Six Challenges for Educational Technology

Six Ch bothenges for disciplineal Technology Chris Dede George Mason University some(prenominal) a(prenominal) provoke applications of tuition engine room in informs validate that sunrise(prenominal)(a) engineering-based models of statement and learn stupefy the supply to dramatically improve raisingal outcomes. As a result, round(prenominal) people be asking how to scale-up the scattered, successful islands of mental understructure studyal engineering has empowered into universal advantages in schooling modifyd by major(ip) shifts in standard educational put ons.Undertaking general disentangle (sustained, macro-scale, simultaneous psychiatric hospital in curriculum pedagogics assessment professional development tribunal incentives and partnerships for education among schools, affaires, homes, and corporation settings) requires policies and consecrates polar than fostering pilot projects for small-scale educational improvement. Systemic reform inv olves moving from utilizing special(prenominal), external resources to reconfiguring existing budgets in lay out to free up m unitaryy for origination.Without undercutting their power, change strategies in force(p) when pi iered by backsheeshing in educational launching must(prenominal)(prenominal) be modified to be implemented by typical educators. Technology-based innovations offer special gainsays and opportunities in this scalingup process. I believe that systemic reform is non possible without utilizing the full power of spunky performance computing and communication theory to enhance the reshaping of schools. to that degree the toll of applied science, its rapid evolution, and the special knowledge and readinesss unavoidable of its habituaters pose satisfying barriers to efficacious utilization.One way to frame these veers is to pose vi questions that school boards, taxpayers, educators, business groups, politicians, and p atomic number 18nts be asking whatsoeverwhat implementing large, technology-based educational innovations. After each question, Ill answer to the issues it raises. Collectively, these answers outline a strategy for scaling-up, leveraging the power of technology magic spell minimizing its intrinsic challenges. head One How peck schools feed to purchase becoming mul quantifydia-capable, Internetconnected computers so that a classroom machine is always available for either two to three students?Giving all students continuous inlet to mul eondia-capable, Internet-connected computers is legitimately quite fashionable. For politicians, the Internet in any classroom has bring somewhat the ultra novel equivalent of the promised chicken in e truly pot. Communities urge e actually one(a) to provide put up support for NetDays that wire the schools. Information technology v reverseors argon offering special programs to encourage enormous educational purchases. States ar setting aside demonstrable am ounts of gold for structure schooling alkalis dedicated to dictational move.Yet, as an educational technologist, I am to a greater extent(prenominal) dismayed than delighted. Some of my nervousness nigh this initiative comes from the First Generation view slightly selective learning technology that underlies these visions. Multimedia-capable, Internet-connected computers atomic number 18 seen by many as magical devices, silver bullets to influence the bothers of schools. Teachers and 2 administrators who practice new media ar assumed to be mechanically more effective than those who do not.Classroom computers are conceive of as a technology analogue to fire just by sitting al well-nigh these devices, students get a benefit from them, as knowledge and skills radiate from the monitors into their minds. Yet decades of go across with technological innovations based on First Generation sentiment crap demonstrated that this viewpoint is mis channelize. Classroom co mputers that are acquired as panaceas end up as doorstops. As discussed afterwards, info technology is a costeffective investing lone(prenominal) in the context of systemic reform.Unless(prenominal) differentwise simultaneous innovations in command, curriculum, assessment, and school organization are bring togetherd to the usage of instructional technology, the time and effort expended on implementing these devices produces a couple of(prenominal) improvements in educational outcomesand reinforces many educators cynicism or so fads based on magical machines. I note spare irritation about attempts to supply every student with continuous approaching to high performance computing and communication theory because of the likely cost of this massive investment.Depending on the assumptions do about the technological capabilities involved, estimates of the financial resources posited for such an learning infrastructure vary (Coley, Cradler, & Engel, 1997). Extrapolating th e approximately detailed cost model (McKinsey & Company, 1995) to one multimedia-capable, Internet-connected computer for every two to three students yields a price offend chase of about ninety-four million dollars of initial investment and twenty-eight billion dollars per year in ongoing costs, a financial commitment that would debilitate schools of all discretionary funding for at least a decade.For just about(prenominal) reasons, this is an impractical approach for improving education. First, putting this money into computers-and-cables is too large an investment in just one part of the infrastructure improvements that many schools desperately need. Buildings are totaling apart, furnishings are dilapidated, playgrounds need repair, asbestos must be removed otherwise, the machines themselves ordain cease to function as their context deteriorates.Also, substantial funding is required for other references of innovations required to stupefy instructional computer hardware effective, such as