Training helps teachers transform lifeless equipment into useful tools. Creating high tech educational tools without training teachers to use them would be as useless as creating a new generation of planes, without training pilots to fly them.

We must train the nation's teachers-and the principals and administrators who lead them-or investments in high tech educational resources will be wasted.

Teachers are the key to effective use of web-based tools and applications, but first they must become skilled at using them.

It is the teacher, after all, who guides instruction and shapes the instructional context in which the Internet and other technologies are used. It is a teacher's skill at this, more than any other factor, that determines the degree to which students learn from their Internet experiences. Teachers must be comfortable with technology, able to apply it appropriately, and conversant with new technological tools, resources, and approaches. If all the pieces are put into place, teachers should find that they are empowered to advance their own professional skills through these tools as well.

This is how it should be. Yet we are far from this ideal today.

· Almost two-thirds of all teachers feel they are not at all prepared or only somewhat prepared to use technology in their teaching.1

For some teachers, especially those who are older and were educated "B.C."-before computers-technology seems a foreign element, far from necessary to them in their teaching. They grew up without computers, were educated without them, and have taught their entire careers without them.

· Almost two-thirds of teachers (65 percent) had never used a computer before being introduced to one in the classroom. These teachers need basic technology training, especially those who are receiving computers and using the Internet in their classrooms for the first time.2

Getting Beyond the Basics

Basic technology training alone is not sufficient. A recent survey by the National Education Association (NEA) found that most teachers have some facility using computers. Ninety-four percent of NEA members, and 99 percent of those under 35, are able to surf the Web.3 However, familiarity does not equal proficiency. Most do not know how to apply these skills in classroom instruction.

Common sense holds that technology training for teachers will no longer be an issue if we can wait long enough for a new generation of younger teachers, raised on technology, to enter the profession. However, this is one common sense belief that simply does not hold up to close examination.

Another recent survey4 found that young teachers' self-assessment of their ability to teach with technology was no different than that of their older colleagues. While younger teachers may have basic technology skills-(e.g., the ability to use word-processing software, spreadsheets, presentation software, and Internet browsers)-they realize that they, like their older colleagues, do not know how to apply these skills to teaching.

The ability to use technology for non-instructional purposes does not necessarily translate into either the will or the capability to use technology to support student learning. Although they are not technophobes, these new teachers lack a clear conception of effective classroom uses of technology in their subject area.5

Professional development is the critical ingredient for effective use of technology in the classroom. Seventy percent of educators polled regarding technology in instruction put professional development at the top of their list of technology challenges.6 They said what is needed is both the initial training for those just beginning to use technology and continuing education to support the growth of innovators. Three consecutive years of surveys in higher education showed the same thing: institutions ranked their greatest technological challenge as "assisting faculty to integrate information technology into instruction."7

Professional development is often called "training," but the term implies much more than just building basic technology skills. It means developing a vision built on the understanding that technology is a tool that can offer solutions to longstanding teaching and learning problems. It is more than knowing how to automate past practices. It is the growing understanding that comes with confidence to "think with technology" in order to approach old problems in new ways.

Change is necessary on two fronts: in the preparatory (pre-service) education of teacher candidates, and in the continuing (in-service) education of those already in the education profession. Both groups need assistance and support in using the best tools technology offers to meet teaching goals and challenges.

Professional Development and Technology: Too Little, Too Basic, Too Generic

Some might wonder why past investments in technology training for K-12 classroom teachers have not had a greater impact. The reality is that the money spent on teacher training with technology is just a fraction of what is needed. In 1995, the Office of Technology Assessment sounded the alarm in a report on teachers and technology, urging that schools and districts devote at least 30 percent of technology budgets to teacher training and support.8 Yet, of the $4.2 billion that K-12 schools spent on technology in 1996, only 6 percent was for training.9 This figure is beginning to rise: in the 1999-2000 school year, 17 percent of public school technology spending went to teacher training, according to an annual survey conducted by Market Data Retrieval. Still, this remains far below the mark. Today NEA recommends that schools devote 40 percent of their technology budgets to teacher training.10

