1. Inventing the Future of ICT in Education
Dave Moursund
University of Oregon
This is the start of “my” section of the workshop. The idea of inventing the future comes from a quote from Alan Kay:
Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. … The best way to predict the future is to invent it. (Alan Kay)
NECC SIGTE Workshop 6/26/05

2. My Career Path as a Futurist: (With tongue in cheek.)
Them that can, do.
Then that can’t, teach.
Them that can’t teach, teach teachers.
Them that can’t teach teachers, become futurists.
Them that can’t be good futurists, write books about futures.
This always seems to bring a few chuckles to a group. I have dabbled in being a futurist for most of my professional career, but have never had any formal coursework in the area. I have written quite a bit, in books and articles, about what I think the future of ICT in education will bring us.
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3. Alan Kay
Don't worry about what anybody else is going to do. … The best way to predict the future is to invent it. (Alan Kay)
Moursund, D.G. (2005). Planning, Forecasting, and Inventing Your Computers-in-Education Future. Free book available on Moursund’s Website.
I have written a long book and a short book on futures of comptues in educatoin. The short book was written in 2004 and revised in I have used this material a number of times in courses and workshops. See:
for a complete copy of the short book. The book is written for preservice and inservice teachers, and the emphasis is on them learning to take responsibility for inventing their own futures. This fits in well with the broader idea of each student learning to take responsibility for their own education and their own future, one of the major paradigm shifts emphasized in my parts of the workshop.
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4. Moursund’s 1981 Forecast
By the year 2000, our schools may well have one microcomputer for every two students. A typical student may use computer assisted instruction materials for an hour or two per day. The computer, rather than textbooks and other print materials, may be the dominant mode of instruction. The potential impact upon teachers is not clear.
In 1981 I wrote a short booklet on computer literacy. The following version is available free on the Web:
Moursund, D.G. (1983). Precollege Computer Literacy: A Personal Computing Approach. Access at quote given on the slide shows one of my efforts at being a hardware and software futurist approximately five years after microcomputers came on the scene.
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5. What Future to Invent? My Current Opinion
Current teaching and teacher-centered system driven from “above.”
versus
Learning and learner-centered system designed to empower students and those who directly facilitate students learning.
We need a major paradigm shift!!!
Seymour Sarason has written a number of books about education and ways to improve education. His books do not emphasize ICT, but they do reflect a great deal of knowledge, wisdom, and experience. One of the books that really resonated with me emphasized the need to empower teachers and students. This is in contrast with the top down approach that we currently have in place, where students and teachers have relatively little power. No Child Left Behind is, in essence, an educational approach in which each teacher and each student is told what to do, with a system of punishments used to back up this “telling.”
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6. Educational Change
Fighting alligators. (There are many good & not so good models of change.)
a. “When you are up to your neck in alligators—that is not the time to start thinking about draining the swamp.”
b. “When you are up to your neck in alligators—that is the time to start thinking about draining the swamp.”
c. The swamp is a protected wetland, and alligators are a protected species. Rethink the problem; select a different metaphor.
The “Fighting Alligators” slide was another attempt to introduce some humor into the discussion. It is somewhat akin to the squeaky wheel approach to problem solving.
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7. Educational Improvement: Continual Improvement
The Upper Limit Theory slide and the paradigm shifts on the next two slides were used in a weeklong workshop that I helped present to 30 University of Oregon faculty members that began on 13 June, I have written a relatively detailed document on my component of this workshop, and it can be accessed at:
Prior to that time, I tried out these ideas in a course I was teaching in spring 2005.
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8. Educational Improvement: Paradigm Shift
This diagram shows the situation in which a paradigm shift first results in a decrease in performance, but that creates a situation in which a substantial increase in performance I s possible. I suppose a better version of the diagram would use a different size of potential vertical improvement for each of the two time periods shown. For example, perhaps a new paradigm might allow of just 1/4 as much new gain as the gain that had occurred in the past. Of, it might allow for twice the gain as had occurred in the past.
