Overview

Educational Structure

Educational Technology

Case Study

  Notes: This work will become a part of the e-book, The World Almanac of Educational Technologies, at http://www.waet.uga.edu/.

Part 1. National Case

1. General Description

A. Overview

China is the world’s largest country by population, about one-fifth of the world’s population—1.3 billion people. Geographically, China is the third largest country, about the same size as the United States. Over the last 20 years, China has become the world's fastest-growing country with a growth rate approaching 10% each year. However, the economic development is not balanced across the nation. China can be divided into the following three developmentally different economic belts: east, middle, and west. The east area is a highly developed and populous area; while the west area has a smaller population, more resources and remains economically underdeveloped and in need of growth. For example, according to the latest version of China Statistical Yearbook (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2005), the national GDP in 2004 is 13687.6 billon RMB ($ 1669 billion) and the GDP per capita is about 1,300 dollar. In Xiaoshan, a city in the east area, the GDP per capita is over $4,000 dollars, while Anshun, a city in the southwest area, is only $400 dollars. The income imbalance is a main economic characteristic of China. This imbalance across the nation further influences the inequities of educational development and information technology use in education across the nation, as further discussed later.

Figure 1. Rural area in East China

B. History

China is also one of the oldest civilizations in the world - with more than five thousand years of continuous history. Culturally, the Chinese society values educated people and every family usually emphasizes children’s education. The traditional importance of education and the Chinese education system were greatly influenced by Confucius, a great educator and philosopher who lived 2500 years ago. In China, he is considered as the first professional teacher and the first person to establish private schools. His thoughts on education regarding morality, art, and social relationships were adopted by governments of each following generation and served as a cornerstone of traditional culture and the education system for the next 2500 years. The curriculum based on Confucianism focused on language, literature, art, and ethics. The last one hundred years has witnessed the introduction of western education which added a science curriculum, including subjects like chemistry, physics, and biology, resulting in a new modern educational framework. The focus of this chapter is on modern Chinese education, its structure and a case study which illustrates the impact of such implementation on an individual level.

Figure 2: Confucius was teaching (551 B.C. to 479 B.C.).

2. Educational System

A. Compulsory Education
The most current ongoing educational reform has taken place since 1978, when China ended the Cultural Revolution and began to implement economic reforms and open policies. One important measure of educational reform is the increase of educational opportunities for children and the reduction of the illiteracy rate among the population across the nation. In 1986, the Compulsory Education Act, the first educational law, was established as a milestone for this educational reform. According to the Compulsory Education Act, all children over six years of age are required to have a nine-year mandatory education, including stages of primary school and junior secondary education. This education is essentially free, although students pay some small fees, like book fees, for example. By 2000, Chen (2002), the Minister of Education, claims that China has achieved the nine-year compulsory education and eliminated illiteracy among young adults. China has made tremendous progress in terms of the number of children who enter schools. The 2010 benchmark is to continue to work toward the nine-year compulsory education in more poverty-stricken areas and also to implement a twelve-year compulsory education in economically developed areas (Decision on Basic Education Reform and Development, 2001).

Figure 3. Parents waiting picking their children from school.

B. Structure of Schooling

The structure of China’s basic education (corresponding to K-12 in the US) is a 6-3-3 pattern, consisting of 6 years of elementary school, 3 years of middle school, and 3 years of high school (See Table 1 below for greater detail). K-12 schools have two semesters each year. The total school time is between 38 to 40 weeks per year with five school days each week. Generally speaking, curriculum planning and development in China is highly centralized and is governed by the Ministry of Education. As a result, schools across the nation use the same textbooks, syllabi, and curriculum settings. Although local level textbooks, materials, and syllabi have been encouraged more since 1986 (http://www.moe.edu.cn/base/zonghe/04.htm), the centralized educational framework still dominates and the general curriculum tends to be uniform nationally.

