October 2008 Archives

Three quarters of the K-12 teachers in a nationwide survey report that they, or a colleague at their school, are assigning homework that requires students to use the Internet.

What's more, students in 42 percent of schools are producing or creating their own videos as part of their schoolwork, with the number rising to 60 percent for high school students.

The survey of 1,436 classroom teachers and library media specialists was conducted online last April by Grunwald Associates LLC, in Bethesda, Md. It was released Oct. 23, by Cable in the Classroom, the cable industry's education foundation.

Video creation seems to be catching on at every school level. Teachers at 24 percent of elementary schools say students are producing and editing video, a figure that rises to 43 percent in middle school, and to 60 percent in high school.

Peter Grunwald, who directed the survey, said the findings show "a sea-change in the extent to which teachers are employing mainstream technology by integrating new tools in their classrooms," and bolstering the use of technology outside of school through homework assignments.

I wonder how parents are taking this. With some trepidation, I've been watching my 11-year-old and his classmate plan a short video they are making as a 6th grade social studies project.

Their subject: how to read a topographic map. They will compare features and symbols on a map with the actual topography of the "Billy Goat Trail," which winds along the Potomac River near D.C.

I'm looking forward to hitting the trail to collect video. But viewing their disorganized progress, I'm wondering if, in a couple of weeks, I will be taking a crash course in video editing to help them finish it.

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One of the last sessions I attended at this year's T+L Conference was hosted by the International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE. One of the initiatives that makes ISTE such a valuable resource to ed-tech leaders is the National Education Technology Standards, or NETS, that it puts out every few years. So far, ISTE has revised its NETS for students and teachers, and now it is working on revising those standards for administrators, to be rolled out at next year's National Educational Computing Conference in June.

I sat in today on a group discussion about what those standards currently look like, the strengths of them, what should be changed, and what target groups those standards should focus on. To view the NETS for administrators from 2002, click here.

This forum was one of the first in laying the framework for what NETS for administrators should look like, and feedback from forums, online surveys, advisory groups, committees, and ISTE's leadership team and board of directors will go into the revisions. I'm very interested to see what they come up with, and as I found out today, there's a lot of excitement from ISTE and ed-tech administrators alike about reshaping these standards to be helpful to today's ed-tech leaders.

What do you think should be changed about the 2002 NETS for administrators? What groups should those standards target, and how should they be addressed in this revision?

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I just stepped out of the National School Boards Association's press conference on the results of its new Technology and Learning Survey results. This is the fifth year that NSBA has done the survey, which asks about 500 district-level technology administrators to identify their biggest concerns and interests.

This year, they added three new questions to the survey: what the top priorities of the next administration in the White House should be related to ed-tech, how the current economic situation has impacted technology programs, and how data is being used to drive decisionmaking.

Not surprisingly, the number one challenge ed-tech leaders felt that they are currently facing is a lack of funding for technology. To deal with those cut backs, and the current financial climate, 65 percent of districts said they were delaying hardware purchases/upgrades. However, as Ann Flynn, the director of educational technology at NSBA, pointed out, because of those conditions, 29 percent of districts said they were exploring or adopting open technologies and 20 percent said they were introducing new "green" IT initiatives.

It's worth noting that the Fall 2008 issue of Digital Directions includes articles on technology funding, open technologies, and "green" IT initiatives--all the issues cited above.

There's a lot of information packed into this survey, so definitely check it out once it's up online.

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To round out my recent posts on disruptive innovation in K-12 education, I want to point out the Disrupting Class blog, for the book of the same name.

Michael B. Horn, one of the authors of the book, which is subtitled How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, is tracking ways in which developments in real schools and communities are backing up the book's theory and analysis. His latest posts are about disruption in higher education, as a theme in the presidential campaign, and in education overseas.

Horn is a Harvard Business School graduate who started researching this topic under his professor Clayton Christensen, the book's lead author. A polished speaker, Horn has become something of a staple at education conferences lately, presenting at about 15 of them since the book came out last spring.

Christensen and the book's other co-author, Curtis Johnson, who authored previous books and has served as a college president and a state policy adviser, have also been active on the speaking circuit.

You are also invited to discuss the book at EdWeek's ongoing Disruptive Innovation forum.

