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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY LEADERSHIP SUMMIT
WHITE PAPER

TABLE OF CONTENTS

       Forward and Introduction[8]

   Executive Summary[9]

   Table of Contents [10]

   What is Education Technology?[11]

   Technology as a Tool[12]

   Technology as a Tool for Change[13]

   Technology and Teachers[14]

   Technology and Today's Teacher[15]

   Teacher Training for Technology[16]

   Training Tomorrow's Teachers to Embrace Technology[17]

   The Promise of Technology[18]

   Rethinking Learning[19]

   Utilizing Technology[20]

   Assessing Technology[21]

   Technology and Student Assessment[22]

   Judging Technology's Impact [23]

   The Public Image of Technology in Education[24]

   Continuing Challanges, New Tools[25]

   The Impact of the Internet[26]

   Authentic Learning[27]

   Where do we go from here?[28]

   This paper does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of
   Pierian Spring Software or its affiliates, nor does it reflect the
   views of the many, diverse participants in the discussion. For more
   information, we invite you to visit the web site at www.pierian.com
   or contact Pierian Spring Software (1-800-472-8578 or
   info@pierian.com).

   This publication made possible, in part, by the U.S.A. Education
   Charitable Trust.

FORWARD AND INTRODUCTION

   The first Educational Technology Leaders Summit was held on
   September 26-27th, 1997, in Portland, Oregon. This event hosted
   eighteen technology leaders in the education field. The attendee
   list included popular keynote speakers, software editors,
   educational consultants, published authors, and educators.

   Many influential individuals participated in the Education
   Technology Leaders Summit. This by-invitation-only event was
   attended by the following:

   Bonnie Bracey - Educational consultant, speaker at national
   conferences, and classroom teacher.

   Gail Lovely - NetSchools, Inc and a contributor to Instructor and
   Electronic Learning in the Classroom.

   Warren Buckleitner - Editor of Children's Software Revue.

   Dr. Sylvia Charp - Editor-in-Chief of T.H.E. Journal.

   Patrick Crispen - Author of the Internet TOURBUS.

   Fred D'Ignazio - President of Multi-Media Classrooms, Inc.,
   published author and educational consultant.

   Susan Higinbotham - Chairman and CEO of Chicago 2000 Partners, LLC,
   and co-founder of the USA Education Charitable Trust.

   Joe Huber - Assistant Director of Technology and writer for
   Linworth Publishing.

   William Gattis - Chairman of ICTE and member of editorial board of
   T.H.E. Journal.

   Catie D'Ignazio - Presenter at international educational
   conferences and published author.

   Dr. Ted Kahn - President of DesignWorlds for Learning, Inc;
   Affiliate of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) and
   Senior Fellow, U.C.L.A. Graduate School of Education and
   Information Studies.

   Daniel Kinnaman - Executive Editor of Curriculum Administrator and
   educational consultant.

   Joe Lambert - Executive Director of San Francisco's Life on the
   Water.

   Dr. Merle Marsh - Published author and school administrator for
   Worcester Country School, Berlin, Maryland.

   Margo Nanny - Educational software designer and technology
   integration

   specialist

   Bob Pearlman - President of the Autodesk Foundation.

   Dan Schultz - Executive Director, The Primary Sources Network.

   Arjan Schutte - Student at MIT Media Laboratory's Interactive
   Cinema Group.

   The purpose of the Summit was to bring key educational technology
   champions together to discuss industry trends and what impact
   technology can have on education. The discussion topics at the
   Education Technology Leaders Summit focused on multimedia, the
   Internet, education reform, learning, teacher training, and
   curriculum software for the classroom.

   This paper is a synthesis from the discussions. It addresses what
   is happening with technology in schools: what is going right, what
   is going wrong and why, and what the solutions may be. The purpose
   of this paper is to document the discussions that took place at the
   Summit.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

   The group assembled had several conclusions about technology in
   education. Foremost is that technology can provide a path to
   improving learning, both in schools and in the community. According
   to Fred D'Ignazio, educational consultant and President of
   Multi-Media Classrooms, "Educational technology provides real
   benefits, including the support for different learning styles,
   opportunities for teachers to teach and grow in new ways, and it
   provides windows of opportunity for children in disadvantaged
   situations."

   For the introduction of technology to be effective it must be
   well-planned, be supported through teacher training (pre-service
   and in-service), and it should support authentic learning, that is
   the natural learning that takes place when a student is learning a
   skill or concept in the context of performing a task or tackling a
   real-world problem. This makes the issue of integrating technology
   into classrooms larger than the technology itself. Implementation
   may initiate curriculum adjustments, a rethinking of student
   assessment models and standards, an investment in staff
   development, and a recognition of the image of technology and
   education in the community, the state, the district office, and
   among the school administrators. Questions about class size, period
   scheduling, school hours, and the use of school facilities may also
   be considered.

   The group agreed that the Internet holds the promise of driving
   some of these educational changes. As the technologies and access
   develop, these materials will become more relevant and easier to
   find and manage. Teaching and learning may become increasingly
   decentralized and involve a broader community. The methods for
   assessing learning will develop to meet the challenges of the
   classrooms of tomorrow and the 21stcentury workplace. "The
   Education Technology Leaders Summit highlighted my interest in the
   benefits of educational technology as creative knowledge design
   tools for students and teachers," said Dr. Ted M. Kahn.

   The question that remained is when. Change has been slow, as
   evidenced by the repeated conversations about computers and
   educational technology throughout the years. There are exemplary
   models of change throughout the education community; examples show
   curriculum change, exemplary staff development, and technology
   integration. These remain as evidence that schools do innovate.

   Margaret Mead once said that we should not doubt that a small group
   of dedicated people can change the world. "That is the only way it
   has ever been done." The group who assembled at the Education
   Technology Leaders Summit, along with many others who share the
   vision of technology, could be the group of dedicated people who
   make a difference in the lives of students and improve the world of
   learning.

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                    WHAT IS EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY?

TECHNOLOGY AS A TOOL

   Dan Kinnaman, Executive Editor for Curriculum Administrator, said
   "Every bit of educational value that comes from technology derives
   directly from the purposeful application of technology by human
   beings. The technology itself is neither educational or
   non-educational." He continued by saying that educational
   technology need not be limited to school facilities. "Today's
   computer and communications technology, just objectively, comprise
   the richest set of teaching and learning resources in the history
   of the planet and it is up to us to figure out what the appropriate
   ways to use those educational resources with the recognition that
   they are constantly evolving." Education technology, its practice
   and definition is not static, but rather, open-ended and dynamic.

   Patrick Crispen, author of the Internet TOURBUS, said, "I would
   define educational technology based on its goals and what it is
   trying to do." The proper term that was proposed was "technology
   used for education," not "educational technology."

   Margo Nanny, a multimedia developer, added, "Education technology
   is any of those tools that help kids think in new ways. From a
   calculator that enables them to do arithmetic without necessarily
   using their pencil and paper to word processors, to all of those
   things we've seen over the years that just help them do their work
   better." The fact that it is called "technology" means there is an
   element of hardware present, from the fax machine because you are
   able to send a picture to the architect to ask a question, to the
   telephone because they were able to call the architect up and get
   their response. She concluded, "I just include everything in this
   definition of educational technology that is used for an
   educational purpose."

   Others added that technology could be a blackboard and a piece of
   chalk if you are trying to teach someone addition or multiplication
   for the first time. It does not have to be a computer, it does not
   have to be the Internet, it can be something very, very simple.
   Education technology would be any appropriate technology used to
   aid in instruction.

   Bonnie Bracey continued this thought by commenting that educational
   technology is "any tool used for the process of connecting with
   ideas." The tools can be simple. She related a story about Tony
   Harris, a teacher in California, who recorded a video which she
   uses in her presentations and in the video his students talk about
   what is in their classroom.

   And at different times they are talking about encyclopedias, and
   old television sets, glue guns, pencils, paper, and on-line
   services. They will say `here is a CD-ROM. Here is an example of
   high technology' and then they say, `here's a glue gun. Here's an
   example of medium technology. Here's a pencil. This is low
   technology, but we still use these.'

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TECHNOLOGY AS A TOOL FOR CHANGE

   Warren Buckleitner, Editor of the Children's Software Revue, added
   that he sees technology as a Trojan Horse for getting things
   through the doors of schools and making change happen. "I think
   it's really important for us all to consider the culture that is
   embedded in every CD-ROM or any piece of hardware." He reminded the
   group that every media contains the culture of the people who made
   it: their values about learning and their values about the contents
   that they chose to include. "So...you can bring with technology a
   lot of different agendas and philosophies and learning theories and
   pedagogy right into your classroom to give your kids. You can use
   that positively, but you need to understand what the agendas are
   and how they fit with what your goals are." The technology could be
   a tool of change.

   "The reason I am interested in technology is that it provides a
   powerful and economical means of distributing teaching tools and
   methods," noted Susan Higinbotham from the U.S.A. Education
   Charitable Trust. "The Internet could catalyze an important
   paradigm shift about the nature of knowledge because with the help
   of new multimedia authoring tools, anyone can become an information
   creator or publisher," said Dr. Ted Kahn of DesignWorld for
   Learning.

   Bob Pearlman posed the question, "if you are able to [communicate,
   learn, share, consult with experts] and you are able to do that on
   a local, regional, national, or international scale, what
   difference is that going to make in the way schooling is carried
   out and schooling is reorganized, redesigned, transformed? How
   significant are these developments? What does it actually mean in
   the next several years of schooling changes?"

   "Teachers who are using technology effectively, especially the
   application and the presentation programs, are ahead of the way we
   view the curriculum and the way we teach," commented Merle Marsh.
   "I don't know if it is so much looking at technology, but looking
   at curriculum and teaching methods. It seems like we have so many
   good things, but how do we put these into action if we don't have
   changes in the basic ways schools function?"

   "One of the things that we have not done with the technology is to
   bring the parents and the community in as stakeholders," commented
   Bonnie Bracey. "We still have schools that close at 4:00 P.M. If
   they have got all that technology in view why can't there be room
   in where people create cookbooks, look for butterflies, or do
   whatever that community is interested in using the technology." We
   have told the community that "kids can have the world at their
   fingertips but you can't."

   "I was at a meeting like this in 1983 and we had a very similar
   conversation," commented Dan Kinnaman. "I was at an Apple meeting
   in Vermont in 1986 and we had a very similar conversation, in 1997,
   the business of schooling has not changed very much." Technology
   has changed, but the issues surrounding the use of that technology
   remain the same. "That is interesting that in other industries, if
   I think about those in contrast to schooling, none of those is a
   national monopoly that has no penalty for mediocrity. Our industry
   is a national monopoly that has no penalty for mediocrity."

   It is an observation about the nature of bureaucracy that it is
   both self-perpetuating and self-feeding. I think the good news in
   all of that is that the tools that many people are referencing, the
   programs that many people are referencing, the concepts that many
   people are referencing, exist free of that. They don't require
   permission of any central authority to exist or to be used or to
   proliferate. I designed a workshop where teachers took off their
   teacher hats and became students and made things. It was a
   constructivist approach and at the end I asked them to put their
   teacher hats back on and reflect on the activity they had just
   experienced. A very good teacher raised her hand and she said,
   `this is wonderful but I can't do it in my classroom.' And I said
   `why not?' She said, `because what we just did took two and a half
   hours and in my class, I only have math time for 50 minutes.' So I
   thought it would be a good opportunity for the group to talk about
   that and for the next 45 minutes or so many suggestions were made.
   Every single one 100% of the suggestions involved crippling the
   activity to fit the school schedule, rather than changing the
   school schedule to take advantage of that wonderful activity. And
   so it was at that point in time that I started to really think hard
   about the need for rapid changes in both education policy and
   school organization to tap the power of the new technology. And I
   try to be careful about saying that because it is not an indictment
   of public education, it is a statement of support for public
   education but it is a statement that we need to find the
   where-with-all to make the hard choices that we don't have the
   incentive as tenured faculty to make, even if we have the heart to
   make it we don't have the incentive to make it in our industry.

   "Reforming the classroom, I think, is totally critical," Arjan
   Schutte continued. "The Internet is not just a neat device that
   allows us to do all the things that we can obviously do with it,
   but it also challenges us to really think differently about how our
   social structures and how our spaces are organized." The Internet
   itself could be a model for education. "That the decentralized
   nature of the Internet allows us to understand not just how nature
   works differently and allows different models to see how traffic
   jams work or how fish school and this kind of thing, but also how
   we relate within the classroom besides the obvious extension to the
   community and those kinds of things." Several participants
   commented that technology should be viewed as a means for achieving
   better learning, not as an end in and of itself.

   Bob Pearlman added that the kind of change proposed can happen in
   traditional schools, as well as newer charter schools or alternate
   programs. "The interesting thing is that the technology is not
   really the end to the change. The change is instructional
   practice." It is rapid change to tap the power of technology, but
   more importantly "for more authentic learning and accurate
   assessment of student learning."

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                       TECHNOLOGY AND TEACHERS

TECHNOLOGY AND TODAY'S TEACHER

   Bonnie Bracey proposed that a group of technologically-savvy
   educators, like the ones assembled, would define educational
   technology very differently from how a typical classroom teacher
   might. Those teachers actively using computer technology are still
   a minority. Most teachers do not have regular access to those tools
   considered "high technology." They must find ways to blend the
   newest and latest tools into a classroom with "medium" and "low
   technology" tools.

   Merle Marsh continued this thought by saying "We are in the age,
   not of technology, but in the age of the blackline masters and the
   videotape. If you look at what is easy-to-use and what is in
   schools, those things are." She commented that even the most
   technologically advanced classrooms still use these basic tools.

   "Because I am working in school everyday, I can tell you that there
   is a great excitement about technology. The parents want it, and we
   school administrators must at least act like they know where we are
   heading with technology," added Merle Marsh. "There are some
   wonderful programs; the software is unbelievably good. We have,
   however, failed to get across to the public the message: `This
   materials is good for your children, and this is how we need to use
   it.'"

   Fred D'Ignazio noted that the benefit of technology is that it
   supports different learning styles, opens up project-based
   learning, `when kids are doing projects using all the different
   types of resources and learners in the room and with a teacher."

   The challenge is that technology is like a runaway train. The time
   between the new machines coming out on the market and the new
   developments and all these things happening is getting shorter and
   shorter. So some of us are racing to stay on that wave and many
   school districts are paying big bucks to keep trying to catch up
   and land on the cutting-edge. And then within months they find
   themselves already in the backwater. Technology is often used to do
   what we have always done, to drill kids, to have them sit quietly
   in rows, and look at their monitor instead of their teacher, and we
   have really significantly not changed education. I think that is a
   failure. I think success is when we can use technology to really
   make a difference about how people learn.

   Joe Lambert said that where he grew up in Texas he "confused school
   with the criminal justice system."

   I did not buy the motivation that you learn so you can have a
   better life. I thought the motivation to learn was so you can get
   the hell out of here. Here was the school where I was being talked
   to or indoctrinated or whatever and I had a pretty hip idea that
   this was stuff that I probably did not need to survive well, but
   that these people were getting paid to do it, therefore I should be
   nice or they will not let me out of here. The Internet is a pretty
   big ticket out and kids given the opportunity to do that are going
   to take it. I am one of these people that does not believe that
   technology invented the need to know. The need was there therefore
   the technology came along to meet the need and it is popular
   because it met the need.

   Dan Kinnaman furthered this thought by describing two different
   views of Internet access in the classroom.

   Contrast these two phrases, `let's connect the Internet to our
   classrooms vs. Let's connect our classrooms to the Internet.' The
   first way implies the traditional approach to applying technology
   to schooling and we fit the technology to a current model. The
   second way, `let's connect our classrooms to the Internet', that
   implies a willingness to re-think the definition of school. One of
   the ways that I have been defining it for a couple of years now, is
   that the classroom becomes all the places, real or virtual, where
   people meet to teach and learn or where they visit individually to
   gain access to educational resources.

   The attitude of re-thinking "school" leads to further discussion
   about staffing, facilities, curriculum, community involvement, and
   political systems.

   [IMAGE][33]

TEACHER TRAINING FOR TECHNOLOGY

   Bonnie Bracey mentioned that there is little to no teacher
   training. Patrick Crispen added that "they put a computer in the
   classroom and say `Congratulations, you're on the Internet' or
   `Congratulations, you have now got the technology, teach', and they
   don't train the teachers."

   "Technology has disempowered a lot of teachers," said Warren
   Buckleitner. "Good teachers had technology brought into the
   classroom and suddenly they were nervous about what they did and
   that it was not good enough, and we have to get past that we have
   to help heal those teachers."

   "We not only have to empower the teachers and the students so that
   they are not afraid of technology, but I think we also need to
   attack a major problem which is people love to announce the fact
   that they are ignorant about computers," said Crispen. "Imagine any
   other thing that you do in life where you sit there and say `I am a
   complete total and ignorant fool when it comes to doing this.'
   People say it with pride and it is not to be something to be proud
   of, but rather to be ashamed of."

   Bracey contends that even though there are some teachers who might
   be proud of their ignorance, most "teachers do not want kids to
   think they are stupid." This does not mean they are not interested,
   that they do not care about technology or about school change.
   Bracey suggests an "assistant project in which there is some way
   they all have ownership, but if you want to kill technology, keep
   on putting teachers on the spot where they are told that `let the
   kids do it if they don't know'."

   Gail Lovely added, "We can not accept teachers being uncomfortable
   with not knowing and I think we have to help teachers understand
   that being uncomfortable with not knowing means that all the
   students are uncomfortable with not knowing as well." It is
   important to display a willingness to find out rather than always
   having to know.

   Bonnie Bracey added, "I have been teaching for many years and let
   me tell you something, I know older teachers who would do it if
   they ever got the chance. We are not talking about training, I am
   not talking about teaching a language, I am talking about letting
   me incorporate practice." There are teachers who are older who
   would continue to teach and would use high-technology tools if
   people allowed them to learn the wonderful ways to do it, she said.

   Buckleitner told a story about his daughter who after her first day
   of kindergarten came home to tell her Dad that "they have a
   computer at school, but it is broken. You'll have to come in and
   fix it." "So part of me gets real upset when I hear about helpless
   a lot of educators are with computers," he said. " I started
   thinking about if a doctor or heart surgeon did not know about the
   latest laser surgery techniques, I would be real mad, and that
   doctor would probably lose their license." The same with airline
   pilots, tax attorneys, and other professionals. "I think that
   teachers need to start knowing about technology. It is part of the
   job of the profession of teaching and learning, to know about these
   tools and how to use them." The systems should support this type of
   continuing education for professional educators.

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TRAINING TOMORROW'S TEACHERS TO EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY

   Merle Marsh addressed the issue of pre-service training by noting
   that "I think we have failed with the college departments of
   education. That needs to be a huge thrust, teaching them what they
   should know."

   The group brought up another point of view regarding training
   teachers. "At some point as this teaching cohort ages in this
   country, and in states I am familiar with, the average age of a
   classroom teacher is forty-six or forty-seven years old and they
   are near the end of their professional teaching career, you come
   face-to-face with the law of diminishing returns. Do you continue
   to put training funding to that segment of the population," it was
   asked, "or do you focus on the Head Start argument that says you
   ought to be front-loading these kind of training resources?" This
   would put technology training into the colleges of education and
   into the first couple of years of a teachers professional career.

   "There is a new project called the 21st Century Classroom where we
   looked at the fact that the technology, even when it is there,
   people thought that if you just dropped it in the class and
   teachers put their hand on it and somehow they could learn how to
   use it," noted Bonnie Bracey. "They don't have to know how to do
   all this, they just need to have direction. And no one is
   developing directions for the people who are in the classrooms. We
   do the lecture circuit and keep talking to each other," she
   concluded. The direction and vision needs to be brought to the
   level where the teachers are teaching and the learning is
   happening.

   Gail Lovely added that "teachers should be managing and
   facilitating rather than delivering."

   I think it is about kids discovering and learning. That is not
   without planning and a lot of change. I teach in the teacher
   education program. It is very difficult, the faculties have not
   changed and they were brought up in a different world: they taught
   in a different world. We know teachers teach the way they were
   taught. It is a self-perpetuating problem. We know teaching staff
   is older than it has been for a while, both at the university level
   and in the classroom. It just comes back to helping those people,
   and I count myself among them, to see ways to innovate instead of
   automate.

   [IMAGE][35]

                      THE PROMISE OF TECHNOLOGY

RETHINKING LEARNING

   "We need to be aware that modern technology does not require the
   endorsement of schools to be educational," added Dan Kinnaman.
   "Parents, children, grandparents, senior citizens, across the
   board, people are discovering the educational value of technology.
   Home use of computers and other related types of devices,
   particularly the Internet, represents the decentralization of
   educational resources." He continued, "I think the assumption that
   educational technology, any type of technology, is panacea for
   solving the problems is silly. I mean you don't take a kid and drop
   him into a town square in Colombia, and say, `learn Spanish.' And
   you don't take a kid and sit him in front of a computer and say
   `here's the future.'" This idea was echoed in the comments by
   Patrick Crispen and Ted Kahn, the later who suggested expanding our
   notions of technology as an enabler for lifelong learning
   opportunities, rather than just for use in formal
   education/classroom environments.

   "All this stuff, from the chalk to the books to the computers to
   the slide strips that we used to watch when I was in school, all
   those things are useless without an educator," said Kinnaman.
   "Somebody is there paving the way. And that educator could either
   be a teacher, a parent, a church leader, or whatever, but you know
   going back to the definition educational technology by itself is
   useless unless there is a mentor."

   Bonnie Bracey noted that students can access information from
   anywhere. "You've got NASA. You can do a solar class, you can learn
   about the solar winds, what the northern lights are and look at
   them without having to buy a book or go to the library. You can
   talk to some of the scientists, you can use National Geographic and
   see the world some places you will never get to go." You can access
   experts, you can read about places and events, you can join groups,
   you can view satellite transmissions. You can do GIS sensing and
   look down on volcanoes that are erupting, and talk to the
   volcanologists. "You can mix the resources in such a way that
   lifelong learning becomes a pathway that can evolve just because
   the information is a world at your fingertips. Kids who have
   different learning styles can use their brain power and their
   thinking power to create thoughts instead of just listening to
   someone filling up their head with ideas."

   Patrick Crispen concurred when he commented that technology "opens
   doors that have been closed. It also empowers the students, because
   instead of sitting there and talking about blank concepts and
   things that are very difficult, you can get onto the Internet or
   get on with a computer and view a CD-ROM that ends up giving some
   meat and some depth to something that the teacher was teaching in
   the classroom. It reinforces the curriculum."

   [IMAGE][36]

UTILIZING THE TECHNOLOGY

   "You can have great technology and lousy learning," commented Gail
   Lovely, a new addition to the NetSchools integration team. "And you
   can have lousy technology and experiences that are beyond what many
   of us have experienced in classrooms as far as learning goes, but
   technology is interesting and empowering only when used in
   interesting and empowering ways and so it really does come back to
   who is using it, how, and why, and to what end. Yes, technology
   does open doors and opportunities that we have not had, but only if
   we take them."

   "If there has been successes, and his is certainly the case, I
   think they have remained mostly isolated or what we might call
   `islands of excellence.' Technology's promise lies in its
   empowering ability to allow more people to participate in learning
   and in the democratic process, in general," noted Ted Kahn.
   "Technology can facilitate much broader community of knowledge
   producers, including students, teachers, parents, as well as
   traditional content experts, and what is powerful is knowing that
   what you produce will really receive attention from an authentic
   audience of other users." Kahn said that the "whole thing is about
   changing the world for the better, so if what we do with technology
   is a matter of just accumulating more and more information, but we
   can't actually empower ourselves to act more effectively in
   situations that desperately need change, we haven t gone far
   enough."

   Patrick Crispen noted the lack of quality materials when he said,
   "one of the biggest challenges is that a lot of publishers in the
   software industry are much more interested in the bottom line and
   shipping products than providing material that educates." The good
   software seeks to improve learning and facilitate change, while the
   bad software is no longer educational, "they are entertainment."

   Warren Buckleitner noted that there are some things that have
   changed and one is that we are entering a real exciting period.
   "The $2,000 computer you can get can today can do a whole lot more
   than an Apple II, for about the same price. You can take an idea
   and when you put that mouse in a kids hand they can link that to a
   calculator, type the number, see the graph move, and something
   clicks in their minds. These are tools that are just getting too
   powerful to ignore and pretty soon teachers are going to see that,"
   he said. He noted that if you "give good people good tools you will
   get good results" and that an overwhelming majority of teachers are
   good people. "They went into teaching because they loved kids, they
   want to see growth, they want to see change and so I think we need
   to trust these good people with proper tools." He described an
   ideal classroom outfitted with a small lab of four computers, a
   large display, Internet access, and some basic software all for
   under nine thousand dollars as one example of a classroom model.

   Margo Nanny noted that technology teaches students 21stcentury
   skills, if we allow it to. Students need to be good at "gathering
   information, processing it, understanding it, having tools in which
   they can do wonderful representations of new information, they have
   to be information designers and inventors so they can get through
   all this junk on the Internet, and say `gee, from these three
   pieces of key information I have a new idea in my thinking of this
   issue.'"

   Kahn added that technology is an "enable for creating kinds of
   virtual and other learning, what IRL calls `communities of
   practice.' These are emergent and informal social affiliations
   where learning really takes place, an technology can increase the
   diversity of the communication and ways in which people participate
   and learn in these communities. We talked about content as one
   thing, the second thing is that we are now in the process of
   realizing you get the leverage by participating in different kinds
   of communities, not necessarily one big one but being able to be
   part of multiple communities is a good way of encouraging
   innovation through a process of `cross-fertilization' of ideas and
   discussions."

   [IMAGE][37]

                         ASSESSING TECHNOLOGY

TECHNOLOGY AND STUDENT ASSESSMENT

   Patrick Crispen broached the issue of technology and assessment
   when he proposed that education technology has failed in that it
   has not properly stated its goals. He mentioned that an
   overwhelming percentage of parents want to see computers in the
   classroom and firmly believe that technology, like the Internet,
   will help their students and improve faculty performance. The
   majority of the teacher and administrator respondents to a report
   done by Market Data Retrieval say Internet information is
   unorganized and does not directly relate to curriculum or
   textbooks. "Only 13.4% said they believed the Internet helped
   students achieve better results in standardized tests," he read.
   The field of education technology must define its goals and how the
   results will be measured. How does authentic learning happen and
   how can technology help?

   Ted Kahn said that students love multimedia and that learning to
   design and produce multimedia might be great training for jobs in
   any field that involves knowledge work and effective
   communications. "However, some people still ask, `What has this got
   to do with better learning of basic math, science, etc.?' Kids
   learning to make or use multimedia might not show direct
   improvement of standardized test scores." It is still hard to find
   the kind of `hard' statistical evidence many parents and others
   want showing a direct relation between these creative design and
   media skills and subject matter learning in most educational
   evaluation of technology use. Kahn continued, "my intuition, my gut
   and my experience with kids all tell me that learning to use
   multimedia and the Internet to create new knowledge will also help
   facilitate learning of basic content, but I don't want to have to
   defend this in the way the questions are typically asked." Kahn
   then suggested that today's standardized tests are not appropriate
   for assessing 21stcentury knowledge work. He proposed that
   alternatives such as digital portfolios and the New Standards
   Project (National Center for Education and the Economy and LRDC,
   University of Pittsburgh) are a much richer direction to pursue.

