Patricia Randolph Leigh

Electronic Connections and Equal Opportunities: An Analysis of Telecommunications Distribution in Public Schools

AbstractData collected from the Advanced Telecommunications in U.S. Public Elementary and Secondary Schools, 1995 survey (National Center for Education Statistics, 1996) were used to examine differences in access to wide-area networks by ethnic or racial identity and socioeconomic status. The aim of this research is to provide a current picture of the equality of available educational opportunities as measured by access to technologies important to this age. This research also demonstrates the strength of the claim that access to educational resources and tools are dependent on race or class membership. In addition, abbreviated data from similar surveys conducted in 1996 and 1997 show that although progress has been made in public schools regardless of their economic or racial enrollments, the actual gaps between the “haves” and “have-nots” are either narrowing only slightly or in some cases widening to an alarming degree. This article is guided and informed by seminal work of the 1960s, therefore, the re...

Implementation and conceptual analysis of a double infusion model

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the double infusion (DI) model, which was developed to offer technology and multicultural teacher educators a systematic process for helping prospective teachers to become proficient in using technology to enhance student learning in K‐12 environments, while they work toward strengthening their own conceptions of critical multicultural education.Design/methodology/approach – This paper reports on the implementation and conceptual analysis of this DI model, which was piloted in a 16‐week graduate level instructional technology course for future educators. Data collected for this analysis included student course projects, a focus group interview with students, and an interview with the course instructor.Findings – The preliminary findings for this pilot project yielded that the participants had the critical dispositions needed to understand and make meaning of the “doubly infused” content, however, the opportunities they had in their graduate programs to re...

The Making of an Online Masters Program in the North American Context

The department of Curriculum and Instruction at Iowa State University, USA offers a leading residential program of information communication technology (ICT) in teacher education. Based on the success of this program, in 2003, faculty members and instructional developers at Iowa State University Center for Technology in Learning and Teaching (http://www.ctlt.iastate.edu) created an online masters program in “Curriculum and Instructional Technology.” This graduate degree program was designed for teachers of kindergarten to 12th grade (K-12) who were widely spread across the large mainly rural state of Iowa. This graduate program is described in this presentation as a distance education exemplary case in the context of North America. This program uses a cohort approach to graduate education and employs innovative technologies for its design and delivery. Program features, requirements, timeline, courses and outcomes are discussed.