• “ Content integration takes time: Teachers' first technology projects generate excitement, but often little content learning. Often it takes a few years until teachers can use technology effectively in core subject areas. Initially, teachers and students don't expect much content in technology projects and are satisfied if projects are completed and look good. Teachers learn to use computer technologies and learn how to bring content learning to the forefront with, in some cases, impressive results on the part of the students. Teachers eventually learn to view the learning process in concert with their new technologies and come to understand the ways content interactions can be approached.
• “ Glitches galore: The bumps in the road to technological competence almost guarantee that technology will take center stage over content at first. Inexperienced teachers tend to underestimate the time and complexity of a technology-based project. Software glitches and poor student work habits (e.g. forgetting to save work) can cause huge delays, often meaning that the project has to end just as students are starting to learn some subject matter.
• “Flash over substance: Students and teachers alike are excited by the presentation capabilities of the new media, resulting in the ‘flash over substance’ phenomenon. Over and over, we see that academic content is allowed to slide initially in a technology-infused project, as students spend their time exploring software capacity for special effects and animation.”

“The Technology/Content Dilemma.” Shelley Goldman, Karen Cole, and Christina Syer. The Secretary's Conference on Educational Technology-1999. The entire article is available at http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1999/whitepapers/paper4.html; clicking on this link will open a new browser window, which you should close to return to the main page.