|
ALTP
News April 14, 2001
|
|
Recent ALTP News |
Reminder: ALTP BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING (OPEN) Wednesday, April 25, 2001
Dial-in attendance: contact tkraver@qwest.net |
|
| 040701 | ||
| 033101 | ||
| 032401 | ||
| To: | ALTP Associates | |||
| From: | Ted Kraver, Chairman 225 West Orchid Lane |
tkraver@qwest.net Phoenix, AZ 85021 |
602-944-8557 (off) 602-861-9150 (fax) |
ACTION AGENDA Saturday, April 14, 2001Arizona Learning Technology Partnership, Inc. I. inXsol COMPUTER/INTERNET TRAINING FOR AEROSPACE & MANUFACTURING III. $$$$$$$ FOR BIO-LIFE SCIENCES – $ FOR EDUCATION IV. GROUP AIMS TO FINE TUNE WIRED SCHOOLS V. BANDWIDTH CONSTRAINTS BEGIN TO WORRY SCHOOLS VI. THINQ RECEIVES $20 MILLION IN FINANCING FROM CIBC CAPITAL PARTNERS, MELLON VENTURES VII. GM AND UNext.com ARE TAKING 90,000 EMPLOYEES TO THE NET IX. LESS WE GET TO TECHNO-FOCUSED
=> I. inXsol COMPUTER/INTERNET TRAINING FOR AEROSPACE & MANUFACTURING I met with President Harry Ryng and Dan Suhrn of inXsol this week, and had a detailed briefing on their products and capability. I was impressed by their complete set of resources: instruction designers, internal development engine including simulation, use of the latest Flash and multimedia tools, and a complete learning management system. They focused both on interactive content training for technicians and manufacturing experts, but "soft" personal career navigator on the Internet for a major global-valley manufacturer. Their Desktop Simulation Training System technology delivers a virtual Part Task trainer to Windows NT computers. Personnel can perform normal operations and view system response on fully interactive systems. 602-347-9575 (o) info@inxsol.com. And www.inxsol.com. I had a great lunch with Mariann Stewart the CO-NECT representative in Arizona. ALTP has been in contact for many years with BBN (the inventive technical force behind the Internet) and their K-12 educational research efforts. Based on this research they spun out CO-NECT to implement their School Reform – Project Based Learning – Technology Integration system in America’s schools. They have jumped to 100+ people and continue rapid growth as their solution is being accepted in 170+ schools in 28 states, including Arizona. Co-nect schools in Memphis increased 26% over the nation mean norm for tests. Their system moves over 5 phases from basic to benchmark in school community accountability, project based understand and accomplishment, comprehensive assessment, team-based school organization, and sensible use of technology. Mariann Stewart is Co-nect’s Arizona person. 480-807-2398 mstewart@co-nect.net www.co-nect.net . (The cost-benefit of a 26% increase in academic performance is incredible. Arizona would soar form the bottom quartile to well above Connecticut, the current lead state. The cost, I estimate at less than 10% range current school expenditures. Ted the Ed.) III. $$$$$$$ FOR BIO-LIFE SCIENCES – $ FOR EDUCATION IBM estimates that worldwide sales of information technology in the life-sciences field could reach $43 billion in just three years. Last year biotech companies raised $40 billion from investors. President Bush wants to dramatically increase funding for health research but is cutting spending on K-12 learning technology. And so it continues. IV. GROUP AIMS TO FINE TUNE WIRED SCHOOLS Over the past five years, NetDay, a California based nonprofit group has helped to wire hundreds of schools for Internet access. Now, they are moving to help teachers harness what travels through those wires. The nonprofit organization issued a survey late last week detailing teachers' attitudes toward the Internet and its use in the classroom to lay a foundation for NetDay's future work. "The real challenge is how to help teachers use the Internet," said Julie Evans, the chief executive officer of NetDay. Teachers "were not receiving leadership or advice on different ways to use the Internet. There really needs to be a new dialogue with the leadership . . . so they can be more understanding of what the time issue means." NetDay is building on the experience of working with educators and community leaders to tap into the learning potential of what travels over wires and into classrooms. The shift is a challenge for NetDay, which has traditionally focused on helping schools build physical infrastructure.[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: REBECCA S. WEINER (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/04/technology/04EDUCATION.html) V. BANDWIDTH CONSTRAINTS BEGIN TO WORRY SCHOOLS Although schools have made significant progress in the past few years by getting connected to the Internet, they are certainly among those who would like to upgrade to faster access. This is a concern for Jeff Ogden, associate director at Merit Network Inc., a nonprofit corporation that provides networking services for many of the K-12 schools in Michigan. "The vast majority of schools that have Internet access have relatively small levels of bandwidth," he said. Once challenge to increasing bandwidth is the fact that schools must negotiate so many different goals competing for limited technology budgets -- such as more computers, teacher training and technical assistance. As a result, upgrading a school's network Infrastructure may take a back seat to other demands. "For some school districts, higher speed access is a priority," Mr. Ogden said, "But not the majority. I think we have a ways to go in terms of showing teachers how it can be used effectively." [SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Susan Stellin] (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/11/technology/11EDUCATION.html) VI. THINQ RECEIVES $20 MILLION IN FINANCING FROM CIBC CAPITAL PARTNERS, MELLON VENTURES THINQ Learning Solutions, a leading provider of enterprise wide corporate learning solutions, announced today