Enhancing the Art & Science of Teaching With Technology. Robert J. Marzano

& Lewis, 2010). The Internet provides another example of the increasing use of technology. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in 2010, 97 percent of schools across the United States were able to connect to the Internet. As these statistics show, new technologies are increasingly pervasive in U.S. schools.

      Mobile devices have also made their way into education. In 2007, Apple’s iPhone arrived on the digital scene. Less than five years later, more than 25 percent of all parents had downloaded mobile applications (commonly called apps) for their children (Rideout, 2011). An analysis of Apple’s multibillion dollar market for apps showed that “over 80% of the top selling paid apps in the Education category of the iTunes Store target children” (Shuler, 2012, p. 3). The Speak Up research project (2013) reported that over one-third of principals (36 percent) believe that a “bring your own device to school” policy for students will be implemented within the next few years.

      The Center for Digital Education (CDE) corroborated the finding that technology use is increasing (Halpin & Muth, 2012). As shown in figure 1.1 (page 4), between 2011 and 2012, U.S. school districts saw a 5 percent increase in online classes, a 13 percent increase in virtual field trips, a 15 percent increase in allowing educators to use Web 2.0 tools with students, and a 43 percent increase in social networking presence.

       Figure 1.1: Technology growth by percent in K–12 districts from 2011 to 2012.

      Source: Halpin & Muth, 2012, p. 6. Used with permission.

      Furthermore, as figure 1.2 shows, many districts have already adopted (or are in the process of implementing) various classroom technology supports, including new technology standards, data dashboards, and digital content strategies.

       Figure 1.2: Technology implementation by percent in K–12 districts from 2011 to 2012.

      Source: Halpin & Muth, 2012, p. 6. Used with permission.

      Clearly, the use of technology is increasing in K–12 classrooms, and educator attitudes toward this increase vary from unbridled enthusiasm to extreme skepticism. While all teachers can learn to use technology, they generally require extensive training, schoolwide support, and scheduled time for independent learning in order to feel confident and competent enough to use new technology effectively and frequently (Demetriadis et al., 2003; Gray et al., 2010; Inan & Lowther, 2010; Staples, Pugach, & Himes, 2005). Despite all of the additional support necessary for the effective use of technology, however, many believe it has the power to restructure education.

Potential Restructuring of Education

      Allan Collins and Richard Halverson (2009) believed that U.S. education must undergo a structural change to accommodate new digital technology. New technologies like mobile devices are having “profound effects on the ways we learn” (Collins & Halverson, 2009, p. 5) because they allow people to readily acquire knowledge outside of a school building: “There are deep incompatibilities between the demands of the new technologies and the traditional school.… Even as schools rush to incorporate technologies into their buildings, the traditional school classroom is very uncomfortable with these new subversive technologies” (p. 7). Terry Anderson (2012) agreed that the incompatibility of traditional schooling (closed systems) with new technology leads to disruptive effects in schools:

      The culture and customary use of these closed systems [in traditional learning] runs contrary to Web 2.0 applications, which are usually open, participatory, connected, persistent, and controlled by individual users (not by school administrators or teachers). Thus, they create disruptive effects. (p. 305)

      Many others have supported the notion that technology may lead to fundamental changes in education (Christensen, Horn, & Johnson, 2008; Cuban, Kirkpatrick, & Peck, 2001; Gee, 2011; Squire, 2005). Educational technology researcher Christopher Dede summarized this perspective: “You can’t just sprinkle 21st century skills on the 20th century doughnut.… It requires a fundamental reconception of what we’re doing” (as cited in Walser, 2011, p. 45).

      Collins and Halverson (2009) explained that before the early 19th century, children in the United States were not required to attend school. Instead, parents decided what trade skills their children ought to know and taught them as apprentices. With the rise of the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing technologies dramatically reduced the need for children to learn skilled labor, but labor laws prohibited children’s employment in factories. These changes left children relatively unoccupied and unsupervised, which led to “a shift that occurred in education, from a family responsibility to a state responsibility” (p. 55). Instead of learning practical trade skills as they did in the era of apprenticeship, children in the universal education era began learning the sorts of disciplinary knowledge—reading, writing, and arithmetic—meant to help them succeed in a democratic society. The act of learning became associated with compulsory attendance in physical institutions called schools.

      According to Collins and Halverson (2009), the United States is going through “another revolution on the same scale as the Industrial Revolution” (p. 4). This new Knowledge Revolution, as they called it, will be “fueled by personal computers, video games, the Internet, and cell phones” (p. 4) and, like the Industrial Revolution, will completely transform our lives and the structure of our schools. As a result, the rigid structure of traditional schools will become more pliable in order to impart what Collins and Halverson called lifelong learning, which “requires moving away from highly structured schooling institutions” and instead focuses on teaching “the skills to judge the quality of learning venues and the kinds of social networks that provide guidance and advice” (p. 130). Two ways by which technology is changing the traditional approach in classrooms are (1) flipped classrooms and (2) new literacies.

       Flipped Classrooms

      One classroom-level example of the power of technology to restructure the old paradigm is the flipped classroom. A flipped classroom is one in which students listen to online lectures at home at night and then use that content at school the next day. Table 1.1 compares a traditional classroom to a flipped classroom.

Table 1.1: Comparison of Class Time in Traditional Versus Flipped Classrooms

      Source: Bergmann & Sams, 2012, p. 15.

      In the flipped model, students listen to a short lecture (ten to fifteen minutes) and take notes as homework the evening before they cover the information in class. As shown in table 1.1, this frees up class time that would traditionally be spent introducing new content and resolving student confusion about the previous day’s homework. Therefore, students in the flipped model still complete the same amount of independent practice work as students in a traditional model, but they do it during class instead of as homework. Rather than complete assignments without teacher guidance at home, students complete them in school, where teachers are there to offer help or answer questions.

      Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams (2012) asserted that, among other things, flipping a classroom allows teachers to help busy and struggling students with their assignments, increases student-teacher and student-student interaction during class, gives teachers the time to provide more individualized differentiation, alleviates classroom management issues that might otherwise occur during direct instruction, educates parents who actually watch the video lectures with their children, and makes absences easier to mitigate—students simply need to watch the