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Hello from Seattle, where I am reporting from the National School Board Association's T+L Conference. So far since I've been here, I've picked up the new copy of Digital Directions, talked with several ed-tech companies about the newest products on the market today, and brainstormed about the educational value of using cell phones and other mobile technologies in the classroom with chief technology officers from around the country at the Consortium for School Networking's CTO Forum.

In addition to a panel discussion about how those mobile technologies can successfully be used in the classroom, COSN launched two new initiatives today: Green Computing, led by Rich Kaestner, and IT Crisis Preparedness, led by COSN's Linda Sharp.

The Green Computing initiative will focus on three target areas: purchase and disposal, energy use, and reducing waste. To help school districts become more "green" in those areas, the new initiative will gather information about sustainable computing practices, best practices, and tips for school districts. The Web site also includes an energy calculator so districts can figure out how much energy they're using—and how much they could save by adjusting the way schools run.

The IT Crisis Preparedness initiative is working to help chief technology officers take a lead role in disaster preparedness plans—whether they be natural (like a hurricane or forest fire) or man-made (like a cyber security issue.) The Web site includes resources for school districts to be better prepared for disasters, profiles of innovative school districts who have tackled this obstacle well, and tips on how to recover from a disaster, if one should happen.

I'll be attending many more sessions tomorrow, so stay tuned to Digital Education for more about what's coming out of this year's T+L Conference.

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Good discussion about "disruptive innovation" this week featuring Disrupting Class co-authors Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn, at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington.

They made a powerful case that the fate that afflicted manufacturers of minicomputers, vacuum tube radios, and proprietary high-end software, is likely, in the next couple of decades, to be coming to a school district near you.

You can read my story about the discussion here.

By the way, Checker Finn, conservative education expert and pundit, who was the official "responder and raconteur" at the session and generally supported the co-authors' thesis, confessed that he has only lately come around to the value of technology in education. He said he had been "something of a Luddite" for many years.

AEI's press office said they will post video of the event on Friday. I'll update this post with a link.

Meanwhile, Digital Directions is hosting an ongoing forum discussion on disruptive innovation here.

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Tomorrow, I'll be traveling north a few hours from my home in Portland to attend the T+L Conference, sponsored by the National School Boards Association, in Seattle. While I'm there, I'll keep you updated by blogging here on Digital Education and Twittering, so stayed tuned.

And for those of you who can't make it to the conference, there's an online chat taking place at the conference about one of my favorite subjects—educational gaming in the classroom—hosted by Julie Evans of Project Tomorrow on NSBA's Web site. It's scheduled for Tuesday, October 28 at 1pm Pacific time, and you can submit questions in advance here.

I'm really excited to check out the conference and catch up on everything that's been going on in the ed-tech world lately. And if anyone else is attending, be sure to stop by the Digital Directions booth and say hello!

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A panel discussion today at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington, will feature Clayton M. Christensen, the Harvard Business School professor and the lead author of Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns.

He will give an address, which will be followed by a discussion with Christensen and one of his two coauthors, Michael B. Horn, of Innosight Institute, as well as education expert Chester E. Finn Jr., the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

It will be interesting to learn how Checker Finn and Frederick M. Hess, AEI's education policy expert who will moderate, will respond to the book.

I'll be attending and will provide analysis of the discussion here tomorrow.

AEI will also be recording video of the event, and I will give you the link when it is available.

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If you are tracking the rise of virtual schooling, you’ll find the best current information about the growth and maturing of this new way of teaching and learning in “Keeping Pace With K-12 Online Learning: A Review of State-Level Policy and Practice,” sponsored by 10 groups and companies in the industry, including the North American Council for Online Learning.

The fifth annual edition of the report, released Oct. 23, gives evidence that growth continues apace, though not uniformly.

Programs that are supplemental to students' enrollment in regular school are growing fastest overall, with one in three increasing enrollment by more than 40 percent last year, according to a survey of 114 online providers that was conducted for the report.

Among online programs that are full-time, however, the largest of those virtual education providers saw "no change" in the last year, a response defined as having "full time-equivalent" enrollments within 5 percent of the level of the previous year.

Still, of the 21 full-time online schools that did change in size, 17 grew larger. Of those 17, ten grew by 25 percent or more.