standards-based curricular materials for the WorldWide Web and alternative kinds of pedagogy based on partnerships among teachers and tools. (The McKinsey cost estimates do include some funding for content development and staff training, save in my ideal too miniscule to modify effective technology integration and systemic reform. ) If most of the money goes into new media, little funding is available for the new messages and meanings that those devices could empower.Second, without substantial and extended professional development in the innovative models of teaching and cultivation that instructional technology makes affordable and sustainable, many educators leave behind not use these devices to their full potential. Second Generation thinking in educational technology does not see computers as magic, that does make the fault of focusing on automation as their fundamental point. Computers are envisioned as ways to empower teaching by telling and inf ormation by listening, serving as a fire hose to nebuliser information from the Internet into pupils minds.However, purge without educational technology, classrooms are already dr knowledgeing in data, and an oercrowded curriculum puts students and teachers on the brink of intellectual indigestion. Adding additional information, unconstipated when surface with multimedia bells-and-whistles, is likely to worsen rather than improve educational settings. overlord 3 development needs are more complex than change magnitude educators technical literacy (e. g. , training in how to use meshwork browsers).The issue is boding teachers knowledge and skills in alternative types of pedagogy and content, and such an increase in homosexual capabilities requires substantial funding that will be unavailable if almost all resources are put into hardware. Third, the continuing costs of maintaining and upgrading a massive infusion of schoolbased technology would be prohibitive. High performa nce computing and communications requires high tech skills to keep operational and will become obsolescent in five to seven years as information technology continues its rapid advance.Yet taxpayers now see computers as similar to blackboards buy them once, and they are inexpensively in place for the lifetime of the school. School boards rapidly become restive at sizable yearly expenditures for technology tutelage and telecommunications usageespecially if, some(prenominal) months after installation, standardized test scores urinate not yet dramatically risenand will become apoplectic if another $50B to replace obsolete equipment is required only a few years after an initial huge expenditure.For all these reasons, investing a huge sum in information infrastructures for schools is impractical and invites a later backlash against educational technology as yet another failed fad. I would go farther, however, and argue that we should not make such an investment even if the technology fairy were to draw $100B under our virtual pillows, no string section attached. Kids continuously working on machines with teachers wandering around coaching the complex is the wrong model for the classroom of the future I wince when I see those types of vendor commercialiseds.In that situationjust as in classrooms with no technologytoo more instructional military action tends to center on entry and motivation, building a foundation of ideas and skills as well as some context for why students should care. Yet this temporary interest and readiness to master curricular material rapidly fades when no time is leave for reflection and application, as teachers and students move on to the next required proposition in the overcrowded curriculum, desperately trying to meet all the standards and prepare for the test.Substantial look into documents that assisting students make sense out of something they submit assimilated, only do not yet understand is crucial for inducing learn ing that is maintained and generalized (Schank & Jona, 1991). Reflective discussion of packaged experiences from multiple perspectives is essential in disciples converting information into knowledge, as well as in students mastering the cooperative creation of meaning and purpose (Edelson, Pea, & Gomez, 1996).Some of these interpretative and expressive activities are enhance by educational devices, but many are best conducted via face-to-face interaction, without the intervening filter and mask of computer-mediated communication (Br possess & Campione, 1994). What if instead much of the presentation and motivation that is foundational for learning overhaulred foreign of classroom settings, via information technologies part of home and workplace and union contexts? Students would arrive at school already imbued with some minimise and motivation, ripe for guided inquiry, ready for interpretation and collaborative device of knowledge.People are spending lots of money on devic es purchased for entertainment and information operate televisions, videotape players, computers, Web TV, videogames. Many of these technologies are astonishingly tidy and inexpensive for example, the Nintendo 64 machine available now for a couple hundred dollars is the equivalent of a several hundred 4 grand piano dollar graphics supercomputer a decade ago. What if these devicesmany ubiquitous in rich and poor homes, urban and rural areaswere also utilized for educational purposes, even though not acquired for that reason?By off-loading from classroom settings some of the burden of presenting material and inducing motivation, learning activities that use the technology infrastructure outside of schools would reduce the amount of money needed for adequate levels of classroom-based technology. much(prenominal) a strategy also enables teachers to focus on students interpretation and expressive articulation without tinctureing obligated to use technology in every step of the