Calling All Luddites

Broadband connectivity in the U.S. has fallen to 16th in the world. The New York Times' Thomas Friedman published an Op-Ed today promising that, "if elected," America would have a cellphone service as good as Ghana's." Wealth and productivity will go to those countries or companies that get more of their innovators, educators, students, and workers and suppliers connected to this (Internet-based) platform via computers, phones and P.D.A.'s."

8/3- Ed Tech in the News

ETS Works to Develop Internet IQ Test
"Students apply to college online, e-mail their papers to their professors and, when they want to be cheeky, pass notes in class by text-messaging. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have a high Internet IQ."

'"They're real comfortable instant-messaging, downloading MP3 files. They're less comfortable using technology in ways that require real critical thinking," says Teresa Egan of the Educational Testing Service. "

"This test measures a skill as important as having mathematics and English skills when you come to the university," Roth said. "If you don't come to the university with it, you need to know that you are lacking some skills that educated people are expected to have." A preliminary version of the new test, the Information and Communication Technology Literacy Assessment, was given to 3,300 Cal State students this spring to see how well it worked, i.e., testing the test. Individual scores aren't being tallied but campuses will be getting aggregate reports. Next year, the test is expected to be available for students to take on a voluntary basis." (AP, Los Angeles Times)

Tech Remains Top Question On Parents' Minds
"At a June orientation briefing for parents at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, talk turned quickly to technology. Five students had given up their Sunday afternoon to address issues that the fretful parents might have had about sending their children to college - finding a balance between study and fun, Greek life, campus safety, binge drinking. But many parents had other questions: which operating system is best; is a laptop or desktop preferable; how good is the wireless access; and is it necessary to bring a printer?"

"To be fair, the parents had already been through seminars on financial aid, and the discussion of campus health services was coming up. But technology remains one of the most daunting issues for parents and students who are preparing for college."

"We refer to a 'Net generation' these days," said Garland C. Elmore, associate vice president, dean of information technology and associate professor of informatics and communication at Indiana University in Indianapolis and Bloomington. "The Net generation grew up on computing."

"That's a wonderful thing. But it also means facing a raft of decisions - and expenses - that earlier classes did not have to face. " (Schwartz, The New York Times)

Teachers Teach Tech Peer-to-Peer
"Eighty-one percent of students from grade school through high school use computers in their classrooms, according to a Census Bureau report, while there are now 4.4 computers for each public-school child in the United States, a 2003 report by the National Center for Education Statistics said. So it seems natural to assume that teachers use computers to enhance learning, but when it comes to computers, all assumptions are off."

"Even today, the majority of teachers are reluctant to use technology," said Robert McLaughlin, executive director of the National Institute for Community Innovations in Montpelier, Vt., who is trying to get cheaper access to the Internet for institutions as well as free technology tools for schools. "They don't regard it as something that will help them be more effective with their students."

"While studies show that technology can be used to improve academic performance, change is hard. Many school districts have a staff person who works solely on handling technology. In other districts, this job falls on a teacher. Not so long ago, these educators were often called upon by their peers to change a printer cartridge or unfreeze a frozen machine."

"But today, even the wariest teachers know how to reboot their machines. So the tech experts can now spend their time finding, developing and installing programs and projects that can make education interesting and fun for children. The harder part is convincing teachers to give the latest technology a whirl. " (Morris, The New York Times)

Georgia County Urged to "Return to Spender"
"It's time for Cobb County school officials to fulfill the original promise they made to the public two years ago, when voters overwhelmingly supported the district's stated goal of upgrading technology in all its schools."

"Last week, a Superior Court judge correctly determined that Cobb voters had not been asked to approve — and thus did not approve — the district's plans to supply take-home laptop computers to 55,000 of its students."

"Judge S. Lark Ingram ruled that the district's laptop initiative — unveiled a year after the vote and the subject of great controversy in the county — violated state law governing how special purpose sales taxes can be used. Ingram's ruling essentially held that the school district promoted the need for the 1 percent sales tax by promising major system-wide improvements, then decided after the vote to spend most of the $76 million the tax would generate to buy laptops for all middle and high school students in the system."

"The ruling should be a warning to school boards as well as municipal and county governments in Georgia that there are consequences to public statements they make regarding how special purpose sales taxes are to be spent."

