TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION DIGEST
Digest No. 98-9 -- October 20, 1998
A Moderated Mailing List
Steve Wildstrom (steve_wildstrom@businessweek.com), Moderator

Return to Technology & Education

Steven J. Gorski (sgorski@erols.com) writes:

I am with NITV, a non-profit learning technologies corporation. We have created a web site, TeachersFirst (http://www.teachersfirst.com), intended to make it easier for K-12 teachers to find good resources from the Internet to use in their classrooms. I have three requests:

1. Does anyone know where I might find two interns--one to help with business research for underwriting/sponsorship targeting, and one to help with the technical site maintenance?

2. Would anyone who has had success in getting their web site reviewed and/or placed in front of technology/education publication editors wish to provide me with some advice as I start down that path?

3. If anyone feels they have content which could be shared with our site for mutually beneficial purposes, please contact me.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Steve Gorski
sgorski@teachersfirst.com

We have been asked to help network several local schools. Unfortunately, over the last few decades, NZ education authorities have built schools as modular classrooms scattered over wide areas, usually separated by asphalt or concrete, creating expensive trenching/tunneling cable laying problems.

Has anyone found INEXPENSIVE options for transmitting the ethernet Signals by infra-red beams between classroom blocks? I have sighted some possibilities on the web, but the prices start at about "2x classroom computers" and immediately go ballistic.

Are you concerned about making sure schools are renovated and constructed to meet the needs of students in the 21st century?

Yes I am. I would like to see windows that leak air and water replaced. I would like to see roofs that leak fixed. I am concerned about a/c ventilation ducts that are not cleaned out often enough. I would like to see emergency lighting systems (i.e., fire evacuation) repaired/upgraded to code. I would like to see emergency generators repaired/replaced. I would like to see heating boilers that are far past their useful life, and are badly polluting our air, replaced.

I would like to see school facility "investments" maintained properly. Hundreds of millions of $ of property, allowed to fall apart.

What are Bill Clinton/Al Gore doing about these issues? Nothing, from What I see. They just want the sex appeal / media appeal of the internet wiring, allowing kids to access porno web sites and pro sports web sites from our schools' computers. This happens every day.

For four years I was a school building facilities consultant to a large and poor school system here in Massachusetts. The buildings cumble for lack of $. Much of what I saw and had to deal with would shock/amaze the average parents of school-age children.

Kevin

I have a strong interest in seeing modeling and simulation microworlds used more in our schools, not only for grade school/high school/ college students but for business people to see the circular nature of their actions, and to teach the systemic approach to business (and other) activity.

Does anyone know of a place this is used and how someone may promote the use of this great tool in a educational setting ?

Thanks.

Tom Clifford
Michigan Corrections
Lansing, Michigan
cliffotj@state.mi.us
tomnann@compuserve.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tomnann

The following are two projects for which teachers at Club Boulevard Elementary School need assistance. All and any leads concerning where they should go on the internet to get started will be greatly appreciated.

For fifth grade:
We simply want to connect with each state in the United States. Each child will be assigned a state and will be asked to locate and communicate with a student in that state. The information that is gathered will be left to the students, since our goal is to make the connection. At some point the students will share information with others in the class and with those in the other fifth grade.

The objective is to communicate and to gain the use of Internet skills. Also, the music teacher is interested in any leads which will utilize the Internet in helping demonstrate to her kids of various grades, different types of music, from jazz to folk etc.. of different cultures., possibly including US, African, Caribbean, various aboriginal, etc..

Herb Halbrecht
(919) 620-0546
Fax (919) 620-0454

The attached newsletter has several items that may be of interest to readers of this list.

Great Schools is a Web site that allows parents to compare schools in Silicon Valley. Each school posts a wide variety of data on its programs and performance in a consistent format to facilitate comparisons. Schools are supporting this effort because they want to get the word out on who they are and how they are different from other schools. They don't like the newspaper stories that just list test scores.

Another site to look at is www.svi.org/resourcecoop. The Resource Co-op is a repository of curriculum ideas and materials for teachers wanting to incorporate the Web in their instruction.

There is more material on the Smart Valley web site that may be of interest to educators and administrators - www.svi.org.

Seth

*****************************************************

Seth G. Fearey (fearey@coecon.com)
Advisor to Electronic Communities
Collaborative Economics
350 Cambridge Ave., Suite 200
Palo Alto, CA 94306
www.coecon.com
650-614-0242
fax 650-614-0240

*****************************************************

Boston will become the first large urban school district in the nation to network every school, library and community center when it celebrates Boston Net Day on October 26, 1998.

The achievement is a major milestone in a two-year-old public/private partnership that has attracted more than $26 million in outside funding to bring computer technology to Boston's 64,000 students and 4,800 teachers.

Concerned by the growing disparities in access to new technology between urban and suburban populations, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino in 1996 announced his plan to install one computer for every four students and wire all schools, libraries and community centers to the Internet by 2001. Also that year, President Clinton and Vice President Gore unveiled a challenge to wire every school in the U.S. to the Internet by the turn of the century. In October, Boston becomes the first major urban school district in America to meet that challenge.

According to researchers, 70% of America's families with incomes over $50,000 have computers in the home. But 90% of Boston students lacked access to computers at home when the initiative began. Now, every student will have a chance to use technology as a learning tool and prepare for productive lives in a city where 60% of all jobs will require technology skills by the year 2000.

Over 100 business partners, including 3Com, Intel, HiQ and Microsoft, have joined government and the community, including labor unions such as the I.B.E.W., to make Boston's goal a reality.

Corporate donors also helped to create the first free training facility to help teachers incorporate technology into their curriculum, to supplement traditional "chalk and talk" teaching with new interactive learning applications. And the Boston Teachers Union encourages every teacher to undertake a technology assessment and develop a plan for utilizing new school technology.

Business executives say they invested in Boston because of Mayor Menino's and the appointed School Committee's commitment to education and because of confidence in Boston's Superintendent of Schools, Thomas Payzant. The Superintendent points to the new technology as another vehicle to reach higher standards of teaching and learning in the classroom as well as greater accountability throughout the system.

The networking of every school and library in Boston will connect students and teachers to educational resources outside the classroom. It will equip students with new tools to enrich learning. It will provide teachers with new ways to motivate students. It will allow greater use of e-mail to enhance communication among educators and parents. And it will enable schools to benefit from the City's new contract with Cablevision, which commits the cable company to provide every school and library with free high-speed Internet service for the next ten years.

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