The realization of telecommunications in high school science classrooms: An evaluation of teachers using technology

For the past decade, researchers have studied a variety of ways in which telecommunication is used in K-12 classrooms. Many of these studies describe only a small number of our nation's teachers and classrooms. These studies have not looked at the impact technology has on teachers and students and have not addressed the issue of expanding the use of technology to more classrooms in a school district, state, or nation.This study combines two research methodologies, case study and survey research. The case study examined the use of telecommunications by twelve high school science teachers from five schools in a single Southern California school district and looked at how they implemented this new technology into their classrooms during the 1993-1994 school year. A survey examining the use of technology and telecommunications was sent to all high school science teachers in the same school district.A situated evaluation framework was used to examine what characteristics contribute to effective telecommunication use in the classroom, what conditions need to be present to sustain systemic change in its use, and what teachers think is a realistic expectation of implementing telecommunications across a school district.The findings suggest that although a few selected teachers have gone through extensive telecommunication training and the school district is in the process of building a telecommunication infrastructure, the use of telecommunications in high school science classrooms is in its infancy. While there is a positive outlook and administrative support concerning the implementation of telecommunications by the individuals involved, and constituencies are being formed outside the school system, it is still too soon to predict the success or failure of implementing this new technology across the school district.U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio