TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION DIGEST
Digest No. 4 -- July 2, 1997
A Moderated Mailing List
Steve Wildstrom (steve_wildstrom@businessweek.com), Moderator

Return to Technology & Education

I'm working my way through the large pile of postings that came in during the protracted process of getting this list up. The postings are going out in more or less the order they came in. I'm holding the flow to two digests a day, and I expect to clear up the backlog by early next week. Then I'll move on to the new posts that have started to roll in. I imagine the pace may be fairly slow over the summer, but keep those messages coming.-MOD]

Matt Mulder (mattville@aol.com) writes:

"Perusal of school-run Web sites suggests that most of them serve mainly to give kids a chance to design Web pages, a useful, but hardly critical, skill." In your June 9 online edition STEPHEN H. WILDSTROM writes on the need for understanding and support of Internet technology by educators if the heavily funded Internet in the schools programs are going to succeed. While I agree with Mr. Wildstrom on many of his points, the quote I provided above bothered me. The misconception that Design (graphic, industrial, interior, architectural or otherwise) is mere window dressing and therefore is not a valuable or indeed critical skill needs to be changed in this country.

I would not have even brought this point up in regards to a policy debate in public education funding except that our public education system does not support creative problem-solving or for that matter critical thinking. The system is extremely overburdened and underfunded. It exists right now as little more than glorified babysitting. That is not to say that teacher's are to blame. You try and take care of 30 or more kids per hour with no equipment and poor parenting. Kids must be given creative outlets for there imaginations.

Mr. Wildstrom, I am sure understands that, when confronted with the authorship of one's own ideas, critical thinking is taking place. Giving kids a chance to understand, author, and formulate their own ideas within a hyper media such as the world wide web helps them understand broader perspectives beyond their immediate boundaries and perhaps more importantly within themselves.

For the record, I am a graphic designer getting my Masters at Cranbrook Academy of Art and I struggle daily over designing on the web - the good, bad, and ugly - This self-imposed torture has done nothing but provoke critical thinking within me and my colleagues. I think designing on the web can do the same within our children if our educators and policy makers don't undervalue their creative efforts.

Sincerely,
Matthew Mulder
Cranbrook Academy of Art
1221 North Woodward Avenue
Bloomfield Hills. MI
48303-0801

Your article in the June 9th issue, "Readin', Writin' on the the Internet," caught my attention. I do know of some schools that are on their way doing an "exceptionally" good job at connecting parents with teachers and school officials.

The company that is behind the effort is the Family Education Network. Working with the US Department of Education, The National PTA, and the American Association of School Administrators (AASA),it is developing customized educationally-focused Web sites for public schools.

To date,the Family Education Network has launched six local sites (Redding, CA; Shelton, WA; Hingham, MA; Ipswich, MA; Plainfield, NJ; and Tri-Center, IA). Ten other school districts (a total of 144 schools) have signed up with our Network and are in the building stages - they will launch this summer or early fall. Another 25 school districts (representing about 200 schools) have singed contracts and are in the process of gathering information to build the sites. Lastly, on May 5th the entire state of Maryland, which includes approximately 1,200 schools, announced its' statewide initiative to connect its school districts with the Family Education Network.

I can put you in touch with parents and teachers and school officials in those areas. I can send you more detailed descriptions about why they use the sites if you're interested, just let me know.

You can view the sites by going to www.familyeducation.com/ma/ipswich or you can visit the Family Education Network's national site, www.familyeducation.com. Once you're there scroll down to the bottom of the page and link from "Your Town."

One last point I thought you might be interested in exploring. The Family Education Network is using its Web to give parents a ticket into more active participation in educational issues and decisions.

- localized Write Your Rep will debut this month. It will allow users to write/email their local reps in both Washington and the state house. Type in your street address, and you get a list of everyone from the President on down to your local state representative.

- News and Policy debuted late last month (on the National Web site, located at familyeduction.com). It includes Reuters educational news feed, and Education Week daily updates. Legislative Alerts (custom email).

I enjoyed your June 9 column about educating teachers on the Internet and I thought you would be interested in a program at Vanderbilt University with a similar purpose.

SNAP, or Student and Native American Partnerships, is committed to bringing information technology to Native American students and teachers across the country and increasing contact between Native American and non-Indian schools. SNAP not only delivers Internet, e-mail and video conference technology, but teach the technology as well. This Spring SNAP traveled to Ogala, S.D., to establish "e-mail pals" between the third grade classes at Loneman school and the University School of Nashville.

They taught students how to communicate through technology by introducing them to video conferencing and the Internet with culturally specific educational computer programs SNAP designed. To ensure the program's success, team members trained teachers how to use and teach the technology SNAP delivered.

On June 14 SNAP members will leave Vanderbilt and travel to an American Indian reservation in Arizona to work with elementary students at Seba Dakai school outside Winslow. In Late June SNAP will travel to Compton, Calif. In addition to teaching Internet technology, SNAP will establish an e-mail link between the Navajo students and students from the Compton Vanguard elementary school.

