TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION DIGEST
Digest No. 99-1 -- Feb. 26, 1999
A Moderated Mailing List
Steve Wildstrom (steve_wildstrom@businessweek.com), Moderator

Return to Technology & Education

FROM THE MODERATOR: Here we are, back after a very long hiatus. It was largely my fault; I've just been very busy with all sorts of things. But to keep this list alive, we're going to need more posts. Get me the posts, and I promise I'll get out the digests.

I urge any subscribers in the Washington area who want to see some of the most impressive results of American education to visit the open house of the 58th annual Science Talent Search. After 57 years of being synonymous with Westinghouse, STS sponsorship has been assumed by Intel Corp. But other than increased scholarships, little has changed and the open house will still show off the work of the 40 finalists. The open house will be held Saturday and Sunday, Mar. 6-7, at the Great Hall of the National Academy of Sciences.

Kelley Knapp (kknapp@spencerstuart.com) writes:

I'd like to find out about schools in New York City with a New Media emphasis (College level). Could you refer me to someone who could help me out? Let me know.

Thanks!

Kelley Knapp
kknapp@spencerstuart.com

NASA QUEST invites YOU!

Have you had a chance to visit NASA Quest's Learning Technologies Channel web site http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/ or participate in the diverse offerings yet? Start the New Year out right by taking advantage of these free educational resources!

The primary focus of the LTC is to broaden the uses of the Internet to include in-service teacher training and bring new Internet experiences into the classroom.

NASA Quest's LTC (Learning Technologies Channel) has a series of special events on the calendar for January. You can check the latest scoop by visiting the LTC schedule of event web pages at: http//quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/schedule.html

NASA Quest is also the home of excellent educational projects including Space Team Online, Aero Design Team Online, Women of NASA, Mars Team Online, and Space Scientists Online. See http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ and visit the online interactive projects.

In April 1999, NASA will be sending its first woman Shuttle commander, Eileen Collins, into space. That seemed an opportune time to join with Women of NASA (another Questproject) to bring you a special focus on women who are pioneers in their fields. We're calling it Female Frontiers and the soon to open website is developing at: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/space/frontiers

It's not too early to set a bookmark at that site. We are busily preparing profiles of "frontiers women" and assembling curriculum materials to support this feature project. Special focus chats with these outstanding women will begin in January. A calendar of events will appear on site within the next couple of days.

Please feel free to share this information with interested educators!

Jan Wee, NASA Quest Teacher Consultant

(Herb Halbrecht commented on my school network proposal last October in Tech Ed.)

Hello Herb!

I agree with you that many teachers are apt to run for cover if you try to show them how to use a computer. Ask them to do a complete, complicated systems re-engineering of the schools, and we are then really being silly.

My computerized fiber optic school network design includes a list of about 100 functions for the teachers. The full menu is intended only for one teacher (plus one or two backups in case of illness or vacation) with special training who is in charge of continuously monitoring all year long a segmented course taught throughout the network. A monitor assigned to a segmented course has to adjust at least a couple of times per week several dozen parameters associated with the segmented course in order to maintain an optimum level of performance.

There is then a much simpler subset of functions for all teachers. Essentially all they do is teach classes, make up, proctor and grade exams and homework, and all the other usual things they do. They do have to stay within some constraints imposed by the computerized fiber optic school network that are somewhat different from the conventional system that they are used to.

School network cost is certainly continuing to be driven down by the relentless advance in telecommunication and computer technologies. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported today that telephone companies are making available digital Internet access 100 times faster than today's 56-kilobit per second analog computer modems. The Dec. 7 issue of Business Week has a report that Bell Labs is on the verge of cranking up the transmission capacity of a single optical fiber to 200,000,000,000,000 bits per second.