Diagram 1. China Education Structure

C. School Statistics

China has high attendance rates in national schools as shown in Table 2. Currently, there are about 200 million students in the elementary and middle schools, and there will be 200 million more entering schools in the next 10 years (Chen, 2002). This group of the population has exerted enormous pressure on the limited resources and funds, and also negatively impacted information technology adoption in schools. For example, in 2003 the total educational funding was 620.83 billion RMB (around $75 billion US). Among this, the national expenditure on education is 385. 06 billion, which is the 3.3 of GDP (the objective is a 4% of GDP) (National Statistical Yearbook, 2005 ).
Table 1. Basic Statistics of Regular Schools in China by Level & Type

Data Source: China Education and Research Network http://www.edu.cn/20011219/3014655.shtml#1

D. Teacher Preparation

The teaching force in China primarily comes from professional teaching schools, teachers colleges, and universities. In most areas, a college degree is still not required to be a teacher in elementary school. In rural or poverty-stricken areas of China, an elementary school teacher could be someone who graduates from any specialized professional training high school. A specialized professional high school trains teachers for elementary school for a period of four years. The first three years are for pre-service teachers to learn the content knowledge and the last year is for teaching practice or internship. In the developed areas of China, some elementary school teachers hold an associates degree. They attend specialized teacher training colleges for two or three years to earn a degree and certification for teaching. For middle school teaching, a two or three year associates degree is usually required, and many young teachers have four-year bachelors degrees now. To teach in high school, a bachelor’s degree is required although increasingly young teachers possess master’s degrees. Of course, the requirement for teachers may vary across regions due to the economic conditions and availability of education and training facilities.

E. Classroom, Curriculum and Instruction

An average class size in China is approximately 40-50 students. The ratio of students to teachers in K-12 schools is around 15-20:1. The classroom is usually occupied with limited space for students to walk and to play. There are usually 4 to 10 classes per grade, depending on a school’s enrollment.

Figure 4. A typical classroom in China.

Influenced by a former Russian educator, I.A. Kairov, a teacher-centered lecture method is the major teaching approach. The instructional process usually follows this pattern: organizing instruction – reviewing – delivering new content – enhancing knowledge learned – giving assignments.
Courses in K-12 schools include Chinese, English, math, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, history, citizenship education, politics, PE, arts, music, and computer science. Some provinces and cities have recently attempted to integrate physics, chemistry, biology and part of geography into one course simply called science, and history, citizenship education, and part of geography into another course called social science.

F. Educational Assessment

Examination is the primary assessment tool in China. Before the 1990s, the most important assessment for elementary school students was an exam that included Chinese language arts and math topics and was held at the end of the sixth grade. This exam determined whether or not the students could graduate and move into middle schools to continue their studies. Later, due to implementation of the Compulsory Education Act, that exam [for admission into middle schools] was gradually made obsolete. Today students are usually assigned to the school district nearest their homes. Perhaps due to limited educational resources, examination is still a principal method used for determining if middle school students can gain entrance to a better higher school and for high school students to enter a higher ranked college. As such, administrators, teachers, and families usually pay great attention to student test scores each semester. This examination system is one of main factors influencing technology integration and new instructional model adoption in China.

 

3. Information Technology in Education

A. Status of Educational Informatization

Educational technologies are experiencing rapid growth in today’s China. The term "educational informatization" is used herein to refer to the general use of computers in education. Educational Informatization is equivalent to information technology in education. According to Zhu (1999), East Asian countries use the term because of oriental language format and thinking habit. Since 1994, the government began to set up China education and research network (CERNET), a national infrastructure to provide the Internet connection for universities, K-12 schools, and other educational institutions. By 2002, more than 26 thousand schools were connected via local area networks (http://www.niec.org.cn/xxhdt/rlzyxxh030218-1.htm). About 90% of high schools, 65% middle schools in the medium and large cities, and about 10% of elementary schools had introduced information technology curriculums (Zhu, 2003) at that same time. Some economically-advantaged schools have also begun to create wireless networks.
Meanwhile, according to Zhu (2003), over 5.8 million computers were installed in Chinese schools by 2002. The average ratio of students to computers is 35: 1. Schools in the economically developed east have a higher ratio than that of the west which is economically-disadvantaged. For example, Shanghai and Beijing, respectively, have a 16:1 and 14:1 ratio of students to computers . Other provinces in the west like Yunnan, Guizhou, and Ganshu the ratios have 170:1,118:1 and 93:1 respectively (http://www.ccnews.com.cn/03.6/c.jiaoyuxinxihua.htm). These numbers clearly illustrate the increased access in the east and the urban areas over the poorer western rural areas. The regional imbalance of educational technology is the most significant “digital divide” in China.
2003 funding for educational technology for the K-12 system reached approximately 20 billion RMB ($2.4 billion US), representing about 4% of the total educational funding in China. China implements a centralized educational system, and almost 80% of the funding for technology comes from the government, including the department of education, local government, and educational administration. However a small portion of funding comes from company donations or technology fees from students. Sixty to seventy percent of funding goes to hardware and networking equipment (http://www.china-edo.com/news/jiaoyutongxun/). These figures illustrate an existing tendency to invest heavily in hardware, while too little is devoted to software and professional training.