By mid-July SNAP will travel to the Narrows Glen retirement home in Tacoma, Wash. There they plan to set up a link between the retirement home and all the SNAP schools so students may e-mail elders for advice.

Before returning to Vanderbilt in early August, SNAP will visit two high schools in Puyallup, Wash. They hope to begin a partnership between the students at Chief Leschi school and the Cascade Christian school. SNAP team leader Jason Dinger helped develop the program because of his interest in introducing information age technology to underserved populations. He hopes to use technology to help discourage cultural stereotypes and decrease discrimination.

In 1996 Dinger formed SNAP with Faye and Frank Clarke of Educate the Children Foundation and Chief Walking Shield of the American Indian Society. The four met when they received the 1996 President's Service Awards at the Points of Light Foundation. Although the award has been given every year since 1992, this is the first time the recipients have used the event to create another volunteer project.

For the Ogala project, ETCF provided phone lines, computers and educational software; Chief Walking Shield found the needy school on the reservation; and SNAP provided video cameras, educational and technical support. Funding for the hardware, software and travel is coming from a variety of sources for the summer trip.

Sincerely, Adrienne Outlaw Information Officer

This is an e-mail for Mr. Wildstrom about his article on Reading Writing and Internet. He should check out Mill Hill School in Southport CT. Talk about integrating technology into education.

The principal's name is Linda Hartzer. The phone number is 203-255-8320.Hope this helps.

Regards.
Robert K. Morgan|
E-mail Address: rkm-echo4@worldnet.att.net

Thanks for the excellent article on the school web sites. Please visit our school website at crockerfarm.org. Some concerned parents got together, formed a school technology commitee and started pushing for more computerization of the Crocker Farm School, an elementary school in Amherst, MA. We negotiated with a local ISP provider to get 20 mb of web space for free. It began about four months ago with two parents, Doug Lowling and myself as web managers with the understanding that the with training, the teachers will slowly take over management of the website. Things are going according to schedule. We are now looking at expanding beyond the scope of simply creating web pages, and that is where your article was extremly informative. I would appreciate if you could email me additional info re. funding sources etc.

Thanks again
Sudhakar Vamathevan

Bob Mauro writes:

Mr Wildstrom really caught my attention with the above captioned article. I'm starting to become active in my son's PTO [parent-teacher organization-MOD] and I am very interested in just exactly what the public schools are not doing regarding this issue. My son is in a gifted program in the city's model school and he has personal advantages that are not available to a vast majority of his schoolmates. I work the State Department of Labor and I am starting to see first hand what is happening to younger persons moving into the labor market. We are heading towards a generational disaster. These "children" cannot read or write and of course computer skills are minimal at best. We have to invest a large sum of money in our schools as is possible or we will be creating huge gap between the educated computer literate worker and an "underclass". Very few of these kids will be able to bridge that gap and we will pay for it later if we do not spend the money now. As one of the last "liberals", I have come to realize that the "business of government is business". From my perspective that is the creation of a workforce that will allow the American business community to compete in the global market for another generation. Thank you for this article, it has provided me with some valuable material with which to begin, I look forward to more.

As you requested, I am responding to your resourceful article "Readin , Writin , and the Internet", found in the June 9, 1997 issue of Business Week. As Technology Coordinator in a "laptop school", I perused each one of your recommended and valuable Web sites, and thought you might like to be acquainted with the school program at Fairfield Country Day School, here in Connecticut. We have just completed our pioneer year as one of thirty "laptop schools" nationally in the "Learning With Laptops" Microsoft/Toshiba partnership. As an all-boy day school with 240 students in Grades K-9, here, in capsule form, are some features that may be found as unique to elementary and middle schools.

* Our school program is regarded as one with the technology program, with the latter seamlessly and transparently integrated into the academic curricula.

* Each student in Grades 6-9 has 24-hour access to his own Toshiba laptop, with Windows 95 Microsoft Office Professional, regarded as his curriculum "toolkit".

* Every teacher and administrator has 24-hour access with the identical system as the students.

* Creative staff have invented the first hundred ideas of how to make the integration work.

* Teachers have total school, small group, and individual customized training.

* Wireless printers offer quick, efficient access for laptops.

* All students and teachers have an email address for homework and collaborative projects, such as one in which our "Elizabethan editors" collaborated to publish a journal in Shakespearean times.

* Reports may appear in newspaper, brochure, or presentation slide show formats.

* Our student s science "Pulse Lab" was showcased on the Microsoft Web site graphing and analyzing live data. Thank you for writing your article, which will be most helpful in our future planning. This has proven to be an exciting year for us. If you have any questions regarding our program, please feel welcomed to contact us. Cindy

Cindy Abate, Technology Coordinator,
email: abate@fcds.pvt.k12.ct.us
Robert Vitalo, Headmaster, email: vitalo@fcds.pvt.k12.ct.us
Cliff Paige, Head of Upper School, email: paige@fcds.pvt.k12.ct.us
Maureen Bartolomeo, Business Manager, email: maureen@fcds.pvt.k12.ct.us
Fairfield Country Day School 2970
Bronson Road Fairfield, CT 06430
Telephone: 203.259.2723 Fax: 203.259.3249

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