proce ss. such a model of distributed learning involves orchestrating educational activities among classrooms, workplaces, homes, and society settings (Dede, 1996).This pedagogic strategy models for students that learning is integral to all aspects of lifenot just schooling and that people adept at learning are fluent in using many types of information tools scattered throughout our everyday context. Such an educational approach also buns build partnerships for learning in the midst of teachers and families this is important because parental involvement is certainly one of the most powerful levers in increasing any students educational performance.In other words, unless systemic reform in education is conducted with one boundary of the system around the school and another boundary around the society, its affordability and sustainability are doubtful. As a bridge crosswise these boundaries, new media mickle play a live role in facilitating this bi-level approach to large-scale educa tional innovation. For example, videogame players are the only interactive devices widely available in poor households and provide a innovative, but inexpensive computational platform for learningif we develop erupt content than the mindless follies of SuperMario or the bad dystopias of Doom.My search in virtual reality represents how multisensory, immersive virtual environments could leverage learning complex scientific concepts on computational platforms as universal as next decades videogames (http//www. virtual. gmu. edu). Districts squirt leverage their barely resources for innovation, as well as implement more effective educational models, by utilizing information devices outside of classrooms to create learning environments that complement computers and communications in schools.To instead saturate schools with information technology is both very expensive and less educationally effective. Question Two How can schools afford enough computers and telecommunications to sustain new models of teaching and learning? Educational improvement based on distributed learningutilizing information technologies external to school settings to enable increase interpretive and expressive activities in classroomsdoes not mean that schools wont need substantial amounts of computers and communications.To empower project-based learning through guided inquiry, students must have access to civilise information devices in schools (Linn, 1997). veritable(a) if this is effected via notebook computers and wireless networks moved from class to class as required, with pupils also spending significant amounts of time learning without the aid of technology, districts must allocate more money to purchasing, maintaining, and upgrading computers and telecommunications than has been true historicly. Where will educators find the cash in hand for equipment, software, technical staff, ongoing telecommunications services, professional developmentthe myriad of costs associated wi th a sophisticated information infrastructure? In the past, this money has come by and large from special external sources grants, community donations, bond initiatives. To be sustainable over the long run, however, resources for technology must come from reallocating existing budgets by reduce other types of expenditures.Of course, such shifts in financing are resisted by those groups whose resources are cut, and district administrators and school boards have been reluctant to take on the governmental challenges of changing how money is spent. An easy way to kill educational innovations is to retain that of course they will be implementedas long as no existing activities must be curtailed to fund new approaches. Such an approach to institutional evolution is one reason why, if Rip train Winkle awoke today, he would recognize almost nothing in modern societyexcept schools.Educational organizations are unique, however, in demanding that technology implementation accomplished via add-on funding. Every other type of societal institution (e. g. , factories, hospitals, retail outlets, banks) recognizes that the power of information devices stems in part from their ability to reconfigure employee roles and organizational functioning. These establishments use the power of technology to alter their standard practices, so that the cost of computers and communications is funded by improvements in effectiveness within the organization, by doing more with less.If educators were to select this modelreallocating existing resources to fund technology implementationwhat types of expenditures would drop so that existing funds could cover the costs of computers and communications? First, schools that have choose the inquiry-based models of pedagogy find that outlays on textbooks and other types of standardized instructional materials decrease. bit these materials are a smaller part of districts budgets than salaries or physical plants, hitherto they cost a significant a mount of money.When students collect their own data, allure down information across the Internet, and interact with a larger syndicate of experts than teachers and textbooks, fewer commercial presentational resources are requiredespecially if scholarly persons puzzle on topical data flowing through information sources outside of schools. Moreover, covering a few concepts in depth rather than appraise many ideas superficially reduces the amount of prepackaged information educators must purchase.A scrap way to reconfigure existing financial resources is to reduce the staff involved in data entry operations. Educators are inundated with large amounts of recordkeeping functions, and one of the most debilitating aspects of this work is the continuous reentry of identical information on different forms. Businesses have saved substantial amounts of money by altering tour information processes so that data is only entered once, then