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9. Learning and Learner-Centered
Learn to learn and to self assessment.
Learn to take responsibility for one’s past, current and future livelong learning.
Develop needed levels of expertise in the basics—read, write, speak, listen, math, ICT, being a responsible person, etc.
Develop self-satisfying and society-satisfying levels of expertise in intrinsically and extrinsically motivating areas of one’s choice.
The paradigm shift that I am pushing on is broader than ICT, but heavily dependent on ICT. Notice how I have included ICT as part of the basics of a modern education.
Many authors write about expertise, and there is a goodly amount of useful research in this area. As a very rough model, I would divide K-12 education into approximately equal components. One component would be the basics, and it would receive more emphasis during the first 6-8 years than the second component. The second component would be areas that a student selects. There would be strong emphasis on intrinsic motivation, inventing one’s future, being responsible for ones self, and so on.
Our current educational system has its roots in a factory model, and it attempts to give all students approximately the same education. I support moving somewhat away from this, empowering students to make more decisions for themselves. In my system, students would learn a lot about themselves as learners and as human beings. They would learn about learning processes and about the time and effort needed to gain a reasonable level of expertise within a particular area.
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10. Expertise NECC SIGTE Workshop 6/26/05
I have used this diagram in many different teaching, workshop, and other settings. I suppose I should add a label for the middle level of the scale. Perhaps it is “average, according to contemporary standards.”
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11. Problem Solving as a Component of Expertise
This includes activities such as:
Recognizing, posing, clarifying, and answering questions.
Recognizing, posing, clarifying, and solving problems.
Recognizing, posing, clarifying, and accomplishing tasks.
Recognizing, posing, clarifying, and making decisions.
Using higher-order, critical, creative, and wise thinking to do all of the above.
As noted earlier, I think of problem solving, and developing an increasing level of expertise in problem solving, as an underlying and unifying theme in the field of ICT in education. I attempt to define the terms problem and problem solving so that all possible areas of increasing expertise (all possible disciplines and sub disciplines; all possible areas of cognitive achievement) are included. Sometimes an individual in my audience will quibble about details and vocabulary.
A somewhat different approach is to consider any area in which through study, proactive, learning, increased maturity, etc., one can gain in expertise. Each discipline or area has its own vocabulary to describe a high level of expertise—what a person does to demonstrate this high level I am using the term problem solving to stand for what the person does.
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12. Lower-order & Higher-order Components of Expertise
Increasing expertise, or increasing ability to problem solve, is built on increasing understanding. The “scale” in the diagram is often used in the field of computer and information science. In the early days of computers, people studied roles of computers in data processing. Eventually this gave way to studying the discipline of Computer and Information Science. Now, the study of roles of computers in gaining, storing, retrieving, and using knowledge are key parts of the discipline. See ACM’s SIG on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining:
Robert Sternberg’s ideas about teaching wisdom at the elementary school level are also relevant. As an example, consider the global problem of overload on our environment. It is a type of wisdom to think about this overload as one makes decisions about buying, recycling, political decisions, and so on. This type of thinking can be taught to elementary school students. Or, it can be integrated throughout our precollege educational curriculum.
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13. Lower-order & Higher-order Components of Expertise
To a very large extent, our K-12 education system is driven by the idea of acquisition and retention. In some sense, people assume that if a student can do well in the memorize and regurgitate aspects of education, the student has an adequate education. Benjamin Bloom attacked this issue 50 years ago, in what is now known as Bloom’s Taxonomy.
In my opinion, it is very helpful to have a large and broad repertoire of memorized data and information. But, this is mainly useful in the context of understanding what one has memorized and knowing how to make effective use of it in solving problems, accomplishing tasks, and so on.
