The Future of
Information Technology in Education
An ISTE
Publication
Preface
-
This book is about the future of information technology in K-12 education. It is intended for people who have an interest in how information technology will change and improve education. This includes parents, teachers, school administrators, school board members, legislators, corporate foundations, and educational policy makers.
- Some noteworthy features of this book include:
- It is relatively short.
- It contains a number of brief quotes from many
different popular press news items. These help paint a
picture of current and emerging roles of information
technology in our society.
- While the focus of this book is on education in
the United States, quite a few of the examples report
on use of information technology outside of the United
States. All of the educational systems of the world
are faced with the challenge of dealing with the
increasing capabilities and availability of
information systems.
- The forecasts are supported by multiple sources of
information and forecasting techniques. The Appendix
discusses a number of different forecasting
methodologies. You can use ideas discussed here if you
want to make your own forecasts.
- Each chapter ends with a few concluding remarks
and some recommendations. You can think of these
recommendations as "my best professional advice."
- Chapter 9 discusses long-range strategic planning
for technology in education. You can use these ideas
to help plan educational changes that you feel are
appropriate.
- The References section is extensive and contains brief annotations for each of the items.
- It is relatively short.
- I have been a "computer educator" for more than 30
years. During all of that time I have been optimistic
about the future of computer technology in education.
In retrospect, it is clear that I have been overly optimistic. Educational systems are quite resistant to change. Progress has not occurred as fast as I had thought it would. Still, considerable progress has occurred, and the groundwork has been laid for further progress. It is clear to me that we are just at the beginning of a number of major changes in our educational system that will occur because of continuing progress in information technology.
- I want to thank Paul Duchin, Maureen O'Rourke, and
Irene Smith for the feedback they provided on the
manuscript.
A number of the brief quotes used in this document were obtained through use of the Internet. I want to give special thanks to John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas at Educom. They are the writers of Edupage, a summary of news about information technology, which is provided three times a week as a service of Educom, a Washington, DC-based consortium of leading colleges and universities seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. To subscribe to Edupage, send e-mail to:
listproc@Educom.unc.edu with the message:
subscribe edupage First Last where First Last is your first and last names. For example, if your name is David Moursund, you would send the message:
subscribe edupage David Moursund
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