The training teachers do receive is usually too little, too basic, and too generic to help them develop real facility in teaching with technology. Ninety-six percent reported that the most common training they received was on basic computer skills.11 Another national survey of public school teachers found that while most (78 percent) received some technology-related professional development in the 1998-99 school year, the training was basic and brief, lasting only 1 to 5 hours for 39 percent of teachers, and just 6 to 10 hours for another 19 percent of those trained.12

Teachers need more than a quick course in basic computer operations. They need guidance in using the best tools in the best ways to support the best kinds of instruction. And they need something more. They need time.

When asked in a National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) survey to name the greatest barrier to their use of computers and the Internet in the classroom, most teachers (82 percent) cited lack of "release time" (time outside classroom) to "learn, practice, or plan ways to use computers or the Internet." This factor outweighed their concern about too few computers (78 percent) or lack of time in the schedule for students to use computers in class (80 percent).13

Comparisons With the Private Sector

Business, for all its pressure to manage the cost of employee time, doesn't operate this way. Once again, the success of the private sector in integrating technology into its operations suggests a better approach for American education.

In the business world, training is tailored, focused, and just-in-time. In the education world, it is more often one-size-fits-all, generic, and just-in-case.

The overwhelming majority (90 percent) of all corporate and government training occurs on paid time.14 In public schools, teachers report just over a third (39 percent) of their professional development occurs on paid time.15 Professionals in other fields expect to be trained regularly. Motorola, long the standard for industry, provides every employee with at least 40 hours of training each year.16

Equally significant, professionals in other fields are provided with follow-up support needed for that training to take root-including immediate access to the hardware and software on which they are trained, Internet connections, and easy access to support personnel and follow-up skill building.

Many teachers have been trained on systems not installed in their schools. Many do not receive follow-up support. Only 67 percent of teachers in the NCES survey reported that follow-up or advanced training was available to them.

Most business professionals have personal computers provided to them at work and some industries give employees computers they can use at home (such as Ford Motor Company). But K-12 teachers rarely are provided these benefits. Although 62 percent of teachers have access to a desktop computer while at school, only 28 percent have the ability to borrow one for occasional use at home.17

Most teachers are not rewarded or reimbursed for the time they spend in training. Just as some teachers spend their own money for classroom supplies, some teachers pay for their own preparation. Many take classes on their own time and pay their own tuition or fees. For example, OnlineLearning.net, an online continuing education provider, offered over 1,000 courses in the past year. Over 6,000 teachers enrolled in these courses. Eighty-five percent paid the $450 tuition fee on their own.18

Technology training rarely translates directly into higher pay for teachers. In fact, a growing concern among schools is the lure of higher salaries offered in the private sector to teachers and administrators who do exhibit strong technical proficiencies or a desire to develop these.

In sum, the message to teachers is a mixed one-we expect you to teach with technology, but we will not help you do so.

There are other ways K-12 teachers are treated differently than professionals in business and industry. Intellectual support, as well as technical support, is rare. A recent national study found that only 13 percent of the nation's teachers work in what could be defined as a "high quality technology-supported environment."19 For most teachers, technical assistance is limited, if available at all.

Another study measuring technology support for district technology coordinators in 27 states found that it took from 14 hours to more than 7 days to fix a technology problem in a school or classroom. The average response time was more than two days.20 While this would be unthinkable in most businesses, imagine what it means to a teacher who has developed a lesson around the Internet, only to discover that the whole class is disrupted for an unknown period of time. It is simply intolerable.

Fewer than 20 percent of all schools have a full-time technology coordinator. In most cases, technology coordinators are charged with training teachers and helping them integrate technology in their classes. In reality, they spend most of their time on technical support. On a weekly basis, full-time technology coordinators spend only 3 to 4 minutes per teacher assisting with technology integration. Part-time technology coordinators perform this kind of assistance only 1 to 2 minutes per week.21

Bringing Teachers Out of Isolation

But the larger problem is one that is endemic to the K-12 teaching profession-the isolation of the classroom teacher. How can Internet access change that?