Then we have torsion field-based instant communications. Russian astronomers have determined that torsion fields are transmitted at a speed of one billion times the speed of light. Physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have transmitted Mozart's 40th Symphony at 4.7 times the speed of light using torsion field generators and torsion field sensors. The European physics laboratory CERN has determined that torsion field information can be transmitted through 20 miles of mountain without attenuation. A commercial version is being developed which will be able to universally transmit information through the entire earth at many times the speed of light with a bandwidth wide enough to allow transmission of three-dimensional holographic video.

One of the many points I am making with my design is that with such high-powered telecommunications soon to be available, doesn't it make sense to at least try to come up with a much more modern, less inefficient educational system? What could we lose if we humans explore some possibilities and still fail?

Sincerely,

Gary Vesperman
vman@skylink.net

Gary: We are still worlds apart in the pracrical applications of information and telecommunications technology in schools, certainly elementary schools.

The potential implications and applications of what you are talking about are way above the reality that at least the school system here in Durham, NC faces.

First, we are attempting to get the TEACHERS trained enough to use the basic and simpler currently available internet to aid in teaching. We're starting from the ground up, not the sky down. With the advent of the built-in search features of Netscape 4.5, and the Sherlock feature (fabulous) of Apple OS 8.5, it is much easier to find relevant material on the internet, and easy for the teachers to assign projects, and for the kids ( I'm involved with K-5), who are excited about and eager to use computers. The Durham school system is 100% Mac.

Nobody has to 'know computers', to learn how to use the internet and email. We can get kids started in 1-2 hours max, teachers somewhat longer! First we have to do battle with the 'downtown' administrators , convinncing them that we need to be more than just 'wired up', using netscape 2.02, with 12-16 megs of RAM.

Then comes the conflict with 'downtown' which is obsessed with 'equality' - so that say all schools are 80% wired or whatever( but none are completely so rendering ALL inefficient if operable at all), rather than completely wiring and equip some schools, on some kind of rolling basis even if picked by lottery or something.

We, incidentally, are luckier than some since there is a cadre of Duke student volunteers available to assist in the installations of memory and upgrading of systems WHEN we get the memory chips, additional ethernet cards , etc.

We're getting there, although the speed may be glacial. Teachers, hitherto either intimidated or just not interested in the internet and computers, seeing what other teachers and their students are beginning to do, and the excitement of the kids, are getting more interested and more involved. Although a major complaint of the teachers is that they 'have no time', some are suggesting , (hallelujah!), that they would come in Saturday mornings for tutorials.

Some of the teachers, no longer intimidated by even not really computer technology of the internet and email, are beginning to WANT to take computer courses.

Outside contributors are posting bonus cash awards to teachers for best uses of the internet by their kids, etc...The business community can certainly help in this fashion, and it doesn't take that much to get started. Try ANY principal.

We're at ground zero , and certainly at the ground level. We also have a great "information highway" at the state level. North Carolina is a leader in this field. Now we're working to bring the basic ground level schools up to where we can really use the "information highway". I'm just a volunteer in this activity. However, another way to help would be for others, intead of just lamenting and bitching about schools, volunteer to help their local schools, especially elementary schools in inner cities ,with the basics, as The Duke Institute for Learning in Retirement is doing.

It only takes a few hours a week. The pleasure of seeing kids excited about learning, whatever the medium, is priceless.

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

The ERICA Awards

Starting January 11, 1999 and running through March 31,1999, LM Ericsson, a global data communications and telecommunications company is offering $250,000 in Web development services and expenses to non-profit organizations from around the world in the inaugural Ericsson Internet Community Awards, the ERICA.

ERICA is seeking new and creative ideas for technology applications that take advantage of the community-building power of the Internet. The program is open to all charitable non-profit organizations (U.S. 501(c) (3) or equivalent). For information and to submit entries online, log on to the ERICA Web site, www.ericsson.com/erica after January 11th.

For information write to ERICA, c/o Edelman Public Relations, 1200 Brickell Avenue, Suite 1270, Miami, Florida 33131.

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