"The best course for the board to take now is to give up on any appeal of Ingram's ruling. If the board feels the judge was overly restrictive on what elected officials can and can't do in spending special purpose sales tax money, it should ask the state school board association, or some other government group, to finance an appeal, not Cobb taxpayers." (Opinion, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Teacher Defends Laptop Plan
James Wentz, an elementary school teacher at Cheatham Hill Elementary School in Cobb County writes, "I heard the many arguments for and against the program." "It is easy for anybody on the outside looking in to state that laptops are not feasible for the system. To those "negaholics," I would like for them to think about how a teacher can prepare students for the world with only one computer sitting in the classroom. How can teachers expose students to the advantages of technology when he or she cannot get one of three wireless laptop carts (each holding a maximum of twenty laptops)? How can a student utilize his or her strengths in technology to overcome deficits when two or three students are forced to share a laptop?"

"We cannot hold our children to the same level of education we had "back in the day." I recall reading a story titled "The Saber-Tooth Tiger" in graduate school. It gives a vivid description of what happens to a society when it does not advance with the world. Many readers should search for the story on the Internet and reflect on its meaning. It seems that our society wants to live in the past and not prepare our students for a life beyond public school." (Opinion, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

7/28- Ed Tech in the News

Indiana Raises Questions Around Virtual Charter Schools
"A new state law has opened the door for digital charter schools, and at least two, including a Fort Wayne-based program, have asked Ball State University for sponsorship. But Martin Dezelan, director of the university’s charter schools office, told The Journal Gazette’s Kenya Woodard that the schools won’t be considered in the August review period. “We are wanting to have the right expertise at the table, people who understand the technology and Web-based education,” Dezelan said. “We’re moving as quickly as we can so we can consider what’s before us, but we’re not going to rush the process.”

"Indiana’s new law includes a provision that instruction cannot be “solely home based,” which would appear to address valid concerns that cyber-charter schools would become the method for funneling tax dollars to home-schoolers."

"Sen. Teresa Lubbers, the Indianapolis Republican who sponsored the bill, told the Indianapolis Star this week that she believes “this little dance” is going on to determine how the law will be interpreted. Lubbers said the discussions were welcome as Indiana finds its way along with other states." (Fort Wayne Journal Gazette)

Palm Beach County Begins Online Testing
"Instead of passing out tests and answer sheets, then collecting them and having a machine grade them, students at nine Palm Beach County schools will take district exams online starting in August."

"When students answer all the questions on short district tests called common assessments, the teacher will know immediately how they did. No paper to collect, no machine to maintain, no time between giving the tests and getting the results. And the kids' performance will be downloaded into district computers."

"We are trying to develop a way to give instant return in the classroom," said Joe Moore, the district's chief financial officer.

"The district's common assessments are 10- or 20-question exams that test whether a student understood a particular math or reading lesson. Now teachers will know right away whether they need to spend more time teaching a specific skill." (Shah, Palm Beach Post)

Online Training Increasingly Popular With Teachers
"The possibilities of online learning for educators have been dazzling, and over the past decade a slew of providers have rushed to create Web-based opportunities for more and better professional development—and institutional gain. Those with the online goods include businesses, cyber and brick-and-mortar universities, professional organizations, teachers’ unions, nonprofit agencies, and partnerships between such groups. States, districts and individual educators are left to figure out to what extent online development might meet their needs."

"The proliferation of such opportunities, however, leads experts to offer more than a dose of caution. "

“I do have serious concerns about the online professional-development arena taking the field backwards,” said Joellen Killion, who has written extensively about the subject for the National Staff Development Council, an Oxford, Ohio-based membership organization for those involved in professional learning for educators. In dark moments, said Ms. Killion, who is special projects director for the NSDC, she pictures a weary teacher at her home computer jumping up to toss a load of laundry into the dryer while waiting for her slow dial-up connection to download a Web page to the screen."

"While the snares of inadequate technology and isolation are real, almost everyone, including Ms. Killion, agrees online learning doesn’t have to be that way. “There are some marvelous programs, with lots of interaction with other teachers, lots of support online for implementation of what is learned,” she said." (Keller, Education Week)

Patrick To Leave Department of Education
"In a surprise move, Susan Patrick, head of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology, announced July 26 that she will leave the Bush administration in August to assume control of the Virginia-based North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL). "

"Patrick made the decision to step down as the nation's top ed-tech administrator after less than two years on the job. "I didn't plan to leave the department," she said of her new role as president and chief executive of the nonprofit NACOL. "But this was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up."

"I really felt like I accomplished a lot during the three and half years I was with the administration," she said, pointing to the release of the NETP and the creation of summer leadership conferences designed to help educators understand the demands of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law as proof that she had accomplished the bulk of what she set out to do when taking over in March of last year (see "ED's new tech chief sets her agenda").

