Given the level of spending and hours devoted to technology-based activities in today’s schools, educators and policymakers need to know which technologies have real, long-term payoffs for improving student learning. This volume interprets the research perspectives published in Evaluating Educational Technology: Effective Research Designs for Improving Learning to provide valuable insights for the successful use of technology in different classroom and curricular settings. This shorter, practitioner-oriented volume addresses such issues as:

• The need for policymakers and teachers to be involved in setting the agenda for research so it provides knowledge they can use to improve education.
• The kinds of learning technology research that best addresses the needs of policymakers at the state, district, and school levels.
• The importance of incorporating factors such as a teacher’s background, teaching philosophy, training, and experience into research designs.
• The many individual technology-based interventions involving content and skills, particularly high-order reasoning and problem solving.
• Whether it is worth it for state and school districts facing budget deficits to spend money to replace or upgrade their equipment and software.

This groundbreaking resource—used alone or with its companion research volume—will give you the tools you need to make research-based decisions concerning the use of educational technology.