Most of a teacher's day is spent separated from colleagues, with little time or opportunity to share in the give-and-take of problem-solving common in most office or work environments. For elementary and secondary education teachers, planning periods are few and often occur in isolation. Group meetings are focused on issues that affect the institution as a whole or the department or grade level, but they don't offer the opportunity to express the concerns or share the wisdom of the individual teacher.

Teachers rarely have the opportunity to work with others to share their questions, concerns, and successes. Most are isolated and, unlike other professionals, have little access to the resources they need to stay up to date in their fields. In contrast, teachers in other countries are provided far more paid time for planning: Japanese teachers spend about 40 percent of their paid time on professional development and collaboration compared with about 14 percent for their American counterparts.22

The Internet as a Tool for Teacher Learning

Fortunately, the Internet is making it possible to connect teachers to each other, giving opportunities for mentoring, collaboration, and formal and informal online learning. Traditional one-size-fits-all professional development workshops are giving way to a new, more teacher-centered, self-directed model of teacher learning. Through the Internet, teachers have access to high quality online professional development opportunities beyond what the local school or district is able to offer.

Online courses and seminars, follow-up consultations and mentoring, and collaborations with experts and peers can take place without the expense and classroom disruption created by repeated absences for face-to-face meetings. And, in working in online environments, teachers obtain a collateral benefit: they learn important technological skills.

A supportive social structure is one of the key elements for successful online learning. In projects like SRI International's TAPPED IN program, supported by the National Science Foundation, the technological tools and communication resources serve as the underpinnings of a well-maintained community of practitioners.23 Those wishing to create their own projects are assisted by TAPPED IN support personnel. User groups include school districts, museums, and teacher education programs. Through TAPPED IN, educators can participate in online courses, take their own students online, experiment with new ways to teach or conduct research, or participate in community-wide events. Since opening in 1997, TAPPED IN has served more than 9,000 K-12 teachers, librarians, researchers, teacher education faculty, professional development staff, and other education professionals.

Wanted: Two Million New Teachers

But unless new teachers enter the classroom ready to teach with technology, we will never catch up. If teacher education programs do not address this issue head on, we will lose the opportunity to get it right with a whole generation of new teachers-and the students they teach.

The size of the challenge is staggering.

There are three million teachers in K-12 schools today. In the next decade alone, we must recruit and train two million more new teachers just to replace retirees and to meet expected growth in enrollment.

Put another way, one-third of today's teachers have 20 years or more of teaching experience; two-thirds are in mid-career. As the teacher population ages, moving into retirement, 54.2 million students are expected in K-12 education by 2009, up 2 million from 1997.24 We need a fundamental change in recruiting new teachers, and giving them the tools to do a more effective job.

In the midst of this crisis, teacher education has yet to come to grips with the immediacy of preparing a new generation of teachers to use technology as a teaching tool.

Teacher education programs tend to be profit centers for colleges and universities-they pay for themselves with strong and steady student enrollments and have few of the expenses associated with equipping science laboratories, engineering, or other professional programs.

We should expect a college of education to provide, at a minimum, a high tech teaching laboratory that models instructional use of technology for the entire campus. We should expect college and university presidents and trustees to make the necessary adjustments. Yet this is rarely the case.

As noted in a 1999 report on teacher preparation by the CEO Forum on Education and Technology,26 many teacher education programs "receive less attention than the higher status professional programs in the university such as law, engineering, business, and medicine... (Furthermore, they) have a less affluent alumni base, meaning that large gifts from donors (as well as industry) are harder to obtain."

The most recent Campus Computing Project survey27 asked chief technology officers (CTOs) of higher education institutions to compare the information technology components in departmental programs across their campuses. Overall, the CTOs ranked their campus' education programs eighth of 10 in use of the Internet and Web resources, seventh in the use of technology for instruction, and tied for sixth in preparing their students with the technology skills needed over the next decade.

