Abstract
The educational system in the United States has traditionally operated on the basis of decentralized decision-making processes and diverse philosophies and practices. No national curriculum currently exists for any subject, let alone the relatively newborn subject of computer education. Nevertheless, national movements do emerge out of wide and long-standing concerns over improving educational outcomes for all U.S. students and the research and debates that accompany that goal. America began to bring computers into the schools relatively early, one consequence of which is a relatively large standing inventory of more outdated equipment alongside the recent acquisitions of newer technologies such as CD-ROMS and videodiscs. Today, “technology integration” is the ascending curricular model for computer education, wherein the teachers of several non-computer subjects together share the responsibility for teaching basic computing skills to students. Investigations into the effectiveness of different models and into training methods that would improve teachers’ abilities to keep pace with the rapidly changing technology are sorely needed.
This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number SED-9154511. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of the National Science Foundation.
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Anderson, R.E. (1996). The United States Context of Computers in Education. In: Plomp, T., Anderson, R.E., Kontogiannopoulou-Polydorides, G. (eds) Cross National Policies and Practices on Computers in Education. Technology-Based Education Series, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-32767-9_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-32767-9_23
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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