The day the report was released, I chatted with Mickey Revenaugh, a vice president of the Baltimore-based Connections Academy, a virtual school provider and sponsor of the report. She also co-authored an article in the report about online offerings for special education.

"The places where growth is not happening have nothing to do with lack of demand," Revenaugh noted. "The lack of a sustainable, scalable funding mechanism is standing in the way of most programs that don't seem to be growing very much."

Looking at the online programs established by states, for example, most of those are funded by appropriations by state legislatures. As such, they are subject to the vagaries of state budgets. (And that status may put these programs into a politically vulnerable position, as states respond to the current economic crisis.)

By contrast, funding for the Florida Virtual School, which is experiencing rapid course enrollment growth, operates under the state's per-pupil funding formula, just as regular school districts do. If a Florida student enrolls in an online course, the state pays for it.

Online Education as Disruptive Innovation

The report, of which John Watson, of Evergreen Consulting Associates, in Evergreen, Colo., was the principal author, also addresses the much-talked-about recent book, Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, by Clayton Christensen, Curtis Johnson, and Michael Horn.

In a business-school-style analysis, the book argues that online learning is a "disruptive innovation" that will cause a growth curve leading to more than half of U.S. high school courses being taught online by 2019.

But the report points out that K-12 education is a minefield of public funding and policy that may itself disrupt the smooth functioning of the model in the book.

Revenaugh said Disrupting Class is "very exciting to everybody in this field," but "it is the futurist's prerogative to present this picture of inevitable adoption and change."

"As John pointed out in the report, the barriers of this kind of rapid adoption are real," she said. "The idea that it will be half of all high school classes in 10 years from where we’re sitting right now seems a little bit of a stretch."

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NetTrekker d.i.—a company that provides an educational search engine for schools—recently released its list of top 100 school districts that keep students safest as they search. The title of the rankings is somewhat misleading, as the criterion for determining the safest school district was based solely upon the amount of time districts spent using the netTrekker software, but it does point to an overall trend in ed-tech to keep students safe online. As students become more and more plugged in and technology savvy, teaching them how to use the Internet appropriately is becoming a bigger issue for everyone—including educators.

This past year, Virginia became the first state to require Internet safety to be taught at every grade level. Since then, proposals in many other states have called for similar action to be taken. I'll be reporting on the status of this trend for the next issue of Digital Directions, and I'm sure there will be interesting tidbits to share once the story is up, but for now one thing is clear: Internet safety is a high priority for schools, and numerous products have cropped up to help schools fill that need. Whether or not those products are successful in teaching kids what they need to know about Internet conduct is yet to be determined, but I'm sure the technology has evolved a great deal since I was in school.

Back then, the idea of keeping students safe online meant blocking any Web site that had words which would trigger the Internet filter. In addition, all social networking, blogging, and e-mail sites were blocked. Pardon the possibly overused metaphor, but to me, that sort of feels like taking a hatchet to the Internet, where we could really use a scalpel.

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Video lessons aiming to help high schoolers succeed in AP-level courses and to give them an edge on college admissions tests are the main offerings of an online startup that debuted this week.

San Francisco-based Brightstorm Inc. has rolled out an initial set of 20 courses, each consisting of about 15 “episodes,” or instructional units of from 8 to 15 minutes long.

The courses, which cover a range of AP subjects as well as SAT- and ACT-Prep, are supplementary. They assume that students are taking the conventional course in a classroom or perhaps online.

But in each video course, a “rock star” teacher reveals his or her inside track to understanding the material, as well as useful tips and tricks.

The cost of this insight is $49 per course, for one year of access.

That makes Brightstorm pricey, especially for test-prep; consider that, to be fully prepped for the SAT or ACT, a student must take separate courses for math, writing, and critical reading.

Of course, many upper-middle-class and well-off families may not hesitate to pay $150 or more, along with all the other money they shell out to improve their child’s academic prospects.

Jeff Marshall, the chief executive officer, said in an interview with Digital Education that for now, Brightstorm is marketed to families, not schools, although schoolwide deals might be possible in the future.

Promoting Energetic Teachers

The Brightstorm videos do seem to make their subjects go down easy, with teachers as telegenic as any you find on national public television programming. The teachers range from young and spunky to motherly or wizened-and-wise types.

Teachers are active, too. Videos show them running around in city parks or eating pizza—a very handy prop for discussing fractions and geometry, apparently.

