TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION DIGEST
Digest No. 19 -- July 30, 1997
A Moderated Mailing List
Steve Wildstrom (steve_wildstrom@businessweek.com), Moderator

Return to Technology & Education

Carlos Ardila writes:

Last week a conference titled "Education in the Information Era" was held in Cartagena, Colombia, South America, sponsored by the IADB, the GIIC and the University of the Andes in Bogotá Colombia. There were about 200 people from the technology and education sectors, including Seymour Papert, John Gage, several ministers and ex-minister of education from several countries of Latin America.

One of the key points in discussion was the pull vs. the push model.

Many of the participants opted for the pull model, consisting in creating projects that justified the necessity of computers. The deployment of computers should only take place after a careful process of planning.

There were other strong arguments as "how can you sit down here to discuss these kind of things when our children do not have even the minimal food to enable the learning process" or "it is fool to talk about technology at schools when the teachers unions are stronger then ever because some times the government is six months late with the payment of their salaries"

On the other corner was Seymour Papert who strongly argued that we should establish a vision of a computer for every child in Latin America in ten years and fight hard for it".

I would like to know your opinions around this topic.

Carlos Ardila
Gerente General
COMPUCENTRO Ingenieros Consultores
Calle 98 # 22 - 64 of 610
Bogotá, Colombia, South America
Tels: 6115296, 6351077, 6102473

Next week I ( I am a high school science teacher)will be making a presentation to our secondary administrators on the use of CBL's (calculator based labs ) in the teaching of science and math. A CBL is a unit that can interface with many different probes, and a graphing calculator. In addition, the graphing calculator can be linked to a computer and programs and data can be transferred. Programs can even be gotten of the Net. The impact on how we get data in a science or math class is incredible. For some VERY GOOD infomation on CBL's go to [http://www.vernier.com/cblcat.shtml] or {http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/cbl.htm}

My premise is that in most science labs we are still teaching using equipment of the same type and design as 30 years ago. I am looking for some data that backs this up and compares us with other industrialized countries. I believe that the new technology is not only better, but cheaper. It seems difficult for teachers and administrators to change.

I'm Gary Dietz. I'm a product manager at White Pine Software, the commercial developers of CU-SeeMe and the White Pine Reflector group conferencing server (soon to be renamed and updated as MeetingPoint).

I don't want this to be an advert. I just want some input to best help educators.

White Pine Software has received some constructive criticism about how it currently serves the educational market. We are improving our focus on education over the next few months with an exciting series of low-cost CU@School bundles and some new student and teacher technology tools.

As the product manager for the CU@School push, I'd like to existing and new customers know that in the coming months we'll be deploying tools that let teachers more easily set up multi-point classes, enhance the ability for the teacher to have simple, effective control over the students in a virtual class, and let the students more easily ask questions of the instructor. We'll also have updated and improved Macintosh and Windows CU-SeeMe clients and the new MeetingPoint server!

We're working with key educational partners to learn how we can show even more of you how to develop and implement web-based distance learning solutions that include video.

To that end, I'd like to ask some questions. I promise to answer as many as possible, and apologize in advance if I can't answer all of theresponses that may come my way (but I will read and contemplate all of them):

1) How important is a physical whiteboard (something you can actually write on with pens) to any distance learning project you are contemplating?
2) How fast is your network connection?
3) What platforms are your SERVERS in your teaching environment? (% NT, Unix, Apple, OS/2)
4) What platforms are the clients in your student environment (% Mac vs % PC) 5)
Are you aware of the new "e-rate" discount program from the federal government, and are you planning on participating in it?

For those of you that use CU-SeeMe already:

1) Are you using the shareware, or the commercial White Pine Version?
2) What do you like about CU-SeeMe?
3) What do you dislike about it?
4) Are you aware that CU-SeeMe has a server portion that allows group conferencing?
5) Have you run a classroom or portion of a class using CU-SeeMe? How did it go?
6) What are your parental control concerns?
7) Would you choose a version of a CU-SeeMe client that takes all ability to join and participate in conferences away from the student and places that control in the hands of a teacher or assigned moderator?

