Using Technology with Classroom Instructions that Works.  Howard Pitler, Elizabeth R. Hubbell, Matt Kuhn, and Kim Malenoski.  For classroom teachers, technology specialist, curriculum specialist, and principals. 242 pages  $25.15  Amazon.

Harry Grover Tuttle

This book, Using Technology with Classroom Instructions that Works, takes the well-respected educational research of Robert Marzano as explained in Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement and shows how to use technology to support his  strategies.

The authors explore each of Marzano's strategies. They divide the book into the major sections: 'What will students learn?” with the strategy of setting goals; “Which strategies will provide evidence of student learning?” with  the strategies of providing feedback and providing recognition; “What strategies will help students acquire and integrate learning?” with  the strategies of  cues, questions, and advanced organizers, nonlinguistic representations, summarizing and note taking, cooperative learning, and reinforcing effort; and  “Which strategies will help students practice, review and apply learning?” with  the strategies of identifying similarities and differences,homework and practice, and generating and testing hypotheses.  For each strategy, they have two to four commonly available technology. They give classroom examples of each technology/

After the “Providing Feedback” section's introductions, generalizations, and recommendations, the authors explore numerous applications. In word processing applications, the teachers can use Microsoft Word's Track Changes and Insert Comments to give and gather student led-feedback; have students use  the  Microsoft's FleschKinaid Readability Scale to determine the complexity of the writing in terms of sentence length, and use the built-in thesaurus to improve their vocabulary. In data collection tools, educators can  use class response systems (clickers) to cover many levels of primary student thinking regarding animal classification;  the students pair-share before responding to higher level questions. Through grading software, students use programs like MyAccess which instantly assesses the students' writing and provides suggestions for improvement. Web resources provide many feedback tools such as online rubrics for teachers to use and online learning games which indicate correct and incorrect answers such as those found in BrainPop. Finally, communication software  can be used for many feedback opportunities.  In a poetry blog, students give each other feedback on their poems while, in a wiki, students constanly build on each other ideas such as in a  civil rights wiki. Teachers can have students email their essays and then return the essays with comments  through email to the students and  parents. Students can use Instant messaging for students to talk to an expert about roles in government to verify their opinions or teachers can have “IM” office hours on a particular evening to give students feedback.. Lastly, through  videoconferencing,  English students perform a skit in Spanish while the Spanish speakers perform a similar skit in English; each group gives each other feedback.

Likewise, in the section on “Identifying similarities and differences”, the authors include word processing applications (classification charts to compare/contrast  book themes and Microsoft Word Drawing to create analogies such as Hot is to cold as night is to ___), spreadsheet software (Microsoft Excel to compare weight on different planets or to find similarities and differences in sunrise and sunset times for cities across the word), organizing and brainstorming software ( use Inspiration to create a Venn diagram of differences between the USA and Great Britain, show  book similarities and differences, classify animals that are alike or different, and  do word classification) and data collection tools (science students vary  volume, mass and density in a spreadsheet, categorize bug specimens by traits to determine defining characters through a Word matrix, and match their movements with graphic representation of position over time with a motion detector probe.).

This book represents the height of  technology integration. Educators go from their learning purpose to using a specific researched-based strategy to selecting a technology. This model should be implemented in each district. Teachers who use Marzano's strategies supported with technology will see a gain in student learning.

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