TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION DIGEST
Digest No. 11 -- July 9, 1997
A Moderated Mailing List
Steve Wildstrom (steve_wildstrom@businessweek.com), Moderator

Return to Technology & Education

I received a summary of your article regarding President Clinton's drive to connect all classrooms to the internet and the reality that schools aren't sure what advantage the internet will offer over a good library. I'd like to offer a perspective to the situation from the viewpoint of a person who works with 25 school districts in Wayne County, MI, near Detroit.

You are absolutely correct that one of the reasons the internet is not used more is because an investment has not been made in teacher training but the problem has many components that are interrelated. More staff development is not the sole answer. Because of Eisenhower professional development funds, teachers probably now have more high quality staff development available to them than they ever have in the past. It is still a drop in the bucket, however, compared to the need for continuing professional growth in mathematics, science and technology as well as the other core subjects. The latest glitch in scheduling that professional development is a shortage of substitute teachers. All the sessions that I arrange have to be done after school, on Saturdays or in the summer.

PROBLEM NUMBER 1 - The number of substitute teachers is directionally related to the available time for professional development. Even if every day of the calendar were a potential professional development day and the funds were available for any and all teachers to attend, the priorities of the schools are related to the priorities of the public and the politicians. At this point, technology is Clinton's priority but it is not the priority of our Governor Engler nor our communities. Schools and teachers are bashed because students do not have immediate recall on isolated facts that are personally important to the politician or the media. Actually, students are grappling with concepts and information at a much earlier age today than they were 20 or 30 years ago and we know the exponential rate of the increase in information. The media focus on tests so the schools focus on preparing students to take those tests that so many use as the sole measure of a student's education or of the school district's or teacher's value.

PROBLEM NUMBER 2 - When technology is not the priority of the public the limited time and money available for professional development is spent on providing information or skills needed to avert the current crisis in public opinion.

If the problems of time, money, and public priorities were eliminated the answer would still not be simple and direct. Professional development in technology is little good if teachers and schools do no have access to the technology. So even though we are back to the beginning again, we simply realize that President Clinton is doing one of the things necessary to move education into the 21st century. We have to attack many fronts at once if we want to win the battle. The politicians, media and public need to realize that technology will be one of the tools students use to access the sea of information available when they need it. Some of the most important lessons we all have to learn are what tools are available, how to use them, and which tools to use for the job at hand.

It is true that we really don't know the impact of the internet on our children's education but the wonderful thing is that as teachers learn more and more about technology, they find additional ways to use the it to enhance the learning experience for their students. It is also true that if we only think about whether students could get the information for the report they need to write today at a good library we are missing the whole point. We don't send our children to school to learn to write reports. They write reports to learn how to gather information. Libraries are one tool and the internet is another. The Passport to Knowledge project at NASA with its LIVE FROM MARS program is a perfect example of the need the internet meets that the public library can't. The daily and weekly updates of the progress of Mars spacecraft and the new information it relays are unbelievable. We can get the news we are interested in immediately rather than waiting for someone to publish a book about it or the local television station to decide if there is enough public interest to report it.

Public education is indeed a complex issue. Thanks for writing about the need for technology in education and helping keep the public aware of what needs to be done by all of us to prepare our children for the time when they will be the politicians, the public and the educators.

Cherie Cornick
Alliance for Mathematics and Science
313-535-4000
cornicc@mail.wcresa.k12.mi.us

Teachers and kids in several thousand schools across the US and 30 other countries are connected through a science program in which they use computers, precise science protocols and instruments, Email, and the Internet. They learn about and share, worldwide, information on the local and global environment and the scientific process, while getting lessons in math, geography and even sociology. Really. This hands-on, real-life science program, available to all elementary and secondary schools, is just two years old and growing rapidly as various states, school districts, and universities volunteer to help expand its reach. It is NOT aimed at an elite corps; some schools include special ed students. More than 4,000 teachers have been trained. They use computers and various scientist-approved or designed instruments and techniques to measure and report environmental data. They then teach their kids. Their students have taken and uploaded more than a half-million data reports in just two years. The students and teachers also download from the Web collective data sets and related maps, graphs and other material created by a consortium of federal agencies (NASA/NOAA/NSF/EPA) and by the schools themselves. For more shared learning, the schools exchange information via special E-mail.

As evidenced by the comments we receive, and the program's rapid growth, parents, teachers and students are enthralled by all this. The program is called GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) and it can be viewed on the Web at http://www.globe.gov (Or skip the promo and go directly to http://globe/fsl.noaa.gov)

I hope you find GLOBE worthy of inquiry. We can provide our science, education and tech folks for a chat. And while school activity is off during summer break, can give you name/phones/emails of participating teachers My better E-mail is hroden@globe.gov

Sincerely,

Hank Roden

PS: While I'm a flak, for the Feds, I really Do think this is the best thing since pita bread.

Time and money remain a problem with staff development. Teachers who have made exceptional use of educational technology in their classrooms, have done so through some training, but have made the greatest strides through their own initiatives. I have used telecommunications in my classroom since 1992, when I received grant money for a telephone line. Since then our school district has provided a computer for every classroom and access to the Internet. Some of the projects which my students have been involved in are the National Geographic Society's Kids Network, Journey North, Passport to Knowledge and individual and class keypals.

Passport to Knowledge, sponsored by NASA, the National Science Foundation and Public Television, provides a series of electronic field trips and my students went on two this year!! They journeyed to Mars and Antarctica. This is an example of how we use technology in my classroom: 1) all the students have their own e-mail account 2) all students know how to access the Internet, bookmark, save graphics and articles to be used in Hyperstudio or a word processor. Students explore the Live From Mars Web Site, e-mail questions to the scientists and go back to the Web Site to learn more about the scientist or engineer who answered their questions. Some students were motivated to explore other Web Sites for more pictures and information on Space Science and Exploration. Many of my students were excited about going to Mars or Antarctica someday themselves and becoming an explorer. They did a lot of exploring this year, thanks to technology. If you would like additional examples of integrating technology, I would be happy to send you more details.

Marilyn Weiser
Minot, ND

YOUR LAST STATEMENT
"Do you know of schools that are doing an exceptionally good--or exceptional good-or exceptionally bad--job? Send me an E-mail message or a fax to let me know about it."

Suggest you check out the following URL... http://www.commpages.com/adtech/ The South Bay Advanced Educational Technology Consortium. Here is a brief about what they are doing and have done:

The South Bay Advanced Educational Technology Consortium, as a partnership of thirteen school districts, one hundred twenty schools, over one hundred thousand students, parents, universities and community colleges, government agencies, industry and business organizations representing over 10,000 South Bay employers, non-profit organizations and diverse communities, understands the value and importance of technology in today's and tomorrow's world.

When you visit the site be sure to check out the companies that are involved. Who am I ?

I am just a parent! But one parent that understands that you don't have to reinvent the wheel to make positive change.

Your article about GSN was good, but you could be sitting on a real gold mine if take the time to look.

You seem to be concerned about what is going on in education. If you can write it I can provide you with some solid information. You are welcome to check out (which I hope you will) any information I can provide you.

PS: No strings, just good information to help pull education out of its 19th century "funk".

George C. Fortner, Owner
GCFCO
THE BRIDGE MAKER
gcfco@earthlink.net

[Note: This is the last of the digests containing material that was posted to me before this list went live. I expect the pace of digest will slow, especially over the summer, as we move into the new material, but I hope we can get some lively dialog going. If you sent mail to me that you think should have appeared in these digests, drop me a note; I only posted those messages for which I received explicit permission and I may have missed your original note approving the publication.--MOD]

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