B. Major Government Policies

Education Informatization is viewed as a driving force for educational modernization and Quality Education (one major trend) by government in China according to the current national plan called The Tenth Five-Year Plan for National Education (2000). The Ministry of Education established two main measures for the process of the introduction of Educational Informatization: to accomplish the Xiaoxiaotong project and to generalize information technology as a mandatory course in K-12 schools.
The goal of “Xiaoxiaotong” project is to improve the information technology infrastructure, facilities, and information resources for schools (Ministry of Education, http://www.edu.cn/20020327/3023655.shtml). One concrete objective is to have 90% of K-12 schools connected to the Internet in the next 5 to 10 years. Given the regional imbalance, the policy allows different deadlines for the eastern, central, and western regions. In some economically developed areas and cities, most schools have already set up Internet connections. For poor, rural, and/or more remote areas, the government gives support via policy as well as finance, and also encourages collaboration and funding from private entities and corporate sponsors. In the few areas unable to connect to the Internet, schools are still encouraged to get equipped with some technology, like multimedia computers, projectors, CD ROMs, etc..

Another important measure for education Informatization is to establish information technology into the curriculum as mandatory course (Chen, 2000). Three stages were set up according to a given school’s economic condition. By 2001, most high schools and middle schools in larger and medium-sized cities should have provided an information technology course. Currently, most economically developed areas and cities have created an information technology course. By 2005, all middle schools and elementary schools in cities and economically developed areas should have established an information technology course. By 2010, more than 90% of the schools nationally should have information technology courses for students.

In addition, technology integration with other subjects is also encouraged. Now there are many kinds of exemplary lessons using multimedia and the Internet network shown in national conferences. However, most exemplary lessons remain in the teacher-centered model. In order to promote learner-centered technology integration, a collective training project called Intel® Teach to the Future was adopted by the teaching education bureau in the Ministry of Education in collaboration with Intel. The Intel® Teach to the Future was launched by Intel in 2000 for worldwide teachers to effectively integrate technology into the classroom and to enhance student learning using computers (http://www97.intel.com/education/teach/index.htm). By 2002, about 105,000 K-12 teachers in 18 provinces attended the training (2002,
http://www.moe.edu.cn/moe-dept/shifan/next/xiangmuhezuo.htm ). Since its paradigm is different from the traditional Kairov teacher-centered paradigm, the training may open an opportunity for K-12 teachers to consider new instructional models and perspectives that encourage more learner-centered and constructivist pedagogies.

C. Future of Educational Informatization

China has many uncertainties, many issues and many hopes. China is growing rapidly in terms of economic development - around 8% each year. China has an enormous population. Many factors need to be considered in the process of educational information and technology. Four key factors are worth considering: the imbalanced regional economic situation; the single traditional Kairov model of an instructivist nature; an examination driven assessment system; and teachers’ lack of information literacy.
First, due to the unbalanced economic climate, the implementation of an educational information technology plan requires attention to local economic levels and conditions. Given that China adopts a centralized administrative framework, it is especially important to consider local characteristics in order to effectively transform a national plan into a local plan.
Second, the traditional teacher-centered paradigm may prevent effective technology integration. Most teachers were taught under the Kairov pedagogy, and this model has dominated Chinese education for approximately fifty years. The most common use of computer technology in a classroom is to use PowerPoint to present instructional notes. Basically, technologies are used as teachers’ tools. In order to rebuild a new education and use technology as learners’ tools, multiple instructional models should be encouraged and adopted in teacher education and training.
Third, the current examination-oriented education system is a great barrier for technology integration in schools. Due to limited resources, examination is still the only gateway to a student’s access to better educational opportunities; therefore, academic test performance is unconsciously weighted. The test performance generally refers to performance on language arts, math, science, politics, etc., while other performances, like information literacy, research skills, and so forth are considered as secondary performance levels. China continues to increase educational opportunities and the examination pressure has begun to be transferred to employment pressure. These changes will require schools to focus more on students’ whole ability and to construct a new assessment system. Hopefully, some focus shift will provide more space for technology integration using a learner-centered paradigm, and technology will become recognized for its potential as a student tool.
Fourth, teacher qualification regarding information literacy is inadequate. Information technology integration into the curriculum in K-12 classrooms has not been fully achieved. Teachers do not have enough information technology training. Moreover, most teachers still see themselves as preparing students to pass examinations and to enter a better school. To give 10 million K-12 teachers professional development on both technology literacy as well as new instructional models remains a mammoth challenge.
To rebuild a new education is not just depending on a simple variable, say, technology variable, but depending on many variables in a dynamic social system. The factors discussed above need to be considered in educational Informatization process as well as Quality Education in China.

