Ellen S. Hoffman

A new framework for understanding educational digital library use: re-examining digital divides in U.S. schools

Despite their decade of deployment, educational digital libraries have not achieved sustained use in elementary and secondary schools in the United States. Barriers to accessing the Internet and computers have been widely targeted by myriad initiatives, but efforts aimed at bridging this first-level “digital divide” have not led to increased use of the Internet and digital library resources in U.S. classrooms. In fact, such programs have revealed additional divides that affect educators’ use. This paper examines the additional digital divide levels and proposes a new framework for understanding technology innovation in schools that can improve development and outreach approaches by digital library developers.

Trends and Issues in Qualitative Research Methods

In the almost two decades since the first AECT Handbook article on qualitative research debates about research philosophy, design, and purposes have led to clashes of opinion in the field of educational communications and technology as well as in the larger sphere of educational research. At the same time, the number of publications on qualitative methods specific to the field has increased, expanding the understanding of the potential of such approaches to explore, describe, and explicate key issues in instructional design and the application of technology to learning. While other chapters have included examples of qualitative studies related to specific disciplinary topics, this chapter focuses on trends in the use of qualitative research design and emerging approaches more generally. Within this framework, issues of design, methods, and knowledge generation are reviewed and examined through a sample of recent directions in qualitative studies and designs. For each method reviewed, examples are provided along with common issues and potential directions for future use of these.

Educational Digital Libraries: Platforms for Innovation and Equity

Digital libraries (DLs) are currently in place or being developed for a variety of educational applications. These resources offer support for instructional innovation, traditional curricula, and equitable access to learning resources. Yet, the carrot of instructional innovation is often overwhelmed by the stick of conflicting educational policy priorities. This chapter will define and situate the term “educational digital libraries,” and discuss the ways in which sustained use through school libraries and lessons learned from exemplary projects can transform the contemporary educational policy, reform, and learning landscape.

Prospects for Instructional Design and Teacher Education

With most academic instructional design and technology (IDT) degree programs located within education units in higher education, teacher education is a focal point for research on the classroom teacher as instructional designer and implementer of technology in K-12. Further, teacher education serves as a locus for modelling and testing theory-based teaching practice arising from the discipline. This review examines the historical foundations and recent scholarship in teacher education from an instructional design and technology perspective in US and international contexts, providing a lens to the issues of theory versus practice and evolving research paradigms. Research areas reviewed include teacher thinking and planning, novice versus expert teacher differences, the use of systematic instructional design in classroom practices, and the teacher as designer of instructional materials. Changing research approaches and constructivist philosophies have widened the understanding of teacher instructional planning and action from earlier process–product causation to a more complex, situated view of practice. From an examination of the uneasy relationship between the two disciplines, prospects for future cooperation and research are explored in terms of theory building, impacts on training, debates on the nature of design practice, and potential for shaping educational reform efforts.

A Decade of Promises: Discourses on Twenty-first-Century Schools in Library Policy and Research

Prior to the mid-1970s, policy simply meant planning. Over time, policy studies have shifted from predominantly empirical approaches to more diverse methods emanating from postmodern and critical perspectives. More recently, the themes of equity, school choice, and social background (rather than meritocracy) have mixed with current discourses of centralization/decentralization, diversity/uniformity, and curriculum standardization in policy debate. The knowledge base of information technologies and resources held by school librarians can play a positive role in establishing successful policy frameworks for technology planning and implementation at school and district levels.