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Technologies available in classrooms today range from simple tool-based applications (such as word processors) to online repositories of scientific data and primary historical documents, to handheld computers, closed-circuit television channels, and two-way distance learning classrooms. Even the cell phones that many students now carry with them can be used to learn (Prensky, 2005).

Bruce and Levin (1997), for example, look at ways in which the tools, techniques, and applications of technology can support integrated, inquiry-based learning to "engage children in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world." They developed the idea of technology as media with four different focuses: media for inquiry (such as data modeling, spreadsheets, access to online databases, access to online observatories and microscopes, and hypertext), media for communication (such as word processing, e-mail, synchronous conferencing, graphics software, simulations, and tutorials), media for construction (such as robotics, computer-aided design, and control systems), and media for expression (such as interactive video, animation software, and music composition). In a review of existing evidence of technology's impact on learning, Marshall (2002) found strong evidence that educational technology "complements what a great teacher does naturally," extending their reach and broadening their students' experience beyond the classroom. "With ever-expanding content and technology choices, from video to multimedia to the Internet," Marshall suggests "there's an unprecedented need to understand the recipe for success, which involves the learner, the teacher, the content, and the environment in which technology is used."

In examining large-scale state and national studies, as well as some innovative smaller studies on newer educational technologies, Schacter (1999) found that students with access to any of a number of technologies (such as computer assisted instruction, integrated learning systems, simulations and software that teaches higher order thinking, collaborative networked technologies, or design and programming technologies) show positive gains in achievement on researcher constructed tests, standardized tests, and national tests.

en up working on a math problem because you couldn’t figure out the next step? Wolfram|Alpha can guide you step by step through the process of solving many mathematical problems, from solving a simple quadratic equation to taking the integral of a complex function.

By John I. Goodlad

We need to be aware that recent decades of research on cognition reveal hardly any correlation of standardized test scores with a wide range of desired behavioral characteristics such as dependability, ability to work alone and with others, and planning, or with an array of virtues such as honesty, decency, compassion, etc. Employers dissatisfied with employees who studied mathematics and the physical sciences in first-rate universities often call for higher test scores. Is academic development the totality of the purpose of schooling?

The consequence, of course, was the substantial narrowing of pedagogy to simply drilling for tests. We do not need schools for this. It is training, not education, and access to it can be obtained almost anywhere at any time in this increasingly technological age. That would leave the opportunity to turn schools, whose prime function has long been child care, into centers of pedagogy with the mission of guiding what education is: the process of becoming a unique human being whose responsibility it is to make the most of oneself.