Thanks for all of your input. With your help, White Pine Software will continue to serve you with improved distance learning solutions.

Gary Dietz
CU@School Project
542 Amherst Street
Nashua, NH 03063
603-886-9050 x356
gdietz@wpine.com gmd@robinsoft.com (alternate) http://www.wpine.com
http://www.robinsoft.com (alternate)

Our particular school district (Killeen Ind. School Dist., Killeen ,TX) has for the past 4 years provided a 47 hour training program for teachers that have been in the district at least one year. After the training, for the time put in by the teacher each teacher is given a Macintosh (lately 8500- 8600's Macs) for their use in the classroom. Other advanced classes have provided additional training to teachers to work on independent units/projects to be use and shared throughout the district. Grants can be submitted to the school district by teachers for additional computers. These teachers must create duplicable systems that can be use by others as money is available. The system has been very successful in teaching others to teach. Regards,
Mr. K.J. McGinnis
Mountain View Elementary
500 Mountain Lion Rd.
Harker Heights, TX 76548

>Michael Pitsch (TechnicalDocuments@compuserve.com) writes in Tech-Ed 16: >>A project just starting up at the Indianola school district in Iowa has >>been estimated to save the district $150,000 in additional hardware >>costs and telephone charges. Instead of purchasing 4 file servers, >>the district can run all WAN traffic through one file server. >>Wireless has been tested to provide T-1 like speed access and >>is a proven and reliable alternative to hard-wired solutions.

> What does wireless have to do with the number of servers in a network? Not > much, me thinks. The reality of the technical situation with wireless is > this: it is still an nonstandardized, low bandwith, site specific > technology that schools should be very careful about investing. Don't >believe me? Just ask the business community, who are going very slowly on > this technology.

> Not even getting into the fact that T1 speeds (1.544 Mbps), are >6 times slower than 10base-T, and even slower than widely available Fast Ethernet, 100Mbps. I personally wouldn't want to be running an application/file server/printer server over T1s... our network is slow enough as it is at 10base-T. Just think about printing. With network printers, the files are going to be going from client -> server -> printer even if the printer is 1 ft away. The lines are going to get so clogged..

Also, $150,000!!!! That's $50K per server... I'd hardly imagine that you would: (a) need that kind of equipment; or (b) be able to replace 4 $50K servers for $50K... If you can do (b), then the original 4 servers obviously would cost less...

Kevin

Kevin C. Miller
Consulting CEO, Custom Software Design & Network
FreshWater, Inc.
kevin@devworld.com

>Jim Denham (J-Denham@WORLDNET.ATT.NET) writes: >First of all, it is impossible to stimulate students with donated software >and hardware that is ten years behind their own stuff at home. It is >surprising to continue to see people want to relegate second hand stuff >to our kids when they would howl if asked to use the same tools on >their job. Yes, we are good at being imaginative and creative with less, but >why not help us a little - this is hard work.>

I really kills me how some people can contend that _nothing_ is better than _something_.

I freely admit that we replace Apple II's in schools with 1987-1989 vintage 386's, because this is what is available from the business world. Can you connect to the Web with an Apple II?

Is Web access better than no Web access? Are Windows and GUI word processing and cdrom encyclopedia's better than Apple Works and outdated textbooks?

This especially irritates me coming from a group of supposed professionals that don't have a majority of their members who don't even understand how to use an Apple II.

You teachers want Multimedia, Internet, CAI, and all the other buzzwords but you don't even appreciate the importance of providing simple word processing to your students.

_Dessert_, to students that haven't had their supper, is inappropriate and irresponsible.

Quality teachers, who leave some money left in the budget for technology is what we need.

Mike

I am currently looking for information on alternative forms of assessment particularly in the area of Business Education. Any secondary business teachers out there? Please respond. Thanks and have a great day!!!

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