The video production values are professional, which Marshall says is one way the videos are superior to the free teacher-made videos you can find on YouTube and Teacher Tube.

Recruiting for Video

Brightstorm currently is recruiting more teachers to make videos--a part-time gig that usually takes place in the summer.

Applications are pouring in, Marshall said.

That fact illustrates an emerging feature of the digital education era: A lot of teachers want to get into video and digital technology, just as much as students do.

Marshall said Brightstorm will be a part-time career for some of the nation's finest teachers, who will reap both an initial fee as well as royalty payments from their videos.

Teachers' income from popular courses could be significant, eventually perhaps two or three times their regular teaching salaries, Marshall said.

One task these teachers do not have is to interact with students. Instead, students are encouraged to leave comments and questions for other students taking the same course. The site also is posting academic challenges and organizing other activities for students. Parents can also access their child's course.

Two of the three founders of Brightstorm are former teachers, and both men are using their professional contacts to recruit teachers, Marshall said.

Marshall taught in public schools in California and Arizona and helped start a school that uses an interdisciplinary, project-based curriculum. Marshall is also a former board member and president of the Coalition of Essential Schools, a nationwide school reform organization.

Chris F. Walsh, the chief learning officer, was a program director at WestEd, where he helped develop content for the U.S. Department of Education’s “Doing What Works” Web site. He was also the founding director of the Google Teacher Academy, a professional development program for K-12 educators, and he was a director of technology at the KIPP Foundation, a network of public charter schools.

The third co-founder is Bum Soo Kim, who serves as the chief operating officer. He was formerly a principal at KTB Ventures, a venture capital firm in Palo Alto, Calif. The firm is a subsidiary of KTB Securities Co. Ltd, based in Seoul, South Korea.

Broadband the Key

South Korea, incidentally, is one of 14 developed countries that have more broadband access to the Internet than the U.S. does, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Broadband (see my co-blogger Katie Ash's story in Digital Directions) is required to view Brightstorm's videos online, Marshall said, making it a precondition for the success of the new service.

Citing other data, Marshall said the share of U.S. families that have broadband access, through cable, satellite, or DSL service, has been increasing and recently crossed the 50 percent mark.

If the broadband trend continues, you can bet on seeing more video-intensive educational services like Brightstorm emerge in the coming years.

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Vint Cerf, who is often called the "father of the Internet" for his contribution to creating its technical protocols and architecture, will have a hand in developing a framework for the first nationwide technology literacy assessment of U.S. students, as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

That's the inside scoop from Steven A. Schneider, of WestEd, which on Oct. 6 was awarded the contract by the National Assessment Governing Board to develop the framework and specifications for the test.

The assessment, which will be first offered on a pilot basis in 2012, will be "totally computer-based," Schneider, WestEd's senior program director for math, science, and technology, told Digital Education.

WestEd, located in Redwood City, Calif., developed the framework for the NAEP science assessment.

The NAGB has stated that a technological literacy assessment is needed to understand U.S. students' ability to compete in a global marketplace and keep pace with quickly evolving technology.

Cerf, 65, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom who now works for Google Inc., will be on the steering committee for the 18-month project to develop the framework. There will also be a planning committee that meets more frequently.

Names of other members of the committee have not been released but will represent a broad spectrum of expertise, Schneider said. Both panels will have their first meeting in mid-December.

Schneider added that the effort will draw on many experts and groups, including the International Technology Education Association, the International Society for Technology in Education, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the State Educational Technology Directors Association, and the Council of Chief State School Officers, as well as the more than 10 states that now have assessments for technological literacy, he said.

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I just finished reading Andrew's post about T.H.E. Journal's endorsement of Sen. Obama, which dovetails nicely with the DD poll about which presidential candidate would do more for ed-tech. Take a minute to weigh in on who you think would be the best ed-tech president.

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This Web site gathers videos of government officials talking about IT. Although there isn't much that's directly education-related, a lot of the videos touch on topics that are floating around in education just as much as they are in government—how budget crunches affect IT, security concerns, the effect of Web 2.0 on daily activities, etc. I just finished listening to the Government Leaders' IT Crystal Ball which talks about the future of IT, especially in light of the presidential election.