automatically flows across the entire organization to each place in which it is needed.Were educators to adopt these already proven models for cost-efficient information management, the amount of time and staff required for data entry functions would decrease markedly, freeing funding for instruction-related uses of technology. Third, and on a more fundamental level, teaching is more efficient and effective with new types of technology-based curriculum and pedagogy. At present, substantial re-teaching of 6 knowledge and skills is required presentational material flows into students minds, is retained just long enough to perform on a test, and then is forgotten.Class sizes are typically surrounded by twenty-five and xlsomewhat too large for effective project-based learning, yet small habituated that lectures work as well for several hundred students as for several dozen. The scheduling of class periods is too pitiable, limiting teachers and students to fragmentary presentational and practice activities. Teachers all have comparab le roles with similar pay structuresunlike other societal organizations, which have complementary staff roles with a mix of skill levels and salaries. Visions presented in the forthcoming 1998 ASCD Yearbook Dede & Palumbo, in press) depict how altered configurations of human resources, instructional modalities, and organizational structures could result in greater effectiveness for comparable costseven with the acquisition of substantial school-based technology. This case is also made at greater length in Hunter & Goldberg (1995). In the commercial sector, too often these types of institutional shifts result in layoffs. However, because of the coming motion of retirements among educators, districts have a window of opportunity to accomplish structural changes without major adverse impacts on employees.Over the next decade, large numbers of baby-boom educators will leave the profession, and a staged process of organizational restructuring could occur in parallel with those retiremen ts. Coordinating technology expenditures as an integral part of that larger exemplar for institutional evolution is racy in districts planning to afford computers and communications. Question Three How can many educators disinterested or phobic about computers and communications be induced to adopt new technology-based models of teaching and learning?Thus far, most educators who use technology to implement the alternative types of pedagogy and curriculum are pioneers people who see continuous change and maturement as an integral part of their profession and who are willing to float against the tide of stately operating proceduresoften at considerable individual(prenominal) cost. However, to achieve large-scale shifts in standard educational practices, many more teachers must alter their pedagogical approaches and schools management, institutional structure, and relationship to the community must change in fundamental ways.This requires that settlers (people who appreciate stab ility and do not expect heroic efforts to become an everyday requirement) must be persuade to make the leap to a different mode of professional activitywith the understanding that, once they have mastered these new approaches, their daily work will be sustainable without extraordinary exertion. How can a overcritical mass of educators in a district be induced at the same time to make such a shift? Studies of innovation in other types of institutions indicate that successful change is always bottom-up, middle-out, and top-down.The device driver for bottom-up innovation in a district is the children. Typically, students are joyful and committed when they are inclined the opportunity to learn by doing, to engage in collaborative construction of knowledge, and to experience mentoring relationships. That these types of instruction are accomplished via educational technology will excite some kids, while others will be abstractedbut all will appreciate the opportunity to move beyond learning by listening.Educators can draw enormous strength and purpose from watching the eager response of their students to classroom situations that use alternative forms of pedagogy. Often, teachers have shifted from pioneers to settlers 7 because they were worn down by the unceasing grind of cause students to master uninteresting, fragmented topics and administrators have undergone a similar loss of rapture by being inundated with paperwork rather than serving as instructional coordinators. The professional commitment that kids enthusiasm can re-inspire is a powerful driver of bottom-up change.The source of middle-out change is a districts pioneers. Many teachers entered the profession because they love students of a certain age and want to sustain them growor love their subject matter and want to share its beauty and richness. Often, these teachers feel alienated because the straightjacket of traditional instruction and school organization walls them away from meaningful rel ationships with their students and their subject. Similarly, many administrators want to hang as leaders and facilitators, but are forced by unoriginal managerial practices into being bureaucrats and bosses.Middle-out change is empowered when educators who have given up trust of achieving their professional dreams see pioneer colleagues using technology to succeed in those goalsand realize that, if everyone made a similar commitment, no one would have to make continuous personal sacrifices to achieve this vision. The lever for top-down innovation is the community served by the district. Educators want respectyet teaching has move from a revered professions to a much lower status.The relationship among educators and their community is seldom seen as a partnership instead, teachers and administrators often feel isolated, forced to perform a difficult task with inadequate