it has received $20 million in financing in its fourth round of equity investment. Despite the economic climate, investors funded this round because of their continued confidence. This latest round brings THINQ's total venture funding to $66 million since its incorporation in February of 1999. THINQ's previous financing came from a number of leading institutional investors, including Charles River Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, BCI Partners, HLM Management and Windspeed Ventures. These firms also participated in this recent funding. "THINQ's is positioned in the corporate training market with an LMS and a comprehensive content offering, along with consulting and support services. They recently merged with TrainingServer, Inc. 200 customers and four million active learners. The integration of products and services to create a single, comprehensive source for enterprise learning needs. This new combination of products and services has earned THINQ significant new contracts with organizations such as Eastman Kodak and CommerceOne. The corporate e-learning market is currently more than $2 billion and is expected to grow to $23 billion by 2004, according to a recent report by International Data Corp., which predicts the market will more than double in each of the next three years. " VII. GM AND UNext.com ARE TAKING 90,000 EMPLOYEES TO THE NET The carmaker just became the latest big company to shift much of its internal training courses and seminars to the Net. It's a bad week for planning business junkets. For many professionals, corporate seminars and training programs used to offer an escape from their office cubicles. But these days, more and more workers are being asked to log on and learn. It is encouraging its 88,000 salaried employees to take online courses in areas such as marketing, finance, and e-business, and even to tap the Net for an MBA. GM's four-year-old corporate university has agreed to a four-year alliance with UNext.com, a Chicago-based e-learning company that offers $125 million worth of courses and degrees through Cardean, its online university. GM also is taking an equity stake in UNext.com, the amount of which it isn't disclosing. GM is joining the ranks of companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dow Corning, Dell, IBM, and Barclays, which in recent years have offered various online management-education courses to their execs. In June, GM's cross town rival, Ford Motor Co., will launch the Ford Learning Network to help employees and their managers determine skills they're lacking and suggest e-learning courses to supply them. SPEED FACTOR. All told, by 2004, companies are expected to spend more than $23 billion annually on online corporate education, up from $6.3 million in 2001, according to International Data Corp. A major reason for the shift to Net ed: "It's faster learning," says Donnee Ramelli, president of General Motors University. And since UNext's courses are "project-centered, [employees] can apply techniques and tools the next day on the job." E-learning also can be far cheaper than conventional classroom learning. IBM says it saved $350 million in 2000 by putting 36% of its internal training online. And Ed Sketch, director of education training and development for Ford in North America and Europe, says putting classic Ford courses, such as "Lean Manufacturing," online should save the company's training division at least $25 million a year. The system also will allow Ford to track the impact e-training has on business. E-learning spares companies the cost and hassle of transporting employees to and from classes. And as more universities jump online, more and more inexpensive coursework is becoming available. Ford's Sketch contends that buying fleets of courses will save money as well, since e-learning companies are eager to recover their investment in developing the programs. CLASSY ALLIANCES. UNext also recently signed a deal with Thompson Corp., another major e-learning provider. UNext classes are created in partnership with universities in an alliance it has formed with Columbia Business School, Stanford University, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, and the London School of Economics & Political Science. But will students learn as much online? Despite enthusiasm from companies, students say there's room for improvement. In a February survey of 4,148 e-learners by Corporate University Exchange, a New York consulting firm, respondents said they would have benefited from more interaction with instructors and fellow classmates. At this point, the range of courses offered by companies isn't broad enough, many survey respondents said. IX. LESS WE GET TO TECHNO-FOCUSED
=> "In the long run, how hard schools try, how elegantly they are structured or restructured, matters not at all. What matters is the experience of the student." Peter Temes, President of Great Books Foundation "After three years of poor teachers in a row, the effect on student performance are catastrophic. Many of these children never recover. " Marguerite Roza, Sr. Fellow at Center on Reinventing Public Education at University of Washington. "Reading readiness, like school readiness, is more than a mechanical set of skills." Lisbeth Schorr, direct of Project on Effective interventions at Harvard University. "We must put aside the notion that aptitude is immutable and replace it with an understanding of what research tells us about the open-ended nature of human ability." Paul Kelleher, Supt. Of Lawrence, N.Y. Public Schools http://www.satirewire.com Weekly hit for New Economy types with satirical sense of humor. The anointed don't like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy "solutions" that get rid of the whole problem- at least in their imagination. -- Thomas Sowell Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think. -- Chinese proverb