Chapter 7: It All Depends: Strategies for Designing Technologies for Change in Education

Since the founding of the Center for Children and Technology (CCT) in 1980, much of our work focuses on ways some of the central and persistent challenges that we face in our nation’s schools can be addressed by technologies. Our work is guided by what we learn from the educators with whom we collaborate. We take our cues from both the dilemmas and the possibilities that teachers and administrators confront, and we look at technology as one out of many strategies that can help enrich the teaching and learning culture in schools. Our research suggests that deep and sustained access to technology has the potential to have a positive impact on students and teachers in terms of teaching and learning, but only if a number of other elements are evident. This paper addresses those elements in the context of the research we have done at the EDC/Center for Children and Technology.