Most teacher education institutions now offer what is called "the course" in information technology.28 But providing a stand-alone course about technology is not the same as ensuring that courses in teaching methods integrate technology as a way of building understanding or assessing learning.

Faculty in teacher education programs, many of whom were educated and taught in schools before computers were a part of the educational landscape, are not comfortable or skilled in teaching with technology. This problem extends across the college experience of teacher candidates. If they do not see their faculty use technology in the courses they take outside their teaching major (whether in science, literature, math, and history departments), tomorrow's teachers will not have a full understanding of how technology advances understanding in each academic area.

It is clear that the need for professional development in technology among higher education faculty parallels that required by educators in K-12 schools. It is also clear that our campus higher education leaders have a deep responsibility for modernizing their colleges of education and incorporating a priority on teaching and learning with technology.

Making Professional Development in Technology a High Priority

There are, of course, exceptions and promising new practices that suggest change is coming. These include leadership initiatives undertaken by Congress, the states, universities, professional organizations, and the business community.

· The Higher Education Act Amendments, passed by Congress and signed into law in 1998, provide a gateway for technology integration in college teacher education programs. A major objective within the section of the Act focusing on enhancing the quality of teaching in the U.S. is to "hold institutions of higher education accountable for preparing teachers who have the necessary teaching skills and are highly competent in the academic content areas in which the teachers plan to teach, such as mathematics, science, English, foreign languages, history, economics, art, civics, Government, and geography, including training in the effective uses of technology in the classroom..." (emphasis added)29

· An increasing number of states (42) now require teachers to demonstrate proficiency in technology as one component for receiving certification. However, only 4 require technology training for re-certification.30

· The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE),31 the largest accreditation association of schools, colleges, and departments of education, has made technology an area of accreditation focus. While this is an important leadership message, only 38 percent of the nation's 1,300 teacher preparation programs are accredited by NCATE. Many schools, colleges, and departments of education choose not to apply to NCATE; others have been unable to meet its standards.

· The CEO Forum developed a special STaR (School Technology and Readiness) self-assessment tool for schools and colleges of education.32 At the urging of Education Secretary Richard Riley and President Bill Clinton in May 2000, 243 institutions have "taken the pledge" to conduct self-assessments as a first step for turning their programs around and moving from "early tech" or "developing tech" to "advanced tech" or "target tech."33

New funding initiatives have also led to promising practices. The National Science Foundation-supported "Inquiry Learning Forum"34 is a model of using the Internet for teacher growth. The U.S. Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers with Technology (PT3) Program, begun in 1999, is bringing new ideas, new collaborations, and new models to teacher education. The PT3 program has made $150 million in federal funding available to 352 teacher preparation institutions to help them develop capacity, implement new programs, and provide innovative catalysts for broader change. These programs are just beginning to take root, but they offer promise for the future.35

ENDNOTES
1. United States. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (1999). Fast Response Survey System, Public School Teachers Use of Computers and the Internet, FRSS 70, Washington, D.C. 1999.
2. Michael Moe and Henry Blodgett. The Knowledge Web. p. 104. Merrill Lynch & Co., Global Securities Research & Economics Group, Global Fundamental Equity Research Department. 2000.
3. National Education Association. Annual NEA Today Readership Survey. 2000. http://www.nea.org
4. Market Data Retrieval. New Teachers and Technology. Shelton, C.N. 2000
5. Means, Barbara. "Accountability in Preparing Teachers to Use Technology." p 58. Council of Chief State School Officers. 2000 State Educational Technology Conference Papers. Washington, DC. 2000.
6. Data refer to 24-hour poll conducted online in preparation for testimony to the Joint Economic Committee on July 7, 2000. Classroom Connect. e-Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. August 25, 2000. http://www.webcommission.org/directory.