There aren't a whole lot of videos on the site yet to watch, but if its extensive drop-down menu of topics is any indication of what peopel are planning to talk about, it's probably worth checking back in a couple of weeks to see what else has been added.

The site did make me register in order to be able to watch some of the videos. It's free, though, and only takes a minute.

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An ed-tech trade publication has taken an unusual step in endorsing Democrat Barack Obama for president.

It's an interesting move for T.H.E. Journal, a small monthly that relies on corporate advertisers for practically all of its revenue.

"It's not something we did lightly; it was something considered deeply among our editorial staff," Geoffrey H. Fletcher, the editor of the journal, told me in a recent interview. T.H.E. Journal is a competitor with Education Week's Digital Directions.

He said the endorsement is based on the differences between Obama and Republican John McCain on the journal's core mission: to increase the use of technology to address the needs of K-12 education.

In his article endorsing Obama, Fletcher outlines that candidate's multifaceted plan and McCain's plan, which is centered on giving families more school-choice options, including several online-learning initiatives.

Fletcher, who between 1985 and 1996 served as the Texas official most responsible for K-12 education technology in that state, dubbed Obama "President Ed Tech" because "[i]n the face of Obama's forward-looking education strategies, McCain's approach is too narrow to bring the breadth of change that the educational environment needs."

You can read my article comparing Obama and McCain on ed tech. But you won't find a presidential endorsement in Education Week, Digital Directions, or, for that matter, this blog, due to longstanding policy here to report on the issues and let readers decide for themselves.

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PC Magazine and The Princeton Review have released their list of the top wired colleges for 2008, with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign topping the list, along with Kansas State University, the University of Utah, Bentley College, and Pomona College. Schools were ranked based on the types of technology-related classes offered, technology resources for students, the technological infrastructure, and the amount of tech support available.

One of the most interesting aspects of this list for me is its variability. Only 8 of the top 20 schools appeared on the list the last time the survey was conducted in 2006. The previous #1 wired university—Villanova—dropped to 15th this time around, while MIT, which ranked #2 in the 2006 survey, dropped to 20th place this year. That kind of variety in results reminds me that when it comes to technology, two years is plenty of time to jump way ahead—or fall behind.

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This AP story gets to the heart of the tension between school policies about bringing in technology such as cellphones and iPods and the ubiquitous nature of those gadgets, which I talked a little about last Friday.

Educators in Minneapolis are beginning to refine school policies about cellphones in the classroom from an all out ban to an out-of-sight rule in order to accommodate the growing number of students who have them and the demand from parents to be able to reach their children at all times. Not all schools in the district have the same view on the cellphone policy, and many are still working to find the best fit between what teachers, students, and parents want, but I think it's important to keep these kinds of conversations open as technology continues to evolve.

While I was reading this story, it occurred to me that text messaging is the modern equivalent of note passing for this generation of students. And just as my teachers learned to curtail note passing without banning pencils or paper, this generation's crop of teachers may have to focus on controlling behavior without taking away cell phones—which both parents and students have determined are just as essential to have as paper and pencils.

Does your school or district have a policy about cellphones in the classroom? Has that policy changed in the past few years, or do you anticipate that it will be revisited in the future?

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I am currently moderating a chat on cyberbullying, which is a growing problem as young people spend more and more time interacting online. You can participate in the chat by visiting http://www.edweek-chat.org/index.html?act=c&id=199.

The guests are two Internet-safety experts. Sameer Hinduja is an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University. Justin W. Patchin is an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

They are co-authors of the new book Bullying Beyond the Schoolyard: Preventing and Responding to Cyberbullying. They also jointly maintain www.cyberbullying.us, an information clearinghouse on cyberbullying.

They are discussing how to recognize this problem, and the ways that students, parents, teachers, and school administrators should respond.

Edited 10/12/09: Here is the link to the transcript:http://www.edweek.org/chat/transcript_10_10_08.html.

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One of the areas that interests me most as an ed-tech reporter is the intersection between technology and student engagement. I've been writing for the Motivation Matters blog and covering student motivation for Education Week for more than a year now, and during that time, I've found that there's quite a bit of crossover between that and what I cover for Digital Directions about integrating technology into the classroom.

For example, a blog post I wrote on Motivation Matters today about using iPods to motivate students to stay on task and whether or not iPods should be allowed in the classroom is a perfect example of the way that technology and student engagement often work in tandem. Feel free to check out the post, and weigh in over there if you have an opinion.