[Notes: Since China is under rapid development, the data and description here may not remain accurate for any extended period. For example, five years ago, very few students could enter college due to limited capacity. Now almost all students in economically developed areas can be admitted to college. Readers need a flexible perspective when examining the education system and educational Informatization in China. You may want to watch a video I made to learn more about China education. The Video, Children's Educational Life in China, depicts one day in the life of school children in China. It is a fifteen minute long video and a quicktime format.]

Part 2. Individual Case

Lucy, our case study teacher, lives in a small eastern city called Zhuji, in the middle of Zhejiang Province. Lucy is about thirty years old, a mother of a six-year old boy, and has worked as a teacher for more than ten years. She was previously a middle school physics teacher but decided to transfer to an elementary school as an information technology teacher in 2001 during a national movement to implement information technology curriculum in K-12 schools.

Geopolitical Description

Zhejiang province is located in the Yangzhi Delta and plays a significant role in terms of economic and cultural aspects of China. Over 2000 years old, Zhuji is an ancient town and has a population of one hundred thousand people. Annual per capita GDP is approximately US $ 3000 in 2004 (http://www.zhuji.net/ ). Zhuji is also viewed as a rich educational environment. People in Zhuji respect teachers and value education. In the early 1990s, schools in this city had already achieved the nine-year compulsory education required by the Ministry of Education.

Figure. Where is the case located?

Image Source: http://www.index-china-travel.com/ attraction.html

Zhuji school district has 217 K-12 schools, 9,000 teachers and 166400 students. Most schools in China are public schools funded and administered by the government, although more recently, private schools have been encouraged. There are, however, only 11 private schools, representing only 10% percent of the students in Zhuji. (http://www.zhuji.net/)
As encouraged by policy, Zhuji has been carrying out the Educational Informatization process. By 2002, 7325 computers had been installed in the city schools and the ratio of students to computers was 22:1. 100% high schools, 98% middle schools, and over 90% of elementary schools in the city have at least one computer lab. Technology has been used for both instruction and administration. A local educational network for the school district (http://www.zjjy.com/index.jsp) has been established for information, communication, and resource sharing. Almost all schools have an Internet connection and an information technology course, which means that they have achieved the basic component of the “Xiaoxiaotong” project. There is a yearly-based competition of CAI courseware, lesson plans, and exemplary classes in the Zhuji school district. A teacher’s skill in using modern educational technology is one important index for assessment and promotion of the teacher. Currently, the direction for Educational Informatization in the Zhuji school district is technology integration and information resource development.

Lucy and her school

Lucy’s school was a newly built experimental school in 1991. The idea of “experimental” schools were developed to foster innovation in teaching and learning; however, in actuality most experimental schools have the same instructional methods and administrative structure as other general schools. Normally, the educational quality of experimental schools is in the middle-upper status. In Lucy’s school, there are both experimental classes and normal classes. The curriculum, texts, instructional activities, assessments are same for both types of classes. Experimental classes generally have a faster instructional pace, and increased course load for students. For example, experimental classes have information technology courses from the first grade, while normal classes start from the third grade, as required by the new national curriculum standard.
Lucy’s school has 81 classes across six grades, 3,515 students, and 187 teachers and staff. Approximately 86% of teachers hold an associates degree. Most younger teachers (those younger than 35) have a basic knowledge of computer and courseware development. Informational technology usage in her school is comparable to other schools in China. Since 2001, the school began to generalize electronic versions of lesson plans. Teachers in an instructional group (teachers who teach the same subject), a common cohort method in China, come to prepare their lesson plans together on every Wednesday nights. The main task of that night is to upload lesson plans to the database on the school network. The news, messages, and notices are posted through the school network. As Lucy described, teachers in her schools have grown accustomed to browsing the school webpage (http://www.zjsyxx.com/) when they arrive at work each morning. Such conscientiousness could be seen as a relatively higher level of informatization in the Zhuji experimental school.

