Integrating Technology in Your Middle School Classroom:
Some Hints from a Successful Process

Linda K. Colburn

Integration of technology in the classroom is more effective in promoting actual technology use than is positioning technology as a “stand alone” or supplementary tool. The benefits of integration for students include enhanced opportunities for critical thinking and synthesis. Further, integrating technology can result in a shift from traditional to more student-centered instruction. Effective technology integration requires planning and effort, however, and understanding the process behind integration can improve the chances for success. Here I describe some of the requirements for effective technology integration, along with some of its benefits to students and teachers, based on work accomplished in one middle school. Within this article I also identify and link to Web sites that readers may find helpful, and in a related Web Watch Chuck Kinzer and I provide descriptions of several particularly valuable sites. My discussion of the whys and ways of technology integration is based on interviews with and observations of middle school students (aged approximately 11 to 13 years), teachers, and administrators, undertaken as part of a study of a school-wide initiative to integrate technology in the curriculum. The study began in fall 1996 and concluded in spring 1999. Four teachers participated, along with administrators and technology leaders in the school. The eighth-grade science teacher and the seventh-/eighth-grade Spanish-language teacher each had five computers in their classrooms when the study began; at the start of the study's second year, the seventh-grade history teacher acquired a set of five computers. However, the art teacher was using the school computer lab for projects and had very limited access to technology in the art studio.

Related Postings from the Archives Maya Eagleton, The Benefits and Challenges of a Student-Designed School Website William Valmont, Vignettes from Literacy Teachers

Why Integrate Technology into Your Classroom?

Clearly, our students today need to become proficient with many new and different types of literacy (see, for example, Leu & Kinzer, 2000, online abstract; Kinzer & Leander, in press). The skills required by both effective workers and effective citizens are increasing in complexity (Berryman, 1993; National Education Goals Panel, 1998, online document; President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology [PCAST], 1997). In order for students to meet business, industry, and government expectations, they must be able, more than ever before, to reason, solve problems, apply their understanding, and write and speak well (National Education Goals Panel). Students should be able to “handle new situations and meet new intellectual challenges” (Salomon, 1993, p. 128).

Research confirms the potential for using technology to achieve these and other goals, such as providing students with access to information as they need it to complete tasks (Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV], 1994; Lunenburg & Irby, 1998; Means & Olson, 1995, online abstract). Further, recent reports strongly imply that integrating technology into classroom curricula, as opposed to teaching isolated applications of technology, provides the most effective technology instruction (see, e.g., Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999, online document; PCAST, 1997).

Additionally, researchers have stated that effective use of instructional technologies leads to positive outcomes for both students and teachers (Cradler, 1994; Office of Technology Assessment [OTA], 1995; PCAST, 1997). Technology has been advocated as a tool that supports constructivist approaches to instruction (Cradler; Honey & Moeller, 1990, online abstract; Means, 1994). Research on the benefits of using instructional technology has shown that frequently it is accompanied by a shift from a traditional direct instructional style to one that is more student centered. Current standards and recent reports support the promotion of generative learning and the use of constructivist approaches in K-12 classrooms (OTA; PCAST).

Back to menu

What Does Integration of Technology Mean?

Developing students' technological literacy involves much more than teaching them how to use word processing, databases, and spreadsheets (Goldberg & Richards, 1995). In this new millennium, students will have to be able to identify what constitutes accurate information as they search the Internet, and be able to think critically about that information. They will need to view and represent information in new ways, the latter for much larger audiences than did previous generations. Integrating technology into existing curricula means making technological tools, including computers, multimedia, the Internet, and digital input and output devices, integral to learning. It does not mean learning to use a given technology only for a particular task or function. For example, learning to use a word processor or to search the Internet are not examples of technology integration if the expected outcome are expertise with word processing or understanding of a search strategy. Learning how and why to use a word processor to better communicate ideas or to search the Internet for information related to curricular goals and activities enhances the curriculum and teaches literacies that students will need to know and be able to use.

Effective integration of technology into the curriculum requires an investment of teachers' time and energy (Sandholtz, Ringstaff, & Dwyer, 1997; Valovich, 1996, online abstract). It involves more than just knowing how to use the technological tools: it includes having a sense of how to weave them into the curriculum so that they become integral in that curriculum (Moursand, 1997; OTA, 1995; PCAST, 1997). Thus, integration of technology requires the curricular expertise of teachers within their classrooms. It is not effectively done by those outside the classroom.