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It's not hard to predict where I fall in the debate over whether technology has made 'millennials'—or the group of people born in the mid-'80s to about the year 2000—the smartest or dumbest generation to date, which was the question at hand at a recent luncheon hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, considering that I am a millennial.

Mark Bauerlein, who wrote a book called The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future—Or Don't Trust Anyone Under 30, not surprisingly (considering that title) took the side that this generation of kids has become more self-obsessed and fixated on "youth issues," crowding out time for intellectually stimulating activities like reading and debating important issues. Neil Howe, author of the book Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, took the position that students these days have higher SAT scores and lower pregnancy and crime rates, and that millennials are more involved in complex activities—like building robots and competing in science fairs—than any previous generation.

It's a little difficult not to be offended by Bauerlein's blanket statements about the intellectual capacity of millennials, but looking at it as objectively as possible, I can see how some of the technological developments that have occurred in the past 20 years or so have the potential to feed into a self-obsessiveness that could damage the worldview of this generation. But as far as I can tell, the teenage years have always been a fairly self-focused time in Americans' lives, no matter what generation you're from. I'm not sure that's something that technology has brought about in and of itself, although I do think it has the capacity to feed such trends.

From my point of view, in a lot of ways the Internet and other technological developments have made it even easier for young people to research and build on the ideas of those who have come before. Of course, there are examples of both kinds of people that Bauerlein and Howe describe, but I have a hard time believing that technology alone has made them that way.

It's an interesting debate, and well worth the read. Also, check out the videos of Bauerlein and Howe included in the story.

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It seems it's getting a little scary to be a textbook publisher in the digital age.

At least that was the mood at a meeting that the school division of the Association of American Publishers, the industry's trade group, held recently in Arlington, Va.

Publishers who gathered at the one-day "technology summit" on Oct. 2 contemplated a rash of challenges to the decades-long dominance of school textbooks over other curriculum materials and methods, and to their historical grip on school budgets.

Use of open content, virtual schools, and "authentic" content from original sources were among the upstart trends that attendees jotted onto notepads, as they listened to the researchers, state and school district representatives, and some of their own colleagues on the podium.

“Virtual schools are not using print textbooks,” Liz Glowa, a Washington-based researcher who has served as a consultant for the Southern Regional Education Board, said in a presentation at the meeting. She added that five million K-12 students, most of them high schoolers, have taken at least one online course.

Making the case that growth of virtual education will keep accelerating was Michael Horn, a co-author of the much-talked-about new book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. The book predicts that by 2019, half of all high school classes will be taught over the Internet.

One publisher, Steve Dowling, the president of Pearson School Companies, told the hall of about 200 attendees that the book's chapter on the basal textbook market made him feel "like you have a target on your back." His company, like other traditional publishers, has invested in creating digital versions of textbooks and other educational products.

Dowling said his former boss liked to describe the textbook industry as "a castle with a moat around it." That's no longer true, he acknowledged.

Also chipping away at that fortress are classroom delivery of original source material and teacher-created "open content," some speakers representing school districts and states said.

Schools can't individualize education with printed textbooks, said Gene Wilhoit, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Wilhoit observed that textbook publishers have an "interesting dilemma," because investing in creating advanced digital curriculum products will eventually cannibalize sales of their old, still-profitable, print products.

Even so, several educators reassured publishers that school districts still trust and value the quality and vetting process in traditional textbook publishing.

"We need your content," one educator said, while urging publishers to roll out flexible, digital versions of their products, so schools could purchase just the sections they need and combine those materials with others, using learning management systems.

Joe Hairston, who runs the Baltimore County Public Schools, one of the nation's 25 largest school districts, was adamant that publishers must step up their game if they want his business.

The superintendent said he has cultivated partnerships with defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp. because “technology goes to the military first. They hang onto it for 20 years, then give it to the commercial sector until they are done with it.” Only then does the technology filter into products for education.

"I want to cut out the middle man," Hairston said.

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This blog post on Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs.com points out a new peer-reviewed study that links Web 2.0 to academic improvement. The report found that Web 2.0 tools encourage participation and engagement, especially for those students who are timid; help students continue classroom discussions outside of the classroom; let students who are so inclined continue researching anytime, anywhere; and instill a sense of ownership and pride in students for the work they publish online, which can lead to more attention to detail and a better quality of work.