Figure 5. Lucy is teaching her information technology class.

Like many other K-12 teachers in China, Lucy has a heavy workload and often works overtime. She usually arrives at school before 7:15 am and is not able to go home until 5pm, and quite often she needs to bring work home with her. She teaches an information technology course for experimental classes from grades 1 to grade 4, totaling 18 classes each week. She also needs to take care of an interest group, a very common format of extracurricular activity for students in China. As an exemplary teacher, Lucy assists other teachers who are giving public classes in her school district. Every Thursday night she provides a training session for young teachers in her school, which is a kind of school-level professional development.

Although Lucy has a heavy workload, she is very successful. She has produced many excellent projects during four creative years, including lesson plans, courseware, and academic papers. She serves as a chapter editor on an information technology textbook for elementary schools in Zhejiang Province. She has created many exemplary technology integration lessons, like “fairy tale kingdom” and “poem garden”, which are similar to the WebQuest model. Her lesson called “calculator, date, and time” won a national award in the 7th national public show of elementary school informational technology and curricular integration. Her “poem garden” won a first prize on the 7th Grobla Chinese Computers in Education and has been published in its proceedings. Six of her lesson plans were included in a book written by a professor in East China Normal University. To date, she has published 5 papers at both national and regional levels. Her papers entitled “Create an Online Poem Garden, Integrate Teaching in Playing for Whole Development” and “Information Technology Text Material and Teaching Strategy” also won national prizes. In addition, her public class won an excellent class prize and several her courseware examples have won regional prizes.

Figure 6: a public class in an elementary school.

As a result of her many achievements, Lucy is considered a very successful elementary information technology teacher. When she was asked how she could be so successful, she replied modestly, “It is only lucky. I may see all five petals of Flos Caryophyllata.(which means lucky).” Is it really luck? What makes her classes and teaching exemplary? In the following sections we examine her perceptions about technology, her use of technology, and her concerns about technology integration.

Lucy’s Technology Integration Experience

When asked, “what’s the value of computers in schools in your mind?” She responded, “a computer is just a learning tool like a paper and a pen, and it should be integrated into a student’s learning process and be used to solve a real life problem.” She believes that the goal of an information technology class is not only to teach some basic computer skills, but also to teach using computer to learn. With this assumption in her mind, she tries to transform the content in the information technology textbook to be an authentic, student centered, task-driven, creative, and collaborative activity.
The lesson of “calculator, date, and time” is one unit in a fourth grade textbook. The instructional task of this unit is to teach students to use a calculator application and to set the time and date on a computer. To learn the function and operation of a calculator application is not imaginative, and its instructional outcome is normally not exemplary. So, Lucy transformed this unit and adjusted the instructional sequence. She integrated the unit with the topic of Beijing’s bid to host the 2008 Olympic Game. The successful bid to host the 2008 Olympic Game is one very familiar topic in China, and most children are interested in the topic. In addition, she also integrated the unit with mathematics skills students learn from mathematics classes.
When the class began, she created a context and introduced the task by showing a five minute video when China successfully became the candidate to host the 2008 Olympic Game on July 13, 2001. Lucy then asked students what day is July 13, 2001. The students were unsure. Then she introduced students to the method of solving the problem by using the “date and time properties window”. During this task, she circulated around the room and helped students with problems. Sometimes she had a high-level student demonstrate the skill he or she had used. After most students had finished the first task, a similar task was given to students on how many days were left for the Olympic games to begin in Beijing. A student needs to figure out the formula with the knowledge of mathematics and uses the calculator application to solve the problem. Finally, a small quiz was also used to enforce students’ skills on using the calculator application. In short, students learned designated instructional content by accomplishing a life-related task.
During SARS (a grisly epidemical disease) in 2003, when almost all school activity had been stopped, Lucy organized an online activity “Against SARS. Online Action”. In that very critical time, students were motivated to produce many posters about health and create articles praising hospital workers via the Internet. That is another good example illustrating Lucy’s commitment to the concept that technology integration is intended as a tool to solve problems, and these problems must be authentic, related to real life, and interesting for children at an appropriate psychological level.