"As director of the Office of Educational Technology, Susan Patrick has played an integral role in the implementation of No Child Left Behind," said ED's chief of staff, David Dunn. "She successfully led the department's efforts on the 2004 National Education Technology Plan and has spent several years developing and coordinating the department's educational technology policies. Susan shares our goal that every child can learn and has worked tirelessly to help provide leadership to the nation in the use of technology to promote achievement."

"At NACOL, Patrick plans to use her knowledge of the ed-tech landscape to promote the continued adoption of online learning in schools. Though schools are beginning to realize the value of online learning as a tool for reform, Patrick says, the majority of institutions still are not using these technological resources to their full potential." (eSchool News)

UNESCO Reports on World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

UNESCO has just released four conference reports on themes that have been identified as key roles for UNESCO to play in facilitating WSIS implementation activities or mechanisms around the world. The four theme reports are: 1) "Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace"; 2) "Multilingualism for Cultural Diversity and Participation for All in Cyberspace"; 3) "Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for Capacity Building: Critical Success Factors"; and 4) "Cultural Diversity in Knowledge Societies." Readers of this blog may be most interested in UNESCO's efforts to increase ICT for capacity-building (Theme 3 above) in the area of non-formal education. More information on these themes with links to the actual reports is available on the UNESCO website.

New Pew Project Study Finds Teens Increasingly Use Technology

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just release a new report on teenagers and technology. It found that, "The number of teenagers using the internet has grown 24% in the past four years and 87% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 are online. Compared to four years ago, teens' use of the internet has intensified and broadened as they log on more often and do more things when they are online."

"Among other things, there has been significant growth over the past four years in the number of teens who play games on the internet, get news, shop online, and get health information."

Highlights from the study include;

• About 21 million teens use the internet and half of them say they go online every day.
• 51% of online teens live in homes with broadband connections.
• 81% of wired teens play games online, which is 52% higher than four years ago.
• 76% of online teens get news online, which is 38% higher than four years ago.
• 43% have made purchases online, which is 71% higher than four years ago.
• 31% use the internet to get health information, which is 47% higher than four years ago.
• 75% of online teens use instant messaging and the average amount of time spent instant messaging in a day has increased over the last four years. One third of all American teens have sent a text message.
• 97% of girls 15-17 have used instant messaging, compared to 89% of
  younger boys and girls and 87% of older boys.
• 57% of older girls have ever sent a text message compared 40% of older boys
• 51% of older girls have bought something online
• 79% of girls 15-17 have gone online to search for information about a school they might attend, vs. 70% of older boys.

To access the full report, click here.

Survey of the Student Information Systems: Your Help Is Needed

The Stupski Foundation is sponsoring a functional survey of the Student Information Systems market, to create a better understanding of how these systems are used and what the needs are in the marketplace.

They need your help! Feel free to pass this message on to anyone who works with SIS products or has expertise in this area and encourage them to take the survey and pass this on to others. The Foundation wants to hear from as wide an audience as possible, including: IT Directors, Managers, Clerks, Principals, Teachers, Coordinators, Trainers and others.

If you have experience in this area, please take the survey as well. The survey location is:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=200581232001. The results of this survey will be made freely and publicly available in September of 2005, under a Creative Commons copyright license. Please help us make this survey a powerful tool for improving data systems for public education! (The survey will be open from July 26th to August 10th). Pass it on!

Questions regarding the survey, its purpose or the Foundation can be directed to: steve@stupski.org

Students Say High Schools Let Them Down

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

New York Times

July 16, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/education/16STUDENTS.html

DES MOINES, July 15 - A large majority of high school students say their class work is not very difficult, and almost two-thirds say they would work harder if courses were more demanding or interesting, according to an online nationwide survey of teenagers conducted by the National Governors Association.

The survey, being released on Saturday by the association, also found that fewer than two-thirds believe that their school had done a good job challenging them academically or preparing them for college. About the same number of students said their senior year would be more meaningful if they could take courses related to the jobs they wanted or if some of their courses could be counted toward college credit.

Taken together, the electronic responses of 10,378 teenagers painted a somber picture of how students rate the effectiveness of their schools in preparing them for the future.

The survey also appears to reinforce findings of federal test results released on Thursday that showed that high school seniors made almost no progress in reading and math in the first years of the decade. During that time, elementary school students made significant gains.