Another way to examine this topic is to think about the idea that computers are fantastically good at memorization and regurgitation—they are far better than people at this. However, computers are not very good at the understanding level, or at the still higher levels on the scale. Thus, our educational system should place much more emphasis on having students gain understanding, knowledge, and wisdom. Memorization should focus on things that are frequently used and where quick recall is useful in doing higher-order tasks.
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14. An IEP for Every Student?
The paradigm shift brought about by PL and related included IEPs for perhaps 10% of students.
Would education be changed if every student had an IEP, and how would that fit in with the paradigm shift I am proposing?
Roles of ICT in all of this.
A factory model of education tends to assume that all students are very much the same, and that schooling can process these students into appropriately educated young adults.
An IEP model of education assumes that each student is unique and can benefit from an individual education plan.
PL and various interpretations of this law identify a certain group of students and facilitates each student in the group to have an IEP. I think that about 10% of the students in the US have an IEP. That seems like a large number (percentage). However, I believe that about 10% of students in the US are identified as Talented and Gifted. (Also noteworthy is the fact that some students have dual exceptionalities that allow them to be classified both as special ed and TAG.)
The mechanics of developing and administering an education system in which every child has an IEP are daunting. A partial alternative is provided by the secondary school curriculum that offers a broad range of courses students can select from. This could be made broader still by providing high quality distance learning (for example, Highly Interactive Intelligent Computer-Assisted Learning) courses that cover the curriculum areas that precollege students might want to study. Imagine the situation if hundreds of such courses were available free on the Web, and that it was routine for all (or, almost all)students to include such courses in there yearly curriculum. This would be a significant step toward an individualization of curriculum and instruction, but without many of the details (and staffing demands) of an IEP.
The above suggests the idea of entire courses available as HIICAL delivered over the Web. But, we need to also think about small units, and a “just in time” approach to many learning and education challenges. The “Help” features in software have this situational, context characteristic.
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15. ICT Education of Every Teacher
ISTE’s NETS for Students, 12th grade.
ISTE and NCATE’s ICT for Preservice Teachers.
Competent to routinely teach in high ICT classroom and lab environments, including handling hardware & software challenges.
Competent to play a significant role in the paradigm shift to learning and learner-centered education.
To a great extent, ICT is still considered as an add on in our educational system. We are a long way from routine integration into the everyday curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
Contrast the current school situation with the way in which students routinely use cell telephones, instant messaging, iPods, computer games, television,chat groups, digital cameras, and other aids to helping meet the communication, socialization, and entertainment problems they encounter in their everyday lives.
The ISTE NETS for students and for teachers are useful. However, there is a huge gap between the general guidelines of these standards and what the typical student or preservice teacher is learning at an understanding and problem-solving level.
Indeed, in some of my writings I argue that the gap between what we want to accomplish in integrating ICT into K-12 education and teacher education, and what we are actually accomplishing, is growing because of rapid changes in the capabilities of ICT.
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16. Some Broad 20-Year Forecasts
Increased worldwide population; environmental pressures; diversity.
Improved communication and transportation; global village; flatter world.
ICT capabilities increased by a factor of 1,000 to 10,000.
Factor of three growth in technology.
Nanotechnology and genetic engineering use are common.
This is a short list designed to facilitate discussion. In essence, these projections or forecasts build upon major trends that are already well established.
I don’t think that the details of any one forecast are overly important with respect to teacher education. Rather, preservice and inservice teachers face huge change that is relevant to their professional jobs. The need preservice and continuing inservice education that facilitates them to do their (ever changing) job well, and that leads to their students getting an appropriate education.
This suggests to me that we need a significant paradigm shift in preservice and inservice teacher education. We talk about wanting teachers to be lifelong learners, but currently we do not provide an appropriate environment and incentive system to facilitate this situation. Teachers learn a lot while on the job. However, much of what they learn can be classified as experience. They tend to learn relatively little of what it would take to understand and implement curriculum, instruction, and assessment appropriate to the rapidly changing science, technology, and other aspects of our world.