7. Green, Kenneth C. Campus Computing Project. 2000. http://www.campuscomputing.net
8. Office of Technology Assessment. Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection. OTA-HER-616. Washington, D.C. 1995. http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~ota/disk1/1995/9541.html
9. The CEO Forum on Education and Technology. From Pillars to Progress. Washington, D.C. 1999. http://www.ceoforum.org
10. Moe and Blodgett, op. cit. endnote 2. p. 104
11. United States. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2000). Teachers' Tools for the 21st Century. A Report on Teachers Use of Technology, NCES 2000-102, Figure 5.4. Smerdon, Becky, Stephanie Cronen, Lawrence Lanahan, Jennifer Anderson, Nicholas Iannotti, and January Angeles. Washington, D.C. 2000. http://nces.ed.gov/spider/webspider/2000102.shtml
12. Market Data Retrieval, op. cit., endnote 4.
13. United States. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2000). op. cit. endnote 11. Figure 6.1. http://nces.ed.gov/spider/webspider/2000102.shtml
14. Training Magazine's 18th Annual Industry Report.. TRAINING Magazine Vol. 36. No. 10, p. 37. 1999.
15. United States. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2000). Op. cit. endnote 11. Figure 5.8. http://nces.ed.gov/spider/webspider/2000102.shtml
16. Meyer, Kathleen, Matt Kelemen and Stephanie Weiss. Motorola (Case Studies) Harvard Business School Case Program. 1996. http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu.
17. Ronnkvist, Amy M., Sara L. Dexter and Ronald E. Anderson. Report #5: Technology Support: Its Depth, Breadth and Impact in American Schools. Table 2. Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations, University of California, Irvine and University of Minnesota. 2000. http://www.crito.uci.edu/tlc/findings/technology-support/startpage.htm
18. Arkatov, Alan. OnlineLearning.net. Personal communication. November 26, 2000
19. Ronnkvist, Dexter & Anderson. op. cit. endnote 17. p. 19.
20. Solomon, L. and J. Wiederhorn. Progress of Technology in the Schools: 1999-Report on 27 States. Milken Exchange on Education and Technology. Milken Family Foundation. Santa Monica, CA. 2000.
21. Ronnkvist, Dexter & Anderson. op. cit. endnote 17. p. 5.
22. Committee for Education Funding. Education Budget Alert for Fiscal Year 2000. p. 42. Washington, DC. 1999.
23. Schlager, Mark. e-Testimony to the Web-based Education Commission. August 16, 2000. For more information, see http://www.tappedin.org/; to view e-Testimony see http://www.webcommission.org/directory
24. United States. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (1999). Projections of Education Statistics to 2009, NCES 1999-038, Gerald, Debra E. and William J. Hussar. Washington, D.C. 1999. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/1999038.pdf
25. United States. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (1997). Characteristics of Stayers, Movers, and Leavers: Results from the Teacher Followup Survey, 1994-95, NCES 97-450. Washington, D.C. 1997. http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=97450

26. The CEO Forum on Education and Technology. Teacher Preparation STaR Chart. Washington, D.C. 2000. http://www.ceoforum.org/downloads/tpreport.pdf
27. Green. op. cit. endnote 7.
28. This figure is 85 percent, according to Will New Teachers Be Prepared To Teach In A Digital Age?, a National Survey on Information Technology in Teacher Education. The Milken Exchange and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). 1999. http://www.mff.org/pubs/ME154.pdf
29. P. L. 105-244. 1998 Amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965. Title II-Teacher Quality Enhancement Grants for States and Partnerships. Sec. 201 (a) (3).
30. Trotter, Andrew "Preparing Teachers for the Digital Age" Technology Counts '99. Education Week. p. 42, Vol. XIX, Number 4. September 23, 1999.
31. For more information, see http://www.ncate.org
32. For more information, see http://www.ceoforum.org
33. Data from CEO Forum for Education and Technology website on Oct. 30, 2000. http://www.ceoforum.org
34. This initiative is descibed in the Illustrated Story "Helping Isolated Teachers Make New Connections" in this report. For more information, see http://ilf.crlt.indiana.edu
35. For more information, see http://pt3.org