Microcomputer Infusion Project: A Model Ely Stephen A. Rossberg and Gary G. " T hough there is an appar- ent explosion of comput- ers in the schools, how teachers will use those computers is less appar- ent. The influence of computers in education is on the rise; the number of computers in schools quadrupled between 1983 and 1985. Computer use in the curriculum has expanded math, science and business to in- clude English and the social sci- ences, and a greater number of teachers are becoming computer users. Another emerging trend is the use of the computer as a tool. While computer use to tutor basic skills is on the decline, use of the computer for writing, problem solv- ing, and analyzing data is increasing rapidly. There is also movement past computer literacy toward pre- paring students in the kind of infor- mation management that is necessi- tated by the proliferation of com- puters. Effective teachers appear to be "orchestrating" the computer into classroom instruction; i.e., they use it with a wide variety of software and integrate it fully into the in- struction. However, most teachers are not yet so familiar that the com- puter has become a working part of either their preparation or their in- struction. Stephen A. Rossberg is a senior in- structional designer with McDon- nell Douglas Training Systems Inc. at Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix, Arizona. Dr. Gary G. Bitter is a professor and coordinator of Educational Media and Computers at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona 85287-0111. Colleges of education must re- spond by preparing teachers in the use of computers as both for the production of instructional materi- als and as a teaching aid freely in- corporated into the curriculum. However, the influx of computers has been rapid and recent. College faculty, educated at a time when microcomputers were unavailable or unknown, may never have used them, much less incorporated them into the curriculum. It is well known that teachers tend con- sciously or not to emulate those that have taught them. It is unlikely then that students will most effec- tively utilize the computer in the classroom, if they have not at some point had a model of computer use to emulate. Computer courses may not offer sufficient models of in- struction to effectively help the pre- service teacher since computer use is no longer confined merely to pro- gramming. Even software review courses, though they expose stu- dents to curricular software, may not offer the necessary models. The solution then is to have fac- ulty offer models of computer use both in lesson development and presentation. The Microcomputer Infusion Project (MIP) at Arizona State University has attempted to facilitate this by providing the nec- essary hardware, software and training to move toward that end. The College of Education efforts are only part of the University's program of Microcomputer Infu- sion. Since the Fall of 1983, the University has spent over $3,672,856 in microcomputer infu- sion in an effort to provide micro- computers and software for faculty. Of the over $3.6 million, $366,403 was awarded to the College of Edu- cation. Objectives of the Project 9 To make faculty, staff and gradu- ate student employees of the Col- lege of Education proficient com- puter users. 9 To bring current education facul- ty to a level of computer comfort and confidence sufficient to en- courage them to freely incorpo- rate the computer as a working tool in their preparation and pre- sentation of instruction. Initial Efforts The original plan of the MIP was to distribute computer hardware and software and then provide training. IBM PC and Macintosh computers were purchased and dis- tributed and installed in the depart- ments. The original software in- cluded MacWrite and MacPaint for the Macintosh computers and PFS series software (Write, File, Proof, Report, Graph) for the IBM com- puters. The original MIP team of five graduate assistants set up the equipment in offices and organized group classes to instruct faculty and staff in the use of the computers and software. After one semester certain trends began to emerge. Three were most notable: 1. The efforts of MIP, which were primarily aimed at faculty, were beginning to focus on staff. Mi- crocomputers as part of the pro- ject were being used by staff to produce materials for faculty, while faculty continued to pro- duce materials the way they al- ways had. 2. The software selected as the standard for the division was be- ing abandoned because it did not have the power to produce the materials that were needed. The PFS series is frequently thought of as executive software because it can be learned quickly and used by executives to produce memos, letters and small re- ports. This was consistent with the original intent of the project, but since the computers were in the hands of staff who produced 24 TechTrends