Back to menu

Examples from Classrooms: Teachers' and Students' Voices

My research took place in an independent middle school in the southeast United States. I chose the school for my study because I knew the administrators and teachers had made a commitment to integrating technology into their curricula. When my research began in 1996, they were in the early stages of understanding how to accomplish this task, but they already had a sense from their extensive reading and research of what it should look like. They made two commitments to begin the process: hiring a technology facilitator (a job that I took on, thereby becoming part of the school's faculty), and ending what they saw as unsatisfactory uses of technology in the school. As the librarian, a school technology leader, said in response to my interview question about the impetus and decision to move toward technology integration,

I can't think of a single classroom teacher that did anything using technology.... Some of the teachers may have required some of the work to be...done on word processing, and the kids who had computers at home did it. Some may have gone to the lab, but for the most part the lab was dark when there was not a computer class in there. There were very few computers in classrooms.... We realized that the students weren't remembering anything that they learned, and that it really was not making any impact on the students' education. (all quotes taken from data collected for and reported in Colburn, 2000)

A dark and seldom used computer lab. The perception that technology was having little impact on the lives of the students. The realization that better uses of technology had to exist was an important first step. Because of this realization, the school's technology leaders, teachers, administrators, and parents made the decision and commitment to put their efforts and resources behind an initiative that they hoped would change the way teachers and students thought about and used technology -- an initiative to place computers into classrooms and to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Initial exploration on the subject of technology integration took the school's faculty to various resources, including Web sites such as those described in the Web Watch linked to this article.

Perceiving a Benefit for Students

Implementing a new initiative requires considerable effort and a belief that it will result in some sort of benefit (Fullan & Stiegelbauer, 1991). This was certainly true for the teachers in my study. If you are an administrator looking into technology integration for your school or a teacher who wants to explore technology integration with peers, ask yourself and your colleagues, “Is there a benefit resulting from integration? Can this benefit be clearly articulated? How will we know if the benefit is occurring?” Without a perceived, well-articulated benefit, efforts toward technology integration are much less likely to succeed.

For the teachers in my study, a key incentive for their investment of extra time and energy to integrate technology into their curricula was their perception of benefits for their students and themselves:

(interview conducted May 18, 1999)

The teachers identified many benefits to students and to themselves, but I will focus here only on perceived instructional benefits.

Benefits for students' work and learning. Teachers initially anticipated that students' learning with technology would be multidimensional. Indeed, the students did find information in new ways, learned how to cite it, and shared their understanding with wider audiences than they had in the past. The teachers reported that students were synthesizing and summarizing information as they used technology and the Internet. Additionally, they reported in interviews and informal conversations that their students were learning to self-evaluate, as shown in the figure below, thereby coming to a better self-understanding of their progress.

Students were also making predictions. One teacher described how technology contributed to a student's learning process in science, and she also illustrated the difference between traditional recording of data and using technology for this purpose:

(interview conducted December 18, 1999)

Teachers reported that students better articulated their own understandings of subject matter. The science teacher, for example, said that students understood graphical representations better after having used graphing software. Students were able to watch the graphs grow right before their eyes as computer-connected probes collected data for plotting.

The history teacher found spreadsheets to be a helpful way for students to format large amounts of historical data. She also found a timeline-generating program to be useful for enhancing students' understanding of history, noting “It's good for them to see dates. Time is a hard concept for students at this age, so it's good for them to see the dates and see the time periods and see the spatial relationships” (interview conducted December 18, 1997).

The teachers also reported that students did better, more in-depth research and used more sources than they had earlier in the year, before technology was integrated into the classroom. For example, in an interview, one teacher remarked,

The projects, to me, have really shown fairly clear results because I feel like their work [using multimedia] has improved from just doing the same project last year using a poster to illustrate it, and no technology. They may be just maturing as students, but I can see a progression during the year with their research and I felt that not only did they work on their presentation but they seemed to work more on their library research, so they would have something good to present. And I think they've learned from their research and their presentation. (interview conducted March 4, 1997)

Teachers felt that students learned new ways of organizing and manipulating data, and that they had greater opportunities to identify relationships and make connections. They reported students' deepening understanding of concepts with the use of technology. The art teacher, for example, spoke about how the sixth-grade students became more involved with art as they created their multimedia projects:

Because, instead of writing [on] just the paper -- words -- they have to combine the images. It gets them much more involved in who it is they're studying. They have to spend a lot more time with paintings. They have to select [the paintings], they have to comment on the paintings. It is much more exciting, I think, for them to write it [the report project] and for me to read it. (interview conducted May 28, 1997)

Similarly, the history teacher saw improvement and recognized how proud the students were of their finished products. This teacher also contrasted the work and products students created with technology to work of previous students in past years:

(interview conducted December 18, 1997)

The teachers said that students' products had a more professional look, and there was increased student interest in refining the quality of the products they presented, which led to motivation and a desire on the part of students to do better than in the past. The teachers also talked about how the use of technology provided more opportunities for students to edit and revise their work. Students were willing to spend more time on their projects, so that they would “look good.” Additionally, students recognized that the audience for their work had changed, as they shared multimedia presentations in front of the class or developed pages to be added to the school's Web site. Others have also observed increased student effort as a benefit of technology use (e.g., Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Lamon, 1994).

All of the instructional benefits mentioned above contributed to teachers' motivation to “stick to it”-- to put in the time and effort needed for technology integration to occur in their classrooms.

A shift to student-centered instruction. Many teachers feel that student-centered classrooms are beneficial to students' growth, and they seek out ways to create and enhance student-centered learning environments. In this study, both teachers and students talked about the differences they saw in instruction once teachers began to integrate technology. These differences were frequently presented in student-centered terms:

(interview conducted March 4, 1997)

This teacher went on to say that students were collaborating and interacting more with their peers because technology facilitated small group work.

One of the school directors discussed how making choices is often difficult for adolescents. She felt that integrating technology provided students with opportunities to practice making choices, and viewed this as a substantial benefit to teachers and students alike. For example, students working with multimedia have to make decisions about content and design. When they access information from the Internet, they have to make choices about sources to include in their work. The principal felt that this resulted in greater student ownership of learning because the students themselves had to make (and justify) decisions to their partners and teachers, and they knew their choices would be reflected in their final products. As one student put it,

(interview conducted May 28, 1998)

The adults interviewed in this study agreed that as students developed their expertise in using technology to present their understanding of content, their confidence increased. Feeling trusted, being responsible for making decisions, figuring things out -- all this contributed to students' sense of ownership of their learning. The teachers viewed this as an additional benefit of technology integration.

Back to menu

Supporting Teachers' Integration of Technology

Teachers learning how to use and integrate technology need time to develop expertise and to consult with other teachers and experts. They need time to reflect and refine their teaching strategies, because the integration of technology into the classroom raises both management and instructional issues. The teachers in my study spent hours of extra time developing expertise with technology, including the Internet and computer software, and planning its integration into their existing lessons and required projects. The science teacher stated that planning got easier over time, but she found that with technology “you keep adding things.” In part, this reflects the notion that the more you know about technology use, the more you want to do.

Making extra time available is one aspect of providing support for teachers who are working to integrate technology in their classrooms. Support must come from colleagues in the school, from parents and students, and especially from administrators at both building and district levels. At times, this might mean asking one teacher to cover for another who needs an extra hour of planning time. It might mean allocating substitute teaching budgets for rotating release time. It might mean writing a grant for funds to meet technology goals. Or it might mean providing incentives for before- or after-school meetings during which teams of teachers can plan for technology integration within a grade level or subject area.

In addition to addressing the time commitments required of teachers who need to learn new skills while modifying and, in some cases, developing curriculum, administrators can support integration initiatives by providing resource personnel who have or can acquire technological expertise and who can assist teachers in identifying uses of technology that will enhance curricular goals. It is important to have a school-wide understanding that the curriculum is what drives technology use, and that collaboration between subject-area specialists and technology specialists is helpful in facilitating integration. In the school I studied, the librarian and myself as technology facilitator looked at instructional units with the teachers and made suggestions about how technology could be used in replacing existing pencil-and-paper assignments or extending instruction with collaborative projects and cross-curricular assignments. In addition, we were available to provide in-class or in-lab instruction and assistance. As the initiative neared the end of its second year, the librarian had these comments:

(interview conducted May 28, 1998)