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17. Examples of What I Teach
Prerequisite is ISTE 8th grade standards
Audience is preservice & inservice teachers.
I have a great deal of experience in organizing, running, and teaching in master’s and doctorate level ICT programs for teachers. In addition, I have developed and/or helped to develop, and I have taught, a broad range of ICT in education courses for preservice teachers and for inservice teachers.
During the past few years, most of my teaching has been at the elementary teacher preservice level. The remainder of my presentation is rooted in the courses and course materials that I have developed. Detailed syllabi for the courses are available at:
I have written a number of short books that support these courses. The books are all available free on my Website at:
In this teaching I have had to deal with the prerequisite problem, and the fact that the prerequisite situation has changed considerably over the past few years at the University of Oregon. I won’t give the details here. However, here are a few of the key components of the situation.
I received a one year PTTT Capacity Building grant, then a three year PTTT Implementation grant, and then a one year extension of the Implementation grant. Thus, five years of funding was available to improve the ICT in teacher education situation at the UO.
Significant staffing changes, department of teacher education leadership changes, and course content changes occurred during this time period (which ended in June 2004). Often the changes were not for the better.
The ICT preparation of students entering my courses has, on average, not increased in the past two years. (Indeed, it may well have decreased.) However, essentially all of my students in the past two years have had owned laptop computers (with the majority being Macs).
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18. Syllabi and Resources
Detailed syllabi at:
Free books and other materials that cover the content of all of my courses:
Over the years I have authored and/or coauthored about 40 books, and most have been written for preservice and inservice teachers. Nowadays, the books I write are made available free on my Websites.
The general idea of open source and free software, courseware, and other supportive instructional material is (in my opinion) a very important paradigm shift that is occurring. I believe in and support the idea that every teacher has a responsibility to share their knowledge and experience with their professional colleagues and other who are interested in such things. One way to do this is via a professional Website, such as I have.
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19. Prerequisite Assumptions
Intellectual maturity & self-responsibility.
Fluency in word processing. , and use of the Web.
Skillful (or, can gain skill on their own) in desktop publication & presentation.
Access to students in school settings.
Intrinsically & extrinsically motivated.
The five item list given above is a brief summary of what I like to assume in my first year graduate -level courses for preservice teachers. Most of the students in my classes are either in their fifth year of a five year program of study, are in a one-year graduate level program of study. In the first situation, these students have completed a bachelor’s degree in education, and during their senior year they did a practicum field experience in schools each term. During their fifth year they do more practicum field experiences in the school and they do a term of student teaching. The latter group of students have bachelor’s degrees (often not in education) and are heavily engaged in the coursework and field experiences, and student teaching required to become certified teachers.
My personal observations and conversations with a number of people suggest hat the self-responsibility level of the preservice teachers I work with is decreasing. In brief summary, there is an increase in the student attitude of “Tell me exactly what to do and what to learn for the tests, and I will do it.”
The level of fluency in using word processing, , and the Web is appropriate to meeting the perceived personal needs of my students, but it is weak. Perhaps you are familiar with books “The Mac is not a typewriter” and “The PC is not a typewriter.” Most of my students use a word processor and computer like a typewriter.
I refuse to teach my students ICT applications that are detailed in the ISTE 5th grade and 8th grade NETS for students. It is interesting to see them struggle to gain on their own, from each other, from help sources available on campus, from tutorials available on the web, and so on the knowledge and experience that I expect.
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20. Desktop Publication and Presentation
Learning on your own.
Taking responsibility for your own learning.
Self assessment.
Informal peer instruction.
I specifically expect my students to improve their desktop publication and desktop presentation knowledge and skills to what I consider to be an 8th grade level. Thus, for example, I expect them to learn “styles” in a word processing setting and make effective use of styles. I expect my students to turn in their assignments electronically as attachments in , and part of the grade is based on the quality of their desktop publication and use of styles.