   Dan Kinnaman added, "Let's rethink, let's recreate, but there are
   many good things that can be maintained." He mentioned that
   Connecticut has worked hard to develop what is actually a good
   criteria in reference mastery test at the 4th, 8th, and 10th grade
   levels which has received respect and replication around the
   country. The problem, he continued, is that teachers teach to the
   test, administering "a million multiple choice questions that look
   like those on the standardized tests," rather than teaching the
   concept in a constructivist mode.

   "If a supermarket can keep track of what kind of diapers I buy, the
   rental car agent can know how many times I have rented from the
   card and my receipt in their hand-held computer, why can't teachers
   have technology to do assessment," proposed Crispen, "because it is
   just data." Methods for evaluating learning must inventory the
   skills and concepts the student has mastered, as well as the
   ability to learn new things as they are presented. Technology can
   assist in this process.

   Kahn relayed an example from a public high school near Los Angeles,
   Roland High School's animation and regional occupational program
   (ROP). "Dave Master, the founding teacher of the Roland animation
   program, invested a lot of time building world-class animation
   competency and a real community of practice in this school." Roland
   students produced over 1,600 animated films in a period of over 17
   years, winning hundreds of awards; that is more than any other
   school (including colleges and universities) in the world. In 1996,
   over a hundred Roland graduates (many of which were not
   college-bound) were hired straight out of high school by Hollywood
   animation and film studies because Rowland's performance had
   exceeded professional and higher education training programs, which
   were not keeping up the increasing industry demands. Yet neither
   Dave, not he other pioneering colleague (a math teacher) are still
   at this school. "They had to keep answering questions such as,
   `what were these kid's test scores' which ignored the authentic
   assessment of the students' work by the community outside of the
   school. The math teacher, whose students had created entirely new
   ways of visualizing and explaining complex mathematical concepts
   through animated storytelling, was also asked to explain why there
   was a slight drop in his Math AP (Advanced Placement) students'
   scores. When you do everything you can to prepare students to what
   the larger (work) world requires and you do not get acknowledged
   for outstanding success in doing so by your own school community,
   it is not a surprise that outstanding teachers leave such schools."
   Kahn continued that Dave is still involved in education. "He is now
   the Director of Artist Development and Training at Warner Brothers
   Feature Animation and hires many of his former students. He is also
   using distance learning technologies to continue teaching students,
   so his commitment to education is a strong as ever." Kahn noted
   that if "society does not find a way to inject some kind of
   competitive (market-driven), choice alternatives into the education
   system to reward efforts such as these, there will never be a
   penalty for mediocrity or educational failure."

   You should be able to love teaching, and not have to leave.
   Secretary Riley, I think to his credit, has been pretty forward in
   saying that it is not acceptable for schools not to work. He has
   not figured out what you do about ones that do not work, but at
   least he is recognizing the fact that it is not acceptable to just
   put up the rhetoric of `we believe in excellence' when things have
   not changed in 15 years.

   [IMAGE][38]

JUDGING TECHNOLOGY'S IMPACT

   "There are administrators who put the hardware in the classroom who
   have no way of knowing how to evaluate it," noted Bonnie Bracey.
   "So we who are teachers are walking on a tightrope; we are working
   to the standards that the state says, we are working to reach the
   standards that people ask us to do in our curriculum area, we are
   doing what our school systems say, we are doing the old practices,
   and instead of using educational technology we are putting little
   bits of it in there when we can find the time. You can not evaluate
   educational technology if no one is really using it."

   "There does not seem to be coordination from the top. It seems like
   the Governors are saying we need to go here, the administrators are
   saying we need to go there, the teachers are saying `well, OK let's
   try to go this way' and there is no vision," Bracey said. "That is
   not a failure of educational technology, that is an education
   failure."

   "I think when technology is successful is when we had the
   political, social, and economic strategies converging around a set
   of values," commented Dan Schultz. "That really creates the context
   and it is context in which we have had problems with appropriations
   for educational budgets, or cover stories on magazines, or opinion
   polling to represent one set of numbers or another, or the adoption
   of state and national standard. We need to think seriously about
   the context in which all this is going on and it really is a
   political set of questions."

   "How do you know that technology works?" asked Bracey. "Because
   children say `we don't want to go to lunch.' Now every teacher
   knows that lunch and P.E. are the two most important things. The
   other way that you know that it works is that the children lead you
   to learning."

   [IMAGE][39]

THE PUBLIC IMAGE OF TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION

   Merle Marsh mentioned a recent Atlantic Monthly article ("Computer
   Delusions" by Todd Oppenheimer) that criticized the money now being
   spent on technology and responded that she believes educators "have
   failed to fit technology tools into the curriculum. I always use
   the phrase `we do cut and paste with technology' or `a little dab
   will do you.' Try to fit it in with what we always have done." The
   bad press about technology in education should make us rethink the
   goals of technology and how schools can use it to make necessary
   changes.

   "Why do we keep letting people who know nothing about education
   define for the public what it is that we are doing?" asked Bonnie
   Bracey. "Todd Oppenheimer and Clifford Stoll are giving the public
   their opinion and they are not in education."

   "Education is a very closed society," noted Gail Lovely. "Teachers
   don't know what is going on across the hall, down the hall, next
   door, let alone in other schools. The good teachers are so busy
   being good teachers, they are not doing PR and marketing and
   letting people know what is good and what is happening." The other
   reason she notes for bad press about new technologies in education
   is that often the message is portrayed as "what we used to do is
   not very good." If people are talking about new technologies
   changing the ways schools function, people think back to their own
   education and resent anyone saying their "school was not good, so
   therefore they are not what they could have been."

   "Our Grades 6, 7, and 8 students have social studies completely in
   the computer labs," added Marsh.