The report also found that one of the biggest obstacles to using Web 2.0 tools in the classroom was the time it takes teachers to incorporate those new tools into lesson plans. Although many teachers were familiar with the tools and used them in their personal lives, they were apprehensive about how to monitor Internet use in the classroom and the time needed to figure out how those tools should be used to teach.

You can download the report here.

What I really like about this study is that the conclusions it drew were the same things I've been hearing from educators over and over since I started covering ed tech, but it's based on a wide-scale study of teachers and students rather than just anecdotal evidence. As more of this kind of research comes in, I think it will shine a much-needed light on technology's significance in the classroom and help identify solid solutions for the problems that educators face with ed tech.

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Here's an interesting post over at PBS's Learning Now blog that talks about a recent court decision that upheld a school's decision to discipline students who made a fake MySpace profile for the school's principal containing offensive and vulgar information. The judge ruled that even though the offense happened off school grounds, its effect directly disrupted the school, and the students could be held responsible.

Punishing kids for what happens online, especially on social networking sites like MySpace.com, is a murky subject that educators are still feeling out at this point. As Digital Directions reporter Michelle Davis wrote about in her story outlining the ups and downs of social networking, it's not always clear what the school's role is in dealing with disciplinary problems that originate on social networking sites and eventually spill over into the school arena.

Personally, I didn't encounter too many social networking sites until I was older. Facebook launched when I was a freshman in college, and although MySpace was around earlier than that, I hadn't had much experience with it until I was a college student. Although I've never been one to share too much of my private life in a public online arena, I do remember being warned by parents and teachers alike when I graduated that employers often checked MySpace and Facebook profiles, and that I should be conscious of that.

I've always been pretty judicious about what I put online, but I don't know if I would have the same mind set if I encountered MySpace or Facebook at an earlier age. I think part of the reason some students feel it's OK to put up offensive, satirical profiles of their principals or post pictures of themselves drinking underage is because they don't realize how wide of an audience those profiles can reach, and the consequences for those actions aren't always clearly defined beforehand. The Internet feels like a huge place, and it seems unlikely that parents or teachers will stumble upon the sometimes unsavory antics at play on social networking sites, although the reality is that a simple Web search will often reveal students' profiles.

The students who made the fake profile of their principal must have known that what they were doing would be frowned upon by the school administration, but I don't know if they realized how severe the consequences of their prank could be. As sometimes happens on the Internet, it's possible for something that seems very small at first to turn into something way bigger than expected. The students might not have realized when they created the profile how much of a buzz it would create in the classroom and how strongly the administration could respond to such an issue.

As these kinds of problems arise more and more often, I imagine schools will eventually take a position on what students can be punished for. I think having policies in place to deal with these kinds of situations before they happen that both recognize the pervasive existence of social networking sites without banning the use of them outright and clearly delineate the consequences of certain disruptive behaviors (such as misrepresenting school staff or posting pictures of students engaging in illegal activities) would be beneficial for both educators and students. Knowing what they do now, I don't know if those students still would have made that fake profile—maybe, maybe not. But at least they would know what to expect from the school in response.

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:04 PM | Permalink | 1 Comment | TrackBacks (0)

A bill passed by Congress on Sept. 30 is likely to boost understanding of two crucial aspects of the vast online world that occupies a growing part of our lives: broadband access and child safety.

Of most immediate concern for schools is the bill's second section, authorizing a nationwide program to educate citizens about threats to children’s safety online and strategies to promote their safe use of the Internet.

The bill, numbered S. 1492, which President Bush is expected to sign, directs the Federal Trade Commission to start an advisory group that will evaluate the status of industry efforts to promote online safety, such as education and control technologies and age-appropriate labeling. The group will also take stock of Internet providers' success in reporting apparent child pornography and crime, and of the development of technology to help parents shield children from inappropriate material online.

Schools that receive federal E-rate funding will also be required to educate minors about appropriate online behavior, including participation in social networking Web sites and in chat rooms. Another required topic is “cyber bullying awareness and response.”

The National PTA and the Consortium for School Networking are among the education groups that lobbied for this section and have hailed its passage. Incidentally the authors of the section were Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii).