In my class discussions and presentations, I repeatedly point out the importance or styles and templates in various computer applications such as word processing, building Websites, and desktop presentation. Styles and templates are one piece of roles of ICT in problem solving, where one builds on previous work of oneself and others.
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21. Hit the Road Running Learn to translate theory into practice.
Through use of journaling, short assignments, and term-length assignments students are expected to explore classroom applications of the general ideas covered in my course. Typically they are doing in-school practicum during this time.
My courses tend to include a large component of what might be called Theory into Practice. My classes 9which often include some inservice teachers) cover a large number of foundational ideas. The participants are interested in various specific subject areas 9such as being really interested in teaching reading, or really interested in working with third graders, or really interested in special education, etc.). Thus, assignments often begin with a sentence: “Select a grade level and a subject area within that grade level…” Often a course will require students keeping a journal in which they discuss the theory into practice of the readings and classes.
Another aspect of this is that in the assignments, my students are expected to create annotated bibliographies. These bibliographies (mainly Web-based) are an integral component of each written assignment, and the annotations accompanying each reference are to be sufficient so that they describe what was read and would allow a person to find similar material if the Web reference link becomes broken.
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22. ICT in the Craft and Science of Teaching and Learning
Examine various components of what students have learned and are learning in their teacher education program.
Transfer of learning to and from ICT and non-ICT components of teacher ed.
Emphasis on understanding theories of education and roles of ICT in implementing these theories.
There is a huge and steadily growing Craft and Science of Teaching and learning. Think of this as the theory and practice of teaching an learning. I want my students to learn the theory and practice of how ICT fits in with and supports the overall theory and practice of teaching and learning.
Thus, for example, a typical class meeting may well start out with students being asked to summarize what they have learned in previous courses about a topic such as constructivism, situated learning, standards, intrinsic motivation, authentic assessment, cooperative learning, self assessment, brain science, project-based learning, and so on. We then move into discussing the same topic from an ICT point of view.
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23. Problem Solving
The general topic of problem solving and roles of ICT in problem solving lies at the heart of my courses.
Problem solving is a significant component of the content of every discipline taught in the K-12 curriculum and of increasing expertise in every discipline.
Information retrieval and problem solving.
Note that a detailed one-credit course on computers and problem solving is included in my list of syllabi, and that a free book on this topic is available in my Free Materials section on my Website.
If “problem solving” is defined in a broad fashion, then every discipline includes problem solving as part of its content, methodology, accomplishments, and expertise. ICT provides a broad range of aids to problem solving.
I tend to simplify the situation by dividing such aids into generic (cutting across many disciplines) and discipline-specific. Thus, we might think of one of the goals of ICT in education at the PreK-8 levels being that of having students learn to make use of many generic ICT tools. The students need to learn to use these tools at a fluency level roughly equivalent to how well they use other generic tools such as reading, writing, and arithmetic.
At the high school level, students begin to study certain academic disciplines in depth. This, of course, continues on into college and graduate school. Each discipline has developed computer tools suited to the specific needs of the discipline. Thus, study of a discipline should include learning to use the ICT tools that are specific to the discipline.
From a teacher education point of view, this simple categorization of tools as generic or discipline-specific helps to define what preservice teachers need to learn about computer tools. Every preservice teacher needs to learn to make effective use of a variety of generic ICT tools. Every subject matter specialist needs to learn to make use of the discipline-specific tools that are relevant to their content-oriented areas of teaching.
Let’s take information storage,processing, retrieval, and use as an example. The Web can be thought of as a very large library—I call it a global library. This library is interactive and it includes sophisticated search engines(browsers) as aids to information retrieval. It includes software designed to aid in developing documents that can be stored in the library. The library includes considerable compute power that can automatically carry out a variety of information processing tasks. Additional computer processing of retrieved data, information, and knowledge can be done with computers that are not part of the Internet and Web.