Back to menu

Recommendations for Practice in Middle School Classrooms

Plan Before You Begin

The Spanish teacher talked about how important it was to be well prepared every day:

I think the problems -- where it could create problems -- is if a teacher is not very well prepared ahead of time or if one hasn't really thought through it and planned it out. And even if you're instructing on how to do something...that has to be planned out. Not that I did a super job of doing that, but I just think that you almost have to be overly prepared with technology. (interview conducted December 17, 1997)

If you are a teacher who is considering integrating technology into your classroom, trying to do so before you have spent sufficient time in planning will almost surely result in frustration. A Web page that can help with planning and preparedness is Links to WWW Sites for Educators: Integrating Technology in Schools. This annotated list of links, prepared by Larry Jeffreys at the University of New Mexico, includes information on sites that provide lesson plans that might serve as a starting point for your own classroom.

If you are an administrator, provide time for teachers to plan and then to integrate technology into first one lesson, then a unit of instruction, and then an overall curriculum. It's better to be successful on a smaller scale, see benefits to students, and then “gear up” than to attempt too much too soon.

Consider Issues of Classroom Management

Classrooms in the United States rarely have more than five computers available for students' use, and Internet access can be limited or nonexistent. In part this is due to budgetary considerations, but it is also an issue of space: older schools were not built to accommodate computer technology. Managing activities to ensure appropriate access for all students can therefore be quite difficult.

In the middle school where I conducted my research a rotation schedule, such as the one illustrated below, was used very effectively. The Spanish-language teacher, for example, would cycle as many as 19 students through computer use over the course of a week. For some activities, students worked individually or in pairs; for unit multimedia projects, students usually worked in small groups.

The Spanish teacher made use of technology on a daily basis. She generally began the class with whole-group instruction in which homework assignments were reviewed and new information presented. Students would then break out, with some going to the computers to work on a writing or language practice program while others wrote or revised journal entries, edited the entries of their peers, or worked in pairs on dialogues or skits. It took several revisions to find a rotation schedule that worked well, but once it was in place, the teacher found she actually had more time to interact with students individually than she had had before.

Reflect and Refine Instructional Strategies and Technology Use

It is essential to take time to reflect -- in writing, if possible -- about lessons that did not meet expectations. I found that lessons that did not go well were typically those that were disrupted by confusion, student interruptions, and technology breakdowns, and resulted in lost instructional time. I made the following notes after a “did not go well” lesson early in the project's first year, describing the teacher's reflection and ideas for refining of the process:

After class we sat down and talked about my observation. We discussed how well the process of rotation had gone and I made some recommendations to help establish routines as we talked through options. Two of the recommendations made responded to students' confusion about the rotations and their requests during class for further instructions, which had interrupted the work flow by requiring that she [the teacher] repeat instructions, thus pulling her attention away from students who had content issues.

After reflection, the teacher decided that she would

• Give students specific instructions about what to do next after an assignment was completed
• Give these instructions at the beginning of an assignment or class, so class would not be disrupted during instructional time
• Provide instructions about what to do when it was time to change the rotation, post the instructions on the board, and go over them carefully.

The teachers found it helpful to have someone to debrief with, whether it was a technology support person or another teacher. Time was set aside during weekly teacher-team meetings to discuss issues related to technology use. Even informal hallway conversations were helpful in sharing insights and strategies.

Back to menu

A Cycle of Growth and Development

In this middle school, access to technology in the classroom, rather than only in a computer lab, was central to the integration initiative. This access allowed teachers to capitalize on “teachable moments.” Teachers would often stop me in the hallways to tell me what they had just been able to do with technology and how excited the students were. They would describe how students were finding information or creating products that surpassed both students' and teachers' expectations. They said that the active engagement of students with technology made instructional units more interesting and teaching more exciting.

The teachers' efforts to develop expertise with technology, which resulted in increased confidence and comfort levels, was spurred by their commitment to the integration initiative and their belief that it would benefit both themselves and the students. This belief was reinforced by administrators and colleagues, who made possible the time necessary for planning and preparation. Technology integration began to be seen as a beneficial and supportive part of instruction, and was continually refined by teachers' reflections on lessons and activities.

This cycle of commitment, support, planning and preparation, and reflection and refinement has served this school well. At the time of this writing, the school has made a decision to dismantle labs and place more computers in teachers' classrooms, to extend the level of support through creation of two full-time staff positions, and to provide laptops for student use.