   In 6th grade social studies, we don't have a textbook. They use
   Digital Chisel and learn ancient history using the technology. They
   are very excited about this. They will tell you that it is their
   favorite subject, and how many 6th graders would ever tell you
   social studies is their favorite subject? When I decided that we
   should do this, I was asked by some parents about not using
   textbook. They worried over the change at first, but not as
   worried, I think, as they would have been had it been mathematics
   or reading. It was easier to understand how we could use technology
   and telecommunications in social studies. The attitude seemed to be
   that social studies was not considered as much of a basic subject
   as math and reading. Therefore, I think, we can try something new,
   for parents want computers in education, but they are not exactly
   sure they want the system to change. That is what we have to think
   about if we want to move forward.

   "Oppenheimer is not having the impact in the public that people
   think," commented Bob Pearlman. "Right now the public surveys are
   profound. People want to put computers into schools. Every state in
   the country over the next couple of years ought to be able to
   propose multi-million dollars investments for computers in schools
   without any problem and win, about half of them have already and
   they have it in the pipeline." The public may not understand how
   technology will change education or schooling, but they believe in
   it. This is an opportunity for schools to step up to the plate,
   enjoying the positive public opinion, and use the tools to impact
   learning.

   [IMAGE][40]

                   CONTINUING CHALLENGES, NEW TOOLS

THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET

   "The only thing that seems to be changing, as far as I can see, is
   the use of the Internet," noted Bonnie Bracey. "If that is the
   change, and that is going to do something, then what do we as
   educators do and how do we encourage it? And where do we move
   ahead?"

   "Just as none of us foresaw the collapse of the Soviet Union, none
   of us foresaw the advent of the World Wide Web at the end of 1993
   with the advent of the [Mosaic] Internet browser," noted Bob
   Pearlman. "Up until 1995, the Internet meant nothing. You know some
   executive made a good point when he said `if anything, the Internet
   has been under-hyped.'" He went on to describe the significance of
   these developments. "So the question is, if technology is leading
   to some kind of productivity gains in business and industry why is
   it happening? And I would pose that it is happening because of
   gains in communications." In other words, "people are able to talk
   together with each other more and work with each other more and
   better," he continued.

   Now how does that translate into schools? What does that mean about
   kids? Kids working with adults. Adults working with adults.
   Teachers collaborating across school districts. Digital Chisel is
   one of the newer, more advanced, tools in which people can do their
   work; Teachers and kids can do their work and can share their work
   meaning. They can share it and therefore get reflection, learn
   better, and use other people's things. Now that is a very similar
   kind of thing as to what happened in industry.

   "I think part of what has changed with the Internet is that we are
   now having to re-think what paradigm are we are really in and what
   is emerging," mentioned Ted Kahn. "To think about these things is
   to re-think what it means to be a part of the learning community,
   or of many of them, as opposed to what it means to be a single
   individual learner or student." The Internet has driven many
   discussions about life long learning and about the roles that
   people in the system might play. "We typically separate the people
   who are viewed as professional content creators or providers ad
   distinct from those who are content recipients or users; this
   translates directly into `teachers' vs. `students.' We are in the
   middle of a paradigm shift in which these roles are becoming
   increasingly blurred and we have not thought enough about the
   policy implications for this shift," he proposed. "In a year-long
   conversation on learning, sponsored by the Institute for the New
   California, we concluded that the Internet and new learning
   technologies enable everyone to potentially become a provider,
   payer, learner and policy makers, sometimes all simultaneously."

   Dan Kinnaman gave an example of how the Internet breaks down
   traditional bureaucracy. There are tremendous efforts put into
   producing reports that have been published from different
   foundations and council, but "I think to a large extent what
   matters today are not the generation of reports like that develop
   within a bureaucracy. What really matters is that two guys in
   Alabama, who have a lot of squirrels around them, can without
   commission and without funding, create a newsletter that goes to
   almost 100,000 people now and more that a couple dozen countries."
   (The web site for this on-line newsletter is
   http://www.tourbus.com/[41]).

   [IMAGE][42]

AUTHENTIC LEARNING

   "Bonnie [Bracey] said lunch and recess, or lunch and P.E. are the
   two most important things [in a child's school day]. I think that
   is a pretty serious indictment of school the event that it is that
   school is where you stop learning and start getting taught,"
   commented another. "One of the things that I think is an issue,
   that we simply have to address and have to get around, is that
   modern technology and the traditional model of schooling are
   incompatible."

   Ted Kahn added band as a third subject or event to the highlights
   of the student day. "There is something that binds all three of
   these together in that they are incredibly social occasions inside
   a school and they allow kids both to be very active and allow the
   production of some event."

   Arjan Schutte brought a new perspective to the subjects that
   student's find most engaging. "P.E., study hall, and band, they all
   have in common that they are tactile. I think that is something
   that we are forgetting when we talk about the amazing Internet is
   that it is not tactile; the mouse is not a tactile device. It is a
   virtual device." He mentioned some research going on at MIT Media
   Lab related to creating a more tactile experience with computer
   technology.

   Dan Kinnaman told a story that shed light on why these subject are
   student favorites.

   If you go up to kid on a soccer field and you say to a kid this
   morning `Hi, excuse me. Are you studying to be a soccer player?'
   The kind of response you typically get is a `I am concerned for
   your well being look' and then they say `No, I am a soccer player.'
   You go up to a student in a classroom and ask `what is your
   favorite subject?' `Math? OK, are you studying to be a
   mathematician?' And they do give kind of a positive answer. They
   say `well, I don't know what a mathematician is, I am just taking
   math.' It is not a negative response on their part, but
   qualitatively it is a very, very different response than the
   perception that `I am part of a community of practitioners for
   soccer players'. I have always wanted the kids in my classroom, if
   you went up to them and said `Are you studying to be a
   mathematician,' you are going to get that same response `I am a
   mathematician, that is why I am here, don't you get that.'