resources. Parents, the business sector, and taxpayers bitterly debate the purpose of schools and sometimes at tempt to micro-manage their operation. In strain, when homes, classrooms, workplaces and community settings are linked via new media to achieve distributed learning, much more plus interactions emerge between schools and society.Educators can move from isolation to collaboration with the community, from a position of low esteem to an respected role in orchestrating childrens learning across a spectrum of settings. This shift in status is a powerful driver for innovation. To activate these bottom-up, middle-out, and top-down forces for improvement, educators must take the lead in developing a shared vision for systemic reform, distributed learning, and sophisticated utilization of technology. Making such a commitment to large-scale educational innovation is not only the right thing to do, but is increasingly essential to educators professional integrity.In many ways, physicians working in health maintenance organizations (HMOs) face challenges similar to teachers and administrators working in todays schools. These doctors are responsible for the well-being of their endurings, but work within administrative structures that bind their decision making capabilities, that are focused on saving money at least as much as on combating illness, and that do not provide the latest technology or much time and resources for professional development.Yet we expect those physicians to do whatever it takesfight the system for what the patient needs, spend personal time mastering the latest medical advances and technologiesto help those whom they serve. To do otherwise would be malpractice, a betrayal of trust, a break up of ethics as a professional. Given advances in information technology that are reshaping the knowledge students need and the ways educators can help them learn, we need to accept a professional obligationdespite current institutional constraintsto do whatever it takes in changing traditional instructional practices so that a generation of children is truly prepared for the 21st ascorbic acid. Question foursome How do we prove to communities that new, technology-based models of teaching and learning are smash than current instructional approaches? Few communities are willing to take educational innovations on faith. Many people are uneasy about whether conventional instruction and traditional testing are developing and assessing the types of knowledge and skills children need for their future.However, most parents and taxpayers feel that the current system worked for them and do not want to surrogate something radically different unless new methods are proven to be superior. What types of express can educators offer communities that innovative, technology-based models of teaching and learning are so much bettergiven what our society needs in the 21st centurythat the substantial cost and effort of systemic reform is more than cost the trouble?Research documents that new, technology-based pedagogical strategies result in at least four kinds of improvements in educational outcomes. Some of these gains are easy to channelize to the community others are difficultbut together they constitute a body of evidence that can convince most people. These four types of improvements are listed below, in sequence from the most readily documented to the hardest to demonstrate. Increased learner motivation.Students are very excited when exposed to learning experiences that go beyond information assimilation and teaching-by-telling. Guided inquiry, project-based collaboration, and mentoring relationships all evoke increased learner motivation, manifested via readily observable indicators such as better attendance, higher(prenominal)(prenominal) concentration, and greater time on task. All of these not only correlate with increased educational performance, but also are in stark contrast to the attitudes parents and taxpayers formed about most of their schooling.Documenting to communities that students care about what they ar e learning and are working hard to achieve complex goals is not difficult, given the ubiquity of videotape players and camcorders. Student-produced videos that show learners engaged and excited are fascinate to parents and taxpayers, who may not fully understand what is happening in the classroom, but are impressed by student behavior divergent from their own memories and likely to result in better learning outcomes.Too often, educators take little advantage of this easy way to open a dialogue about instructional improvement with the community. Advanced topics mastered. Whatever else they believe about the purposes of schooling, parents want their children to have a prosperous lifestyle and know that this necessitates mastering advance(a) concepts. In the 21st century, being a successful worker and an cognizant citizen will require the sophisticated knowledge delineated in the topic curriculum standards, especially in the sciences and mathematics.Information technology can help students not only to learn these difficult concepts, but also to master the learning-how-to-learn skills needed to keep their capabilities current in a rapidly evolving economy. When shown that technologybased instructional strategies enable teaching sophisticated ideas not now part of the conventional curriculum, more complex than the items on current standardized tests, and harder than what they learned in school, taxpayers are impressed. 