Teaching for Understanding with Technology

Here's a fresh and insightful look at how technology can enhance learning. Forget the computer rooms and all the fancy hardware. If you don't make technology part of the learning process, you're missing the critical link. A must-read for teachers, educators, and anyone else who wants to transmit ideas and help others think in new and bold ways. --Robert B. Reich, Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy, Brandeis University Teaching for Understanding with Technology is an important owner?s manual for educators, as well as policymakers and the larger public, on the most effective uses for technology in the classroom. The authors combine their perspective from the university and the school classroom to show how powerful ideas in learning can be realized in the work of teachers and students. --Milton Chen, executive director, The George Lucas Educational Foundation This book supports innovative pedagogical theory with classroom-based examples of how to teach with Internet-based and other technology tools. The Teaching for Understanding framework provides a roadmap for educators seeking to use and assess the full potential of technology in the classroom, whether they are poised on the on-ramp or already cruising the information superhighway. It is required reading for both teachers, education policymakers and global educators. --Dr. Edwin Gragert, executive director, iEARN-USA (International Education and Resource Network) At last, a book written with the practitioner in mind. Teaching for Understanding with Technology will serve as an invaluable guide for educators everywhere. The authors speak in real terms, through the eyes of real students and teachers. The vignettes show how technology can empower and motivate both student and teacher. As a principal and instructional manager, I see this book as a must-have blueprint for all educators. I intend to purchase a copy for every staff member in my building. --Mary Skipper, headmaster, TechBoston Academy, Dorchester, Massachusetts If you have any doubts about the way in which technology can enrich the learning of all students, you are holding the book you need to read. Stone details the ways in which Kristi is reinventing learning in the age of technology and explains why this approach is so essential. What is remarkable is that when you treat first graders like graduate students they end up acting like them. --Margaret Riel, senior researcher, Center for Technology in Learning SRI, and visiting professor, Pepperdine University This book is about translation and transformation, using the new technologies to improve teaching and learning. It demonstrates how these new technologies, essential ingredients in education in the twenty-first century, can support teachers as they refine their practice, and make learning a deeper and more lasting experience---students learn to understand. The book makes an elegant case for the appropriate and informed use of technology in our schools. --Isa Kaftal Zimmerman, director, Technology in Education Program, Lesley University This book is needed so that all educators will understand how to use the power of technology to propel teaching and student learning. Teachers need to understand how to create classroom projects with technology that build on the students? interests and extend those interests by having students communicating and collaborating with peers around the globe. This book can help teachers break through the barriers of integrating technology into their curriculum. Classrooms can then become learning environments where students reach out to their world and find their place in it. --Katherine Law, Seattle public school teacher and lead educational technologist