carbonaro

Educator’s Electronic Toolbox: Journey to a New Level of Literacy
Eunice M. Merideth and Hilda L. Williams

Lessons Learned From a Technology-Integrated Curriculum for Multicultural Classrooms
Inés Márquez Chisholm and Keith Wetzel

Teacher Talk: Capturing Innovative Teacher Voices on the World Wide Web
Kris Bosworth, Paul Haakenson, and Kevin McCracken

The Teacher Effectiveness Scales: Assessing Teachers’ Perceptions of Computer Competency and Classroom Management Skills
Erica A. Stetson, Eleanor R. Hoffman, and Kathy E. Green

Abstracts

Making Technology an Integral Part of Teaching: The Development of a Constructionist Multimedia Course for Teacher Education

MICHAEL CARBONARO
Department of Educational Psychology
University of Alberta, 6-102 Education North
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6G 2G5
Mike.Carbonaro@UAlberta.ca

There is a growing awareness of the need to prepare both pre-service teachers and current classroom teachers so they can use technology as an integral part of teaching. The University of Alberta has begun a restructuring process to address these issues. This paper outlines the theoretical underpinnings of this restructuring process and describes a pilot course that was designed, developed, and implemented with a small class of education students. From a general theoretical perspective computing is viewed as another language that we should start teaching at the beginning of a child’s educational career and the constructionist learning approach is suggested as the best strategy to do so. The pilot course focused on the use of multimedia and hypermedia for both the presentation of ideas and for problem-solving/knowledge-representation use in the K-12 environment. The Teacher Effectiveness Scales: Assessing Teachers’ Perceptions of Computer Competency and Classroom Management Skills

Educator’s Electronic Toolbox: Journey to a New Level of Literacy

EUNICE M. MERIDETH and HILDA L. WILLIAMS
Department of Teaching and Learning
School of Education, Drake University
Des Moines, IA 50311, USA
eunice.merideth@drake.edu

In today’s “information age,” literacy has once again been redefined through technology that supplements text with images, sound, and movement and literally makes the world available with a few electronic key strokes. This paper describes an effort to address teachers’ needs through the Electronic Toolbox—a course especially designed for teaching professionals to explore different levels of communication and learning with technology. Within the course, students develop a multimedia unit of instruction specific to their own discipline or interest, integrate resources available on the World Wide Web with other multimedia resources, acquire computer graphic, digitizing, and editing skills, and learn to use electronic presentation software. Before and after the course, students were asked to rate their comfort level or expertise with the use of 17 electronic tools. Mean comfort ratings increased on all 17 tools. Novice on-line communication followed previously reported patterns. After the course, students were asked to rate the importance of each of 16 course components to their overall learning. Mean ratings on a 5-point scale were 3.5 or higher on 14 items and below 3 on only 1 item.

Lessons Learned From a Technology-Integrated Curriculum for Multicultural Classrooms

INÉS MÁRQUEZ CHISHOLM and KEITH WETZEL
College of Education
Arizona State University West
Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100, USA
ines.chisholm@asu.edu

This paper proposes multicultural criteria and applies it to the evaluation of 32 technology-based instructional units created over a two-year period by teachers at two elementary schools. The curricular units demonstrated successful integration of academic and instructional goals, a focus on higher level thinking skills, and the use of technological tools to support student work. Also the units lacked adaptions for languages other than English and for second language acquisition. Further, the units generally omitted parental involvement and collaborative work at the computer. The authors offer their conclusions and recommendations for further research.

Teacher Talk: Capturing Innovative Teacher Voices on the World Wide Web

KRIS BOSWORTH, PAUL HAAKENSON, and KEVIN McCRACKEN
School of Education
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405-1006, USA
kboswort@indiana.edu

Integrating practical wisdom from teachers in the field with teacher preparation provides several challenges that technology can overcome. This paper reports on an innovative use of the World Wide Web that allows practicing teachers to share their experiences with preservice teachers. Teacher Talk focuses on issues relevant to teachers and uses the Internet to reach its audience and multimedia to engage teachers. In an evaluation of one issue of Teacher Talk on sexuality issues, those students who had access increased their knowledge and their comfort level in dealing with sexuality issues in the classroom.

The Teacher Effectiveness Scales: Assessing Teachers’ Perceptions of Computer Competency and Classroom Management Skills

ERICA A. STETSON, ELEANOR R. HOFFMAN, and KATHY E. GREEN
College of Education
University of Denver
Denver, Colorado 80208, USA
estetson@du.edu

Effective evaluation of teaching is important for establishing and maintaining high quality instruction. The reliability and factorial validity of the Teacher Effectiveness Scales (TES) were investigated in this study. The scales were written to assess general aspects of teaching skill focusing on classroom management and computer competency, and these two factors were found in a principal components analysis. Pretest and posttest scores were collected from 265 in-service teachers participating in a training program on the use of computers in the classroom. Scale reliability was high for both factors. Computer competency scale validity was supported by moderate correlations with a computer scale. These scales appear to be reliable new measures of teachers’ own perceptions of their effectiveness.