9 Students acting as experts do.Developing in learners the ability to use problem solving processes similar to those of experts is challenging, but provides powerful evidence that students are gaining the skills they will need to succeed in the 21st century. One of the most contact features of a classroom based on new instructional models is that learners are behaving as do teams of scientists, mathematicians, designers, or other kinds of expert problem solvers. Pupils activities in these learning environments mirror the analytic, interpretive, creative, and expressive uses of information tools increasingly characteristic of sophisticated workplace settings.When parents and taxpayers see students perform complex tasks and create intricate products, they are impressed by the similarity between the recent evolution of their own workplaces and the skills children are developing. Better outcomes on standardized tests. The most difficult type of evidence to provide for the superiority of new, technology-based instructional models is what communities first demand higher scores on conventional measures of achievement.Standardized tests are intentional to assess only a narrow range of knowledge, and the other three types of improvements just discussed fall mostly outside the scope of what they measure. A major challenge for educational assessment is to develop methods that measure a wider range of skills than paper-and-pencil, multiple pick tests, without bogging educators down in complex, time-consuming, and potentially unreli able performance evaluations.Research shows that students outcomes on conventional achievement tests rise when technology-based educational innovations are implemented, but this does not occur now, as teachers and learners must first master these new models of pedagogy. To succeed in systemic reform, educators must prepare communities for the fact that test scores will not instantly rise and that other, complementary types of improvements less easy to composition quantitatively are better swindle-range measures of improvement.Overall, the single most effective means of convincing parents, the business community, and taxpayers that technology-based models of teaching are superior to conventional instructional approaches is to involve them in students education. Through distributed learning approaches that build partnerships between schools and society, communities have ample opportunities to observe the types of evidence discussed above, as well as to further enhance students educa tional outcomes. Question Five How can educational technology increase equity rather than strain current gaps between haves and have-nots? Implemented within a larger context of systemic reform, emerging information technologies can produce dramatic improvements in learning outcomes. but wont such educational usage of computers and communications widen inequities in our society? However ample the access to technology students have in schools, learners differ greatly in the amount and sophistication of information devices in their homes and communities. Isnt all this effort simply making education better for the haves, potentially worsening our societys pathological gaps in income and power?Certainly, new media such as Web TV are dropping in price, and almost all homes have videogames, television, and videotape playersbut wont the rich always have more information devices of greater power than the poor, skewing the advantages of distributed learning and increasing inequality? 10 F rom an historical perspective, innovative information technologies at first widen inequities within civilization, because initial access to the differential advantage they bring is restricted to the few who can afford the substantial expense of this increased power.As emerging media mature, drop in price, and are widely adopted, however, the ultimate impact of information technology is to make society more egalitarian. For example, the world of universal telephone service is a more equitable environment than was the world of messenger boys and telegraph offices. The challenge for current educational policy is to minimize the period during which the gap between haves and have-nots widens, rapidly moving to a maturity of usage and an universality of access that promotes increased equity.At present, most of societys attempts to decrease the widened inequalities that new educational technologies could create are centered on access and literacy. In schools that serve disadvantaged and at -risk populations, extra efforts are made to increase the amount of computers and communications available. Similarly, educators and learners in have-not situations are given special training to secure that they are literate in information tools, such as web browsers.To compensate for more home-based technology in affluent areas, many feel that our best strategy is providing teachers and students in low socioeconomic status areas with additional technology to level the playing field (Coley, Cradler, & Engel, 1997). While a great place to begin, this approach to educational equity is inadequate unless taken beyond access and literacy to also address issues of content and services. The on-line materials and types of assistance that learners and teachers can access must reflect the needs and interests of diverse and at-risk students.For example, I can take homeless people to the public library and show them how to use a web browser to download images of impressionist paintings at the Louvre, but this is not likely to motivate or impress them, since such a learning experience does not speak to their primary needs. Similarly, emerging in writing(p) interfaces such as Microsoft Windows enhance many users capabilities, but adversely allude learners with reduced eyesight who cannot effectively manipulate the visual features of these interfaces.The real issue in equity is empowermenttailoring information technology to give dispossessed groups what they want. For example, I worked with a local team of politicians to explore the implications of information technology for improving public services. They were excited about using community-based information terminals to offer improved access to health care, welfare, education, and other social services for the immigrant and minority populations they served. However, when I began to describe how on-line communication tools could help these groups to increase their participation n voting and to form coalitions for politic al action, the elected representatives immediately lost interest. To truly achieve educational equity, working collaboratively with have-not populations is vital in developing content and services tailored to their needs and designed to build on their strengths and agendas. Otherwise, improving access and literacy will fall short of the success for all students essential to Americas prosperity in the 21st century. Question Six If we use technology well, what should we expect as typical student performance? 