In the past, we taught quite young students how to use a physical library. Now, we teach similarly young students to use the Web. As we teach students to read linear hard copy texts, we need to also teach them to read non-linear interactive hypermedia documents that are stored on the Web, on CDs, and on DVDs.
It is easy to see where this discussion is going. Teachers at the elementary school level need the knowledge and skill to teach students to make effective use of the global library. This needs to be thoroughly integrated throughout the elementary school curriculum, with students making routine use of this library. Consistent with the ISTE NETS for students,it also means that elementary school students need to learn to read and write hypermedia. Thus, their teachers need to read and write hypermedia, and to teach such reading and writing.
One interesting thing about this is discovered by thinking about what we expect elementary school teachers to know about reading, writing, and arithmetic. We expect teachers to have competency at roughly a college freshman level in these disciplines. The ISTE NETS for teachers suggests preservice teachers should meet the 12th grade ISTE NETS for students.
When we then look at subject mater specialists, especially at the secondary school level, We see that they need to know the generic tools, so they can interact appropriately with their students who have been learning to use these tools throughout elementary school and on into middle school. The subject matter specialists then have the added burden of helping their students learn about roles of ICT as content in a higher level of study of the disciplines being taught. In terms of a global library, students taking more advanced courses need to learn to use this library at a higher level, and in a manner specific to the needs of the disciplines they are studying.
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24. ICT-Assisted Project-Based Learning
Reasons for this:
Routine integration of ICT.
Learner and learner and learning-oriented.
Intrinsic motivation.
Authentic content and assessment. Rubrics, milestones.
Learning to learn & work in a team environment.
Produce a product, performance, or presentation in a “revise, revise, revise” time-limed environment.
Note that a detailed syllabus for a one-credit course on ICT and PBL is included in the syllabi section of my Website. ISTE is the publisher of my current book on ICT-Assisted PBL. However, my Websites contain sufficient amount of the material from this book and my other writings so that the book is not needed in the one credit course.
One of the key ideas in PBL is that students produce a product, performance, or presentation. This is a process, much like process writing. Thus, it lends itself to the same steps as does process writing, including the “revise, revise, revise” aspect of writing.
Project-based learning and problem-based learning share their orientation toward addressing a specific problem or task. That is, problem solving is an inherent component of PBL.
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25. ICT Integrated into the Content of Disciplines
ICT as a “basic” of education and a routine tool used in all disciplines.
Domain specificity: ICT tools that are especially designed for problem solving in specific disciplines. For example:
Theoretical, experimental, and computational sciences.
Music
Art and animation.
Business and economics.
In the “real world” of work, people learn to make use of tools that aid in their productivity and that help them to solve the problems and accomplish the tasks required in the work. Very large numbers of workers work in an “open computer” environment.
Contrast this with students. Very few students take tests in an open computer (with connectivity, access to the Web, and so on) being a tool they use as they are assessed. From that point of view, there is a huge difference between in school assessment and what authentic assessment (on the job performance) looks like. Since about 1980, researchers and practitioners in the sciences have been dealing with theoretical science, experimental science, and computational science. The latter is computer modeling and simulation of what they are studying and learning. In 1997 one of the Nobel prizes in chemistry was awarded to a computational chemist.
Such computer modeling and simulation is important in many other areas, such as math, economics, business, architecture, engineering, art (for example, digital art, animation), and music.
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26. Artificial intelligence
As an important topic in its own right.
As a component of the spelling and grammar checkers in a word processor.
As an opponent and/or a partner in computer games.
As a competitor and/or partner in problem solving and other cognitive aspects of productivity.
See my short book:
Moursund, D.G. (2005). Brief Introduction to Educational Implications of Artificial Intelligence. Access at
AI can be viewed as a component of the discipline of Computer and information Science that specifically focuses on making ICT systems “smarter” at solving problems and accomplishing tasks. Some AI tools are generic, while others are discipline specific.
