Prove IT: What Does the Research Say About Technology in Education? 

Exclusive CoSN Member Benefit. Join in a members-only conversation with three leading national education experts around what we know – and what we don’t know – about the research on impact of technology in schools.  What should you reply when your superintendent says, “Show me the evidence?”  Is there “scientifically based” research on the impact of technology…and is that the right model of research for such a fast-changing field?  Why are some experts skeptical while others are strong advocates for technology investment?  Hear from some of the most thoughtful minds on this tough question and then engage in a much-needed conversation of what we know today, and what we need to know tomorrow.

Larry Cuban is Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University. He has taught courses in the methods of teaching social studies, the history of school reform, curriculum, and instruction, and leadership. He has been faculty sponsor of the Stanford/Schools Collaborative and Stanford's Teacher Education Program. His background in the field of education prior to becoming a professor included 14 years of teaching high school social studies in big city schools and serving seven years as a district superintendent. Trained as an historian, he assumed the superintendency of the Arlington, Virginia Public Schools, a position he held until returning to Stanford in 1981. From 1981-2001, Cuban taught three times in local high schools semester-long courses in U.S. History and Economics. In those years, School of Education students selected Cuban for an excellence in teaching award seven times.

Chris Dede is the Timothy E. Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. His fields of scholarship include emerging technologies, policy, and leadership. His current research includes six grants from NSF, Qualcomm, and the US Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences to explore immersive simulations and transformed social interactions as means of student engagement, learning, and assessment. In 2007, he was honored by Harvard University as an outstanding teacher, and in 2011 he was named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. His latest book, Digital Teaching Platforms, will be published by Teachers College Press in 2012.

Glenn Kleiman is the Executive Director of the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation and a Professor at the NC State University College of Education. A cognitive psychologist by background (Ph.D., Stanford, 1977), his work in education has spanned basic and applied research, curriculum development, software development, providing professional development for teachers and administrators, policy analyses, and consulting for school districts and state departments of education. Prior to joining NC State University in July 2007, he was Vice President and Senior Research Scientist at Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) in Newton MA, where he directed the Center for Online Professional Education and was Co-Director of the Northeast and Islands Regional Education Lab. He has been the principal investigator on several NSF-funded projects, including the one that developed the MathScape: Seeing and Thinking Mathematically middle school curriculum, published by Glencoe/McGraw Hill, and a research project on the effectiveness of online professional development for mathematics teachers. He was also on the faculty of the Harvard Graduate School of Education from 1995-2007 and was education chair of the Harvard/EDC Leadership and the New Technologies Institutes. Currently, Dr. Kleiman is a member of Governor Perdue’s Education Transformation Commission and the North Carolina eLearning Commission, for which he is chair of the Teaching and Learning Subcommittee. Dr. Kleiman recently played a lead role in the development of the North Carolina Race to the Top proposal, which received $400 million of funding from the U.S. Department of Education.

Blog:

Books:

Blog Link

Oversold & Underused

Tinkering toward Utopia

 Books:

Online Professional Development for Teachers: Emerging Models and Methods

Scaling Up Success: Lessons Learned from Technology-based Educational Improvement

 Links:

Friday Institute

Evaluation of Educational Innovation

 Named by Tech & Learning as one of the top 10 most influential people in EdTech in 2011, Douglas Levin is the Executive Director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA). He works with and represents U.S. state and territorial educational technology directors to other national education groups, federal policymakers, the U.S. Department of Education, the private sector, and the media. He formerly worked with the National Association of State Boards of Education, the American Institutes for Research, and Cable in the Classroom. He played key roles in developing the nation’s first three national education technology plans and in conducting research and evaluations. He is primary author of the groundbreaking Pew Internet study of internet-savvy students, The Digital Disconnect. By appointment of Governor McDonnell, he serves on the Virginia Open Education Curriculum Board and is a 2006 recipient of a Making It Happen award for educational technology leadership.