"I might have expected kids to say, 'Don't give us more work; high school is tough enough,' " said Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and chairman of the governors association, which opens a three-day summer meeting here on Saturday.

"Instead," Mr. Warner said, "what we got are high school students actually willing to be stretched more. I didn't think we'd get much of that."

The governors' survey was conducted as part of the association's effort to examine public high schools and devise strategies for improving them. Mr. Warner has made high school reform his priority as chairman of the association. His term ends on Monday, when Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican, is scheduled to succeed him.

While a vast majority of respondents in the survey, 89 percent, said they intended to graduate, fewer than two-thirds of those said they felt their schools did an "excellent" or "good" job teaching them how to think critically and analyze problems.

Even among the remaining 11 percent, a group of 1,122 that includes teenagers who say they dropped out of high school or are considering dropping out, only about one in nine cited "school work too hard" as a reason for not remaining through graduation. The greatest percentage of those who are leaving, 36 percent, said they were "not learning anything," while 24 percent said, "I hate my school."

Experts in education policy said the survey results were consistent with other studies that have shown gaps between what students learn in high school and what they need for the years beyond.

"A lot of business people and politicians have been saying that the high schools are not meeting the needs of kids," said Barbara Kapinus, a senior policy analyst for the National Education Association. "It's interesting that kids are saying it, too."

Marc Tucker, president of the National Council on Economic Education, an organization that helps states and school districts create programs that are more tailored to contemporary student needs, said he did not believe that American high schools could adequately prepare students without a fundamental change in how they operated.

Mr. Tucker said American schools had been too slow to adapt high school curriculums to the real-life demands of college and the workplace. Except for that small fraction of highly motivated students with an eye toward prestigious private colleges and state universities, many more students, he said, are under the impression that just having a diploma qualifies them for the rigors of college and the workplace.

Freedom and Empowerment: An Essay on the Next Step for Education and Technology

by James Shimabukuro
http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=63

Quote: We persist in trying to fit new technology into the centuries-old molds for learning that are based on the primacy of location­campus and classroom. Yet my continued optimism for change is based on the belief that we, as educators, will follow our instincts and learn to use instructional technology in the most efficient and effective ways. And if it means abandoning traditional practices, then so be it.

Computers Better for learning than TV

A series of studies reported in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that the less TV kids watch, the better off they are. In a study of third graders, researchers found that children with a television in their bedrooms had lower scores on standardized tests while kids with access to a home computer had higher scores.

Job Opportunity: SREB Associate Director, Educational Technology

New Full-time Position: SREB Associate Director, Educational Technology Cooperative

Associate Director, Educational Technology Cooperative will contribute to developing and implementing educational technology initiatives to support schools, colleges and state education agencies to create and expand effective uses of technology. The Position Description is attached.

The SREB Educational Technology Cooperative is an unique, one-of-a-kind organization in the nation which is composed of state coordinating and governing boards for both K-12 and higher education. Information about the Cooperative can be found at: http://www.sreb.org/programs/EdTech/edtechindex.asp.

Please forward this announcement to persons you consider to be potential candidates for this position.

A Future View by Checker Finn

From Checker's Desk -- The shape of things to come

The Association of Educational Publishers (www.edpress.org) asked me and several others to gaze into our crystal balls and identify five "trends/factors/events that will (or should) have significant impact on the substance and delivery of educational content over the next five years." This turned out to be an interesting exercise, the results of which I offer to you, dear reader, and invite your thoughts.

First, technology and the gradual separation of teaching and learning from buildings called schools. Increasingly, school is an institutional provider of child care and socialization but education is happening all over the place as a growing fraction of it is delivered electronically rather than face-to-face in classrooms. Many students will still sit in school, to be sure; others, however, will do much learning at home, in summer camps and day care centers, in churches, boys and girls clubs, and libraries.

The proliferation of virtual schools and virtual charter schools is just part of the story.

Coming soon are hybrid institutions, where the kid may or may not be in a school but much of his instruction and instructional materials come from far away. His main teacher may be on the other side of the country or the globe. The adult in the classroom with him may resemble a teacher aide, tutor, or college intern, there more to keep order, answer questions, and help him learn rather than someone to present a lesson setting forth what's to be learned. The lesson presenter will be elsewhere. There will be books, of course, and plenty of other instructional materials in paper form, but many of them will be downloaded from the computer rather than published and trucked in; and they'll be integrated with the lessons and courses on the big screen, the smart board, and the student's own desktop computer.