Figure 7. This quiz assignment has been placed under each keyboard before the class began. When students have finished their task calculating days before 2008 Beijing Olympic Game, students were asked to take this out from under the keyboard and chose any two sets of numbers among the five loops. They solved quiz with the calculator application and explored the rules for each set.

Lucy’s idea for technology integration is to use the school network as a public showcase and she sees this as a learning activity and an evaluation technique. Evaluation is an important part of the learning process. She believes that students would be more able to achieve excepted learning outcomes through evaluation. Lucy is well aware of this, so she tries to make evaluation a student-centered activity, rather than a teacher-centered activity. She created a BBS, website, as a place where students are able to share their work, to evaluate peer work, and to provide feedback to each other. Her web sites of “fairy tale kingdom”, “poem garden”, and others provide students an online environment to upload and share electronic works and to participate in evaluation activities, including self-assessment, peer assessment, teacher assessment and parental assessment. Some excellent work has a link on the school homepage, so that more students and teachers can visit these works.

The instructional task of “poem garden” is to teach students how to use clip art. In order to teach these skills effectively, she didn’t teach the steps to use the clip art database directly. She realized that playing with poems and pictures is a hobby for most children. As a result, she created a task for the class that required students to match poetry with clip art.
This required two one-hour sessions inside of class and two sessions outside of class. Before the class began, she set up a website on the school network (http://www.zjsyxx.com/syxx/zxc/shigeleyue/index.htm). At the beginning of the class, she used a recorder to play a famous Chinese poem to set up the context. She then told students that “Today, teacher (Lucy referred to herself) wants to bring you to a funny garden. Guess what it is!” After that, she opened the website, “Well, it’s a poem garden. Do you want to go inside and play?” Afterward she introduced the task, “the pixie in the poem garden needs everybody who visits the garden to bring new work.” There was a task list on the webpage. Students had three choices. (a) Use an ancient poem, “Sing for the goose” to create a “song for the goose” picture with clip art, according to the context of the poem; (b) choose a poem you like and create a poster with the poem and clip art; or (c) write your own poem, and match it with clip art. Before students started working on their tasks, Lucy showed an example of using clip art to create a work suitable for the poem garden. After students had finished, they were asked to publish their work on the website, to read peer work, and to provide feedback. Students also improved their work based on the peer feedback. Parents were also invited to read student work and to give feedback. Most of those activities were placed on the school network. Lucy said that the network has connected students, students and teachers, students and parents, inside and outside class. In sum, she finished the unit by generating a task allowing students to be motivated and using the school network as a public showplace allowing other students, teachers, and parents to participate.

Figure 8. A work example created by a student in the poem garden.

The lesson “Fairy Tale Kingdom” is another example using the school webpage as a public showplace. The instructional task of the lesson was to teach Microsoft PowerPoint skills. Lucy once again changed the task of learning PowerPoint to the task of editing a fairy tale and then publishing it online. Students were encouraged to upload their work to the website, and to gain feedback from peers, teachers, and parents. By showing themselves through the network, students improved their skills in PowerPoint as well as the ability to express their own personality. Online web display is an approach at conducting multi-dimensional evaluation and this evaluation becomes an activity to improve the learning process.

Figure 9. Students are collaborating in a computer lab.