Back to menu

References

Berryman, S.E. (1993). Learning for the workplace. In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 19, pp. 343-401). Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.
Back

Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L., & Cocking, R.R. (Eds.). (1999). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Available: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6160.html
Back

Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt (CTGV). (1994). From visual word problems to learning communities: Changing conceptions of cognitive research. In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice (pp. 157-200). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Back

Colburn, L.K. (2000). An analysis of teacher change and required supports as technology is integrated into classroom instruction. Unpublished dissertation, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
Back

Cradler, J. (1994). School-based technology use planning. Educational IRM Quarterly, 3(3-4), 12-16.
Back

Fullan, M.G., & Stiegelbauer, S. (1991). The new meaning of educational change (2nd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press.
Back

Goldberg, B., & Richards, J. (1995). Leveraging technology for reform: Changing schools and communities into learning organizations. Educational Technology, 35(5) 5-16.
Back

Honey, M., & Moeller, B. (1990). Teachers' beliefs and technology integration: Different values, different understandings (Tech. Rep. No. 6). Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 326 203) Abstract available: http://www.edrs.com/Webstore/Detail.CFM?Ednumber=ED326203
Back

Kinzer, C.K., & Leander, K. (in press). Technology and the language arts [tentative title]. In J. Flood, J.M. Jensen, D. Lapp, & J.R. Squire (Eds.), Handbook of research and teaching the English language arts. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Back

Leu, D.J., & Kinzer, C.K. (2000). The convergence of literacy instruction with networked technologies for information, communication, and education. Reading Research Quarterly, 35(1), 108-127. Abstract available: http://www.reading.org/publications/journals/RRQ/abstracts/rrq_abstracts.html
Back

Lunenburg, F., & Irby, B. (1998, April). Goals 2000 and integrated technology: A national status report. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Diego, CA.
Back

Means, B. (1994). Using technology to advance education reform. In B. Means (Ed.), Technology and education reform: The reality behind the promise (pp. 1-21). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Back

Means, B., & Olson, K. (1995). Technology's role within constructivist classrooms. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 383 283) Abstract available: http://www.edrs.com/Webstore/Detail.CFM?Ednumber=ED383283
Back

Moursand, D. (1997). The growth of instructional technology. Learning and Leading with Technology, 25(2), 4-5.
Back

National Education Goals Panel. (1998). 1998 data volume for the National Education Goals Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available: http://www.negp.gov/page9-3.htm
Back

Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). (1995). Teachers and technology: Making the connection (OTA-CHR-616). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Back

President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). (1997). Report to the President on the use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President of the United States.
Back

Salomon, G. (1993). No distribution without individuals' cognition. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 111-138). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Back

Sandholtz, J., Ringstaff, C., & Dwyer, D. (1997). Teaching with technology: Creating student-centered classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press.
Back

Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., & Lamon, M. (1994). The CSILE project: Trying to bring the classroom into world 3. In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice (pp. 201-228). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Back

Valovich, D. (1996). Strategic planning for the successful integration of technology in a private school. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 400 786) Abstract available: http://www.edrs.com/Webstore/Detail.CFM?Ednumber=ED400786
Back

Back to menu

About the Author

Linda Colburn is a research associate at the Center for Reading and Language Arts of the University of Texas at Austin (College of Education, SZB 306, Austin, TX 78712, USA; e-mail lindakcolburn@aol.com), where she evaluates reading academies and, through the Department of Special Education, coordinates a project to integrate technology into middle school language arts classrooms and provide support to teachers in accomplishing this task. She recently completed her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, USA, where her research focused on integrating technology into instruction. Linda is particularly interested in preservice and inservice teacher education, especially in the areas of reading and technology. She has presented at conferences of the American Educational Research Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the International Conference on Technology and Eudcation, and has published in Intervention in School and Clinic and the Journal of Special Education Technology.
Back

To print this article, point and click your mouse anywhere on the article's text; then use your browser's print command.

Citation: Colburn, Linda K. (2000, August). Integrating technology in your middle school classroom: Some hints from a successful process. Reading Online, 4(2). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/electronic/elec_index.asp?HREF=/electronic/colburn/index.html

Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted August 2000
© 2000 International Reading Association, Inc.   ISSN 1096-1232