"By spending a couple of days a week in a classroom working with both children and teachers, I began to get back in touch with what is really going on in schools."
 

One of the best outcomes of this partnership for me and my students has been a place to conduct research and application. Over the four years that I have partnered with Lincoln, we performed a year-long pilot study in the first year (unpublished), conducted three dissertations in the second and third years (Fan, 1996, Sherman, 1997, Wang, 1996), arranged to replicate the second year's study in the third year (Orey, et al., 1997), started a new project in the third year, tested the new project in the fourth year (Moore, 1998), and piloted one dissertation at Lincoln which was finished at another middle school through the assistance of the principal at Lincoln (Zhao, 1998). Research conducted at Lincoln included data-gathering for doctoral dissertations. But perhaps more importantly, it also included the work of masters and doctoral students who were allowed to try out ideas that they were learning in classes (no fewer than ten doctoral students and three masters students spent at least one six-week grading period working at Lincoln). 

Another benefit was that I was better able to identify with my students (many of whom were practicing teachers) because of my experiences at Lincoln. I was a math teacher for three years before pursuing a career in academe. It is those three years of experience that I draw upon to contextualize my instruction. However, before partnering with Lincoln, I had not been in a classroom for ten years. You might consider me out of touch with what goes on in the classroom, and you would be right. By spending a couple of days a week in a classroom working with both children and teachers, I began to get back in touch with what is really going on in schools. One of my favorite stories involves a teacher who challenged me to work with the more at-risk students at Lincoln. By the end of the quarter, I could look this teacher in the eye and say that the ideas that I am advocating work with all students. 

While I have painted a lovely view of the partnership, I should also tell the reader that there were some costs associated with the partnership. Perhaps the most negative aspect of partnering with Lincoln for me was that I quickly began to care more about meeting the needs of the students and teachers at Lincoln than I was in rigorous research or publication. I averaged about 2 refereed publications per year in my partnership with the Army. At the time of this writing, I have one paper accepted and three manuscripts in preparation (including this one) during the four years at Lincoln. This is nowhere near the level of publishing I had attained before starting this project. There may be a variety of explanations for this change, but one of them is that the motivation to improve things for the children with whom I was working shifted my focus more toward application than publication. 

As far as Lincoln was concerned, the teachers tired of all the changes. At one point during the fourth year, the teachers were asked to participate in a web-based communications system, a web-based resource and communication system, and the Teacher Tools project. It seemed overwhelming to them. A situation like this might destroy, if the teachers' opposition were intense enough, other partnerships as it did in this case. Others interested in this approach must recognize this possibility. 
 

Everything that I did in this partnership was a form of service to Lincoln Middle School. I was constantly contacted for my technological expertise. This expertise helped others in planning for computer integration in the curriculum, in the writing of grants, and in fixing equipment and software. I was also used as a general idea person. Related to technological expertise is the idea of technical support. My students and I often filled the role of a technical support persons. We were always troubleshooting a variety of technology problems. Much of this effort benefited the school. Although it was time consuming, I was willing to invest time because of the other benefits. 

The number one benefit is perhaps that over the four-year period, we were successful in securing more than $120,000 dollars in grants for the school. Most of this money was spent on computers and networking in the building. It is because of the pilot work that we were able to clearly articulate the benefits of a project-based approach, contributing directly to the success of the grants. By and large, the partnership with Lincoln was beneficial to both parties. It is my belief that others may also benefit by forming such partnerships. 

I consider my four-year partnership with Lincoln Middle School to be a great success. I have learned a great deal about integrating computers into the schools, and Lincoln has come a long way towards having technology successfully integrated into the classrooms there. So far, you have heard the story of the partnership. I would like to turn now to the nature of that partnership and how others might establish partnerships with other schools in other places. 

One really important aspect of my partnership with Lincoln is that of relationships. My students and I developed good and trusting relationships with the teachers and administrators at Lincoln. Time spent at Lincoln was valuable for me, for my students, for the teachers, and for the Lincoln students. When I attempted to expand and include the district, there were new players. These new players did not have a relationship with me, so it was nothing for them to drop out of participation on the grant on which I was working. This problem would not have happened with the people at Lincoln. 

As many have noted, the relationship between colleges of education (COE) and elementary and secondary schools has benefits for both. As Goodlad (1990) suggests, renewal of schools is linked to research activities in universities. This was certainly true in my relationship with Lincoln. Teachers were increasingly being pressured to integrate computers into their classroom learning activities, but few of them had enough technical knowledge to figure out interesting solutions to classroom problems. The ideas came from the universities through me. I use "universities" here to indicate that many of the ideas that I brought to Lincoln were ideas that others in the research community had conceived. However, it was not a one-way street. It was not just telling them what to do. I brought to the local school a certain amount of technical expertise and instructional theory. They brought instructional theories and a wealth of practical teaching experience. It was through this collaboration that we were able to conceive of a variety of interesting solutions to classroom computer integration problems. These solutions helped not only the classroom teachers at Lincoln but also my instruction at the university (and made me much more empathetic to the needs of classroom teachers). 

Fullan (1993) also suggests that colleges of education ought to be closely aligned with K-12 schools. A separation between them is not healthy for either. The field of instructional technology is problematic with respect to this view. The problem at UGA is that our department has students who are interested in school media, students who are interested in school technology coordinator positions, students who are interested in instructional design in business and industry, and students interested in going into academia. Three of these four types of students fit in well with Fullan's idea, but those students interested in business and industry align more closely with a business school. Interestingly, when I was able to get student volunteers to go work at Lincoln for a couple of hours per week, I was able to recruit from all these types of students. 
 
 

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