Second, No Child Left Behind and the ways it is reshaping what's taught and learned. As everyone knows, NCLB puts a premium on reading, math and, soon, science, and that premium will gradually reshape the American curriculum. People are already wringing their hands over its implications for such subjects as writing, history, civics, art and languages, not to mention home ec and drivers' ed. I don't think those things will stop being taught. Some states and districts and individual schools will even emphasize them. Indeed, art and music magnet schools, or history-centered charter schools, may be really hot. So will summer camps and programs that emphasize arts, language immersion, and suchlike, as well as supplements that parents can get for their kids to learn at home, and after-school programs that introduce kids to these additional subjects after the regular school day ends.

Within the reading-math-science core, NCLB, the state standards upon which it rests, state tests, and NAEP will further shape what is taught. There, more profoundly than in collateral subjects, districts, schools and teachers will find themselves with less control over curricular content, which will be dictated more by outside forces. On the other hand, because they're now accountable for students actually learning that content, they'll have ever greater need for, and choices among, materials and instructional strategies that are both creative and effective.

Third, the spread of school choice in its many-splendored forms. ECS says that nine states plus the District of Columbia have already adopted some form of publicly funded voucher, tax credit, or tax deduction to assist families to pay for private schooling, and Ohio is on the verge of expanding its voucher program. Despite ceaseless political pushback and Blaine amendments, the move toward vouchers will continue, albeit slowly. But it's surpassed by ever greater activity on the charter school front—upwards of a million kids will be enrolled in them by September—and an astounding array of public-school choice programs (this also encouraged by NCLB), not to mention home schooling and other hybrids such as charter schools that kids attend part-time while working or studying at home the rest of the time. Upwards of 20 percent of U.S. students are already educated somewhere other than their neighborhood public school, and this number is growing as geography ceases to be destiny with respect to schooling and the choices available to families proliferate.

Fourth, the array of education providers is proliferating, too, as for-profit and non-profit entrepreneurs enter seriously into the operation of schools and the creation and delivery of education services, both full-time and part-time, in school and out. The Supplemental Educational Services (SES) provision of NCLB is one driver here, but so are several large foundations, the KIPP program, Edison and National Heritage Academies, the entrepreneurial energies of Kaplan and Princeton Review and a host of others, and the new-style education reformers who cluster around charter management organizations and the New Schools Venture Fund. Large governmental bureaucracies may have more say than ever about education standards and results, but they will have less control than ever over the delivery of education services. K-12 education will become more like postsecondary—and like a zillion other sectors of our mixed-market economy.

Fifth, we will see the gradual demise of the ten-pound textbook. You may respond that, between ill-educated teachers and state-mandated standards, we'll depend on textbooks more than ever, and indeed there will be pressure in that direction. But the countervailing forces are mounting. Just as we no longer need a three-pound guidebook to plan a trip to Europe, an eight-pound cookbook to find a tantalizing recipe, or a huge phone book to look up somebody's cell phone number, we're not going to need mega-textbooks to teach kids. They've gotten too bulky, too pricey, and too caught up in politics. We'll see more detailed state standards and frameworks setting forth the essential core of the curriculum, accompanied by more diverse ways of packaging content and lesson plans by which to deliver that curriculum into the minds of students. Just as many a college professor has dispensed with the textbook in favor of a collection of readings that he assembles and Kinko's duplicates, and just as many academic journals are evolving from thick publications into searchable websites, so will the elementary/secondary textbook gradually be transformed into a menu of other options for teachers and students alike.

What have I got wrong or overlooked? Gadfly welcomes your comments.

by Chester E. Finn, Jr.
http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/gadfly/issue.cfm?id=196#2339

7/6- Ed Tech in the News

Middle Schools Focus on MCAS Tests and Technology

Two Massachusetts middle schools in Walpole "will focus considerable attention on boosting MCAS scores, increasing the use of technology in the classroom and promoting Internet safety for students."

Bird Middle School "hopes adopting a new math book in grade 6 and analyzing how math students are grouped will help improve MCAS scores. The school also plans to offer additional math and English blocks to provide more review time to students who struggle in these areas. "

Johnson Middle School continues "its admittedly "slow" progress in upgrading technology." It will "pilot the Web hosting service Edline next year and fully implement it by 2006-2007. With additional PAC money, the school will increase funding for its technology program. Johnson will also consider applying for grants to lower the computer-to-student ratio. The school's long-term goal is to have at least four computers in every classroom."

"Under curriculum, Bird's goals next year include increasing the use of technology in student instruction and reviewing the technology curriculum in general. "
(Mosher, Daily News Transcript)