   Technology really promotes the opportunity to practice what
   Aristotle wrote centuries ago when he said "We learn to do things
   by doing the things we are learning to do." Kinnaman continued,
   "Technology, all of a sudden, gives us the means in a very
   distributed broad way to link the acquisition and the application
   of knowledge."

   "Band is authentic, soccer is authentic, and authentic audiences
   and authentic collaboration is one of the things that came out with
   technology that maybe is different from traditional model,"
   proposed Gail Lovely. "I did some research the last couple of years
   as I was out doing teacher professional development and 96.7% of
   kids in K-5 when I asked them as they are coming back from an out
   of classroom experience, usually technology lab because that is
   what I was interested in, when you asked them what they were doing
   they say they were doing `computers.' They know very young that the
   real learning happens in their classrooms, because that is where
   the real teacher is," she continued. "The other side of the coin is
   that now we are seeing a trend changing and the K-1 population
   understands that they learn everywhere they are."

   Bracey returned to the student's favorite subject when relating a
   story where "there was teaching and learning that links in such a
   way that you, the teacher, are not the owner of it all. That is
   what makes band, and soccer, and playing, or whatever the things
   are neat because you can tell by yourself that you are learning."
   You know you are acquiring skills. "You know you can make a web
   page, you can see it. Alfred North Whitehead in the 1920's
   addressed the need for changes in basic education and the top two
   suggestions were `don't teach too many subjects', and the second
   one was that you `teach thoroughly.'" You can not do that if you
   are always changing topics and locations.

   Renee Poindexter, consulting services manager at Pierian Spring
   Software related a story about a program called Innovations in
   Learning.

   We had students there who were valedictorians of their class,
   students who dropped out of school, kids who are in home-schools,
   and kids who had developed their own strategies for learning and
   interviewed them. Pretty much across the board the peak learning
   experience happened in elementary school where they were treated as
   a whole person. They were not seen as a math student or a science
   student, but an evolving learner. When asked `why that does not
   happen all the time,' it was amazing the insight of what these
   young people said. They said `teachers are not rewarded for meeting
   the needs of individual learners.' And the third question was `what
   would you do if you were in charge of the education reform
   movement,' they said `schools should be the center of learning
   community, they should be open 24 hours a day, it should be a place
   where everybody comes to learn, and all resources are shared.'

   [IMAGE][43]

                      WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

   Sylvia Charp, Editor in Chief of T.H.E. Journal caused everyone to
   reflect when she said that the group was "continuing to say all the
   old things that we have been saying for years and years and years."
   She proposed a more detailed plan of change.

   "Some of us around this room have grown very old talking about this
   same stuff for over twenty years and it might be very important
   here in this discussion to be somewhat historical," said Bob
   Pearlman from the Autodesk Foundation. "Except for the word
   Internet, most of this discussion sounded like a 1980's discussion.
   The implementation problems, the political problems of putting it
   all together, the discussion of what we are really striving for and
   forward discussion about what we can actually do to sort of make
   things click."

   Merle Marsh agreed that the industry should move on and that more
   than just leaders in educational technology are affected by the
   stagnation. "When I read about awards or go to award ceremonies for
   teachers who are working with technology, I am hearing the same
   ideas and projects that were being done by winners in the Apple
   Computer Clubs and the Computer Learning Foundation competitions in
   the 1980s. Our best does not seem to be getting better." The impact
   of changing technology will not be realized until it is utilized to
   its fullest potential.

   Ted Kahn noted that although "the problem in some ways has not
   changed over time, we have advanced a considerable amount in our
   understanding of how to attack it and how to deal with it." Dan
   Kinnaman offered other evidence. "Technologically speaking, we have
   a whole lot more capacity now than we had 15 years ago. Even though
   the conversation was similar, we did not have the technological
   capacity. Today's entry level computer has 10,000 times the power
   and storage capacity than the computers we were buying in 1983. And
   certainly communications is changing the nature of distribution
   even more radically. So I think it is progressive in that sense."

   Patrick Crispen proposed that although these discussions are new to
   him, "There was one thing in this conversation that did not exist
   in the previous conversations and that one thing could make the
   difference. That one thing is the Internet." The Internet is
   pushing the change and the discussions are on the leading edge of
   what might be a national movement. With the "push towards the
   Internet and the way that the Internet changes everything, changes
   us, and I think if we did get back here in five years, we would
   notice that a lot of things that we talked about here might have
   actually started getting rolled into place."

   "One of the differences is there is a great public ground swell
   looking at education - education is a real issue," added Bonnie
   Bracey. She submitted the vouchers, the charter schools, the home
   schooling numbers and the emphasis on public education as evidence
   of this attention. "Some people change because they see the light,
   others change because they feel the heat. This an opportunity that
   has not been around before and we really do have the attention and
   the interest of the public to change."

   Warren Buckleitner suggested that technology will continue to
   develop a break-neck pace and that this will affect schools. "I
   think the question is not if we will use technology well in
   learning. It will happen someday. The real question is when and how
   many ulcers we all get along the way?" How bumpy is the road going
   to be and what can be done to make the road smoother? And when will
   it will be? In our lifetime, our children's lifetime, or in the
   next five years? "It will eventually happen because software is
   evolving, the Internet is evolving. The next five years are going
   to be incredibly exciting to watch. Just to sit back and just
   watch, but hopefully we are not sitting back and watching. The
   great promise for education is that parents love their kids."

   [IMAGE][44]

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