Broadband Access

The first part of the bill would shed new light on the nation’s progress toward providing its citizens with affordable access to broadband, or high-speed Internet. (Dial-up service is basically irrelevant to the video and interactive features that are now shaping the Web.)

But broadband access is still in short supply in many rural areas, or the doors are closed to people of limited means. (For a take on what broadband means to schools, check out a recent article on this subject by my co-blogger, Katie Ash.)

The bill requires the federal government to collect more, more regular, and better data on broadband services—and to encourage the states to do the same, in partnership with public and private groups and businesses.

The Federal Communications Commission must also assess the geographical areas that are not served by any broadband provider, and to compare broadband access in similar communities in the United States and at least 25 other countries.

School districts may get a chance to participate with other local groups and businesses on a regional or county “local technology planning team,” which the law would fund in each state under a matching grant program.

The teams would set strategy on how to help spread affordable broadband; on boosting technological literacy, increased computer ownership, and broadband use; and on spurring grassroots efforts to promote activities such as investment in related technologies.

Posted by Andrew Trotter at 2:33 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

A new report released by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a nonprofit think tank in Washington, found that technology has improved the overall quality of life for citizens and has had a generally positive impact on the world.

Specifically in regards to education, the report identified three areas where technology has made significant improvements in learning:
* Improved learning outcomes
* A variety of different instructional methods to meet different learner's needs
* Increased access to education

Technology, and specifically the Internet, has made it possible for more people to access information they would never have been able to get otherwise, said the report. Also, online learning was touted as a major technological breakthrough for education because it enables distance-learning and greatly expands the amount of education available to each individual.

The study didn't deliver all good news for ed-tech, though. Closing the digital divide and making sure everyone has equal access to new technology was identified as one of the technological challenges moving forward.

I tend to agree with a lot of what the report said. The improvements in technology have opened the door to greater educational opportunities for many people, although I do think that we have a long way to go before the educational potential of the Internet and other technologies are fully realized. Technology can provide tons of solutions for some of the problems we see in our classrooms, but if it isn't understood or implemented properly, those solutions can sometimes do more harm than good.

What do you think? Did this report paint an accurate picture of the way that technology has affected education? Or is it too much of an optimistic view?

Posted by Katie Ash at 12:24 PM | Permalink | No Comments | TrackBacks (0)

Is technology in the classroom just about academics?

Some educators see it as a way to forge rich connections between students and their communities.

I spoke recently with Vicky G. Cline, the technology director for the Greenbrier County schools in West Virginia, who has a vision to use technology to help build students’ “pride of place.”

Though known for the ritzy Greenbrier resort, the county offers limited economic prospects to its young people, and many move away after high school, Cline says.

But she has led a project that puts “global positioning system” devices into the hands of math students at the county’s two high schools, while giving them a way to serve their community and teaching them lessons in land-use planning and entrepreneurship.

Several hundred math students in grades 9 through 12 are using GPS to survey economic activity in the county. The satellite-based system helps them travel to specific coordinates in the county and measure a quadrant around each key point.

Students observe the way the land in each quadrant is being used, whether as woodland, agricultural, “non-plant covered,” mining, or other use. They estimate the percentage of the area that is used in various ways.

They record the data they collect using the free virtual globe software, Google Earth, which allows the creation of “image overlays” that can present the data to local users.

The classes are also working with two professors at Marshall University, in Huntington, W. Va., to put the information and geological features into a geographic information system, a more robust tool that links electronic maps with information.

Students discuss ways to reuse damaged areas of the county that have been partially reclaimed from strip mines.

“We want to use land use data to predict areas of potential growth” in economic activity, Cline says, noting that “the county is kind of interested in what we are going to come up with.”

Cline sees connections that may be made to other school activities, such as water testing expeditions that students have carried out for several summers at a massive “gob pile” in the county, where the waste from strip mines has been dumped.

In a related project, students are taking digital photos of landmarks and geographic features. “We are trying to do an online atlas,” Cline says.

She also wants students to explore the possibility of staying and working in the community after high school.

“One of my goals is to tell students to find ways to generate some kind of entrepreneurship in the area,” she says. “You can set up honeycombs on these strip mine sites--there’s money in that. We’re planting blueberry plants on reclaimed sites.”

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