1 If we were to implement systemic reform based on new strategies for learning through sophisticated technology, research suggests that typical students might do as well as emblematic learners do now. Our expectations for what pupils can accomplish are far too low, largely because standard educational processes are obsolete given the progression of information technology, insights into the nature of learning, and shifts in the educational outcomes society needs.In many ways, we li ve in the Dark Ages of schoolingrestrained from making rapid advances toward increased instructional effectiveness by outmoded ideas, ritual, and tradition. Setting our sights higher and using better metrics to measure progress are vital to successful innovation. For example, many people are intrigued by results from the Third International Mathematics and acquirement Study (TIMSS), which show the United States well behind nations such as capital of Singapore and Japan on math and science outcomes from a globally developed achievement test. Crusaders are implementing reforms to ensure that our students do much better on this test.However, our goal should not be to exceed the level of Singapore on an assessment instrument that, as described earlier, measures only a fraction of what students need to know for their future prosperityand moreover incorporates a diluted definition of educational quality negotiated across many countries with very different populations and national goals. Others advocate using a standards-based curriculum as the touchstone for educational effectiveness, and reformers are centering state and national judgments of educational worth on this measure.Certainly, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards are a major improvement over the hodgepodge math curriculum before their inception, as are the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) standards and similar efforts in other fields. But our metric for whether students succeed should not simply be whether they learn the math mathematicians think is important, the science scientists feel is vital, and so on. beingness a productive worker and citizen involves much more than having an adequate background in each field of knowledge.Integrating these concepts and skills and being a lifelong learner with the self-worth, discipline, and motivation to apply this knowledge is of paramount importanceyet not captured by discipline-based standards alone. New fo rms of pedagogy are also no philosophers stone that can make golden each educational experience for every learner. Some argue that, if only all classrooms were based on constructivist learning or situated cognition or individualized tutoring or multimedia presentations or integrated learning systems or whatever pedagogical panacea, every student would succeed.However, learning is a very complex and idiosyncratic process that requires, for each pupil, a repertoire of many different types of instruction orchestrated together. In other words, no test, no curriculum, and no instructional strategy in itself can guarantee educational qualityeven though our current approach to determining schools worth is based on these inadequate measures. Instead, we need new standards for a knowledge-based society that combine all these metrics for success and that are based on much higher levels of typical student outcomes.Successful technology-based innovations have the common characteristic that lear ners exceed everyones expectations for what is possible. Second graders do fifth grade work nine graders beat twelfth grade students. What would those ninth graders be accomplishing if, 12 from kindergarten on, they had continuous access to our best tools, curriculum, and pedagogy? Would they be the equivalent of college sophomores? We are selling short a generation by expecting less and by orienting our curriculum, instruction, and tests accordingly.Conclusion My responses to the six questions above sketch a conceptual framework for thinking about the process of scaling-up from islands of innovation to widespread shifts in standard educational practices. These answers illustrate that technology-based systemic reform is hard in part because our ways of thinking about implementation are often flawed. Large-scale educational innovation will never be easy, but can be less difficult if we go beyond our implicit assumptions about learning, technology, equity, schooling, and society.Unde rstanding the scaling-up process is vital for making strategies for change affordable, generalizable, and sustainable. References Brown, A. L. , & Campione, J. C. (1994). Guided discovery in a community of learners. In K. McGilly (Ed. ), Classroom lessons Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice (pp. 229-270). Cambridge, MA MIT Press. Coley, R. J. , Cradler, J. , & Engel, P. K. (1997). Computers and classrooms The status of technology in U. S. schools. Princeton, NJ Educational interrogatory Service. Dede, C. , & Palumbo, D. (Eds). (in press). encyclopedism with technology (the 1998 ASCD Yearbook).Alexandria, VA ASCD. Dede, C. (1996). 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