"Integrating Technology into the Elementary Mathematics and Science Curriculum (InTech)" is an inservice program for elementary teachers developed by the Miami Museum of Science through support by the Florida Department of Education. InTech trains teachers to train other teachers in the classroom use of microcomputers, probes, databases, CD-ROMs, videodiscs, and simulation software. To date, two hundred teacher trainers from 27 Florida school districts have been trained using state funds. Dr. Judy Chen, InTech project director, now plans to expand this training effort to a national audience. Four of the US Department of Education's Regional Educational Research Labs (the NETWORK, North Central Lab, SERVE, and the Far West Lab) will act as dissemination agents using the recently established Inter-Lab National Science and Math Collaborative. Dr. Chen will also develop one additional workshop module (on telecommunications), thereby extending the InTech training workshop to a full week. Each Regional Lab will host one workshop for states in that region. A total of 96 teacher trainers will be trained in teams of four (science supervisors, university faculty, district coordinators for technology, representatives of state education associations) from 24 states (six per region). Each participant will be expected to conduct at least of nine days of training, and their employers must commit support for this inservice training in the application to the workshop. Relatively few elementary school teachers are comfortable with computers and computer-related instruction. Therefore, the proposed training and dissemination effort will address a pressing need in elementary schools across the country. Creating a network of teacher-trainers will generate an ever-expanding pool of teachers capable of integrating technology into their classroom instruction. Cost sharing represents 62% of the NSF contribution.