Lucy’s Concerns

The first concern Lucy has is that informational technology teachers in China assume much more workload than those in other subjects. The job is heavily loaded with miscellaneous tasks beyond teaching class, such as repairing computers, maintaining the network, developing courseware, tutoring students for contests, preparing computer labs before computerized tests, and more. Especially when teachers in her school district plan to have a public class, Lucy needs to help them. Further, Lucy has developed more than 20 units of courseware in a single semester in 2001. She spent almost every evening at school, and went back home around midnight each night. She kept working for most weekends. Her three-year-old son missed her so much that he cries often, wanting to see her. Often she is completely booked. She expressed her perplexity in a forum, “information technology teacher = developing courseware + fixing computer + maintaining networking.” She believes she should do all this work, however, as an information technology teacher, she emphasized that, “I am a teacher; the focus of my position is teaching and researching.”
Moreover, Lucy feels that information technology teachers frequently are not valued as highly as other subject area teachers. In China, the most important index for measuring school value is based on the proportion of students that enter a higher-level school with a higher academic performance. Such academic performance refers to student performance in language arts, mathematics, English, and science (in the case of elementary schools), or physics, chemistry, and biology, and so on (in case of middle and high schools). Thus teachers in these fields play a major role in the schools, while the information technology teacher is considered second-rank. This is how Lucy feels about her role in her school. Fortunately, one of headmasters in her school is very supportive of using information technology; therefore she feels her position is much better than technology teachers in other schools.
Another frustration in being a technology coordinator is her gender. She confessed that a female teacher or coordinator is not well respected in the field of technology. She once lost a good job position in her school district, and she attributed this loss to being a female. She said that most people believe men perform better in technology than women and as a result expect a male teacher to take technology-related positions.

For future of technology integration

When asked about her thoughts on the current technology integration situation, she expressed that most technology integration is done by information technology teachers or instructional groups. Teachers in other subject areas have done little with integration. She hopes that more teachers with field specialties will attempt greater technology integration.
Lucy suggested that even in some public classes, technology is still used as an assistant tool - in most cases, as a presentation tool only. Using technology as a cognitive tool is what Lucy is expecting for future technology integration. How to generalize this new practice of technology integration is challenging in the current education system. To carry out a broad new implementation of technology integration requires teachers to change their conception of technology. She believes in an information technology society where knowledge is changing everyday, and as a result, instructional philosophy and method should also change. She feels that technology integration is not just a technology issue; teachers’ behavior is influenced by their mental images. So Lucy believes teachers’ ideas about technology should first be updated. She tries to take leadership in this area. She has organized an activity in her instructional group called position report. The method is that each teacher looks for a new instructional method and notion from the Internet and journals and then prepares a PowerPoint presentation for the group activity each Wednesday night. By sharing new ideas, she believes teaching capability will be improved. She is anticipating that a broader nationwide effort toward professional development on new instructional models may be carried out in the future.
When asked what concrete strategy should be used for technology integration classes, she said, “Yu Jiao Yu Le”, which means technology integration should motivate and interest students, and learning should be integrated with pleasure. Teachers should encourage and appreciate students’ creative work, rather than limit students to do what the text demands.
She also expressed her expectation regarding evaluation. She has noticed that many teachers judge student work based on its visual appeal, while the depth of the process and the quality of the work is often ignored. She hopes that teachers could see more essential quality of student work and could use authentic assessment techniques to help students to learn. She also expects that teachers could use the Internet as a public showplace and as an opportunity to change from a teacher-dominated evaluation approach to multi-dimension evaluation approach.

Summary

Regardless of the measure taken, Lucy is an exemplary teacher based on her productive works or inventive uses of technology integration. Her exemplary practice for technology integration may hold promise for many other K-12 teachers to learn and imitate. Her best practices include task-driven, student-centered, authentic, and online displays as multi-dimensional evaluation techniques. Of course, innovation in technology integration is not only about technology and the individual teacher, but also an issue of a system approach as well. In the case of China, we can say that the current instructional paradigm (Kairov paradigm), evaluation system, and limited educational resources are major factors for further change in technology integration. Promisingly, China is becoming more flexible in factors due to its recent economic development and increasingly open policy. There is hope that the system will be more beneficial for a sound approach to technology integration in education for future teachers, students, and schools.

 

Reference:
Decision on Basic Education Reform and Development, (2001). Ministry of Education. http://www.moe.edu.cn/base/zonghe/01.htm.

Chen. Z. (2000). To generalize information technology course in K-12 Schools. Ministry of Education. http://www.edu.cn/20020327/3023659.shtml

Chen. Z. (2002). Report on Implementation of Nine-Year Compulsory Education. Ministry of Education. http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2002-06/26/content_457712.htm

Ministry of Education, (2004). China Education Reform and Development. http://www.edu.cn/20040107/3096922.shtml

Ministry of Education, (2004). 2003 National Report on Educational Development and Statistic. http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info5515.htm

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