You can test your own knowledge of AI by analyzing the spelling checker and the grammar checker in a work processor such as Microsoft Word from an AI point of view. Or, explain how a computer system can learn on its own, and how computers can be taught to and/or learn to play certain games quite well. In what ways are AI systems “smarter” than people, and vice versa? Clearly this last question is an essential one to educators.
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27. Computer-Assisted Learning and Distance Learning
These two areas come together as CAL is delivered via the Web or other network.
Highly Interactive Intelligent Computer-Assisted Learning (HIICAL)
Facilitates individualization of instruction.
Can out perform human teaching in an increasing number of situations.
DL and HIICAL are a major paradigm shift in education.
The environment supporting DL and HIICAL also supports routine integration of ICT.
The paradigm shift that I see coming in education includes HIICAL and distance learning (both asynchronous and synchronous) as broad and deep components that students routinely use.
In my opinion, all preservice teachers should have a significant experience of learning in CL. HIICAL. And the two DE modes. By “significant,” I mean taking at least a couple of courses in such environments. (I don’t just mean taking courses about these topics. I mean taking part of their college coursework in such environments.)
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28. Students with Exceptionalities
Roles of ICT in working with:
Special Education
Talented & Gifted Education
Students with dual or multiple exceptionalities
Value of physical and mental augmentative aids
Rate of learning and capacity to learn: typical classroom has a factor of four to five in learning rate between fastest and slowest student.
Probably all preservice teachers receive some specific coursework in Special Education. Relatively few learn much about Talented and Gifted Education. ICT is important in both of these areas. I am currently writing a short book on roles of ICT in TAG education. I used some of the material from this book in a Spring 2005 course I was teaching. These “draft” materials ca be accessed at:
The content I teach on computers and special education is available in Chapter 8 of my book:
Moursund, D.G. (2005). Introduction to Information and Communication Technology in Education. Access at
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29. Staff Development
Possible paradigm shift to each teacher thinking of him or her self as:
Routine participant in self-development as a professional educator.
Routine contributor to staff development of others in one’s school and district.
One-on-one staff developer and demonstration teacher in their schools.
The Syllabus for the Digital Age II course that I teach is available at
This course includes a two week unit on staff development. The associated assignment is one of the major term projects for the course. Each student is expected to design and carry out two types of inservice in a school:
Demonstration teaching.
One-on one inservice.
Details of my expectations are available at
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30. Grant Writing and Other Ways to Obtain Resources
I routinely teach a two-week unit on this.
Students like it and write reasonably good grant proposals for the assignment.
It is a good way to draw together ideas covered in other components of the course.
I get good feedback from past students on how they have used this learning.
The readings for this assignment mainly come from my book on this topic, which is available free.
Moursund, D.G. (2002). Obtaining resources for technology in education: A how-to guide for writing proposals, forming partnerships, and raising funds. Access at
We spend one week on general idea of grant writing and one week on evaluating proposals. Two dull hours of class time is spent having students evaluate proposals. The assignment for this unit is to write a proposal. A detailed RFP is provided in the syllabus.
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31. Assessment Authentic content, instruction, and assessment.
Computerized testing—traditional or adaptive.
Self assessment; roles of rubrics.
Peer assessment and peer feedback.
Authentic assessment in an ICT environment is a continuing topic in my courses. The topic receives special attention in the ICT-Assisted PBL course.
I was particularly impressed by one of my preservice teachers this spring. After the discussion of authentic assessment in a “computers and connectivity on” environment, he tried out this idea with fourth graders. It worked quite well, made the students happy, and impressed a number of teachers who learned about it.
We spend a lot of time talking about and illustrating rubrics. Part of the dialogue is about how detailed the rubrics I provide for my preservice teachers should be. Since I am stressing self evaluation and taking responsibility for one’s own learning and education, you can see that there is a difference of opinion between me and many of my students.
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32. Final Questions and Discussion
This was a quite successful workshop. As with most workshops, it could have been better if it had been longer.
NECC SIGTE Workshop 6/26/05