News of evaluating commercial educational software in the US

[Sherry Hsi]

Hi Tak-wai,

Maybe we could write another response letter and post on our website.
(I am afraid to suggest this because I can't take the lead on this.)

Here are some things to note:
--the length of the study was 1 year...pretty short if you expect 
teachers to integrate and make into effective practices.
--the software they selected to evaluate were 
practice-oriented/drill-kill packages with little to no immediate 
student feedback nor student assessment (with exception to the 
Andersonian cognitive tutor-one of the five packages in the study.)
--The teacher training was given by the developers in how to use the 
software, not how to use the software effectively for pedagogy or 
content learning. (But then again, you can't do much with limited 
software.)
--The length of the intervention was on average 17 hours in one 
year--not a big allocation of time.

One could use this study as evidence to show that large-scale 
adoption of poorly designed/shallow software with little professional 
development to teachers shows no impact, thus better kinds of 
designed software (e.g., like WISE, Molecular Workbench, GenScope, 
SimCalc, Geometer's Sketchpad,...), more investment into research on 
online assessment and  meaningful feedback for learners, more 
effective teacher professional development, and more allocation of 
time in the curriculum are all needed to make real improvements.

Or, one could also use this study as ammunition to say all computer 
software and education technology in the classroom is evil and school 
districts are better off investing in more textbooks.

Who wants to take the pen?

-Sherry

>  Hi,
>
>A colleague sent me this:
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040402
>715.html
>
>In the article, Elliot expressed his worry.
>
>Do you think G1:1 community can help something?
>
>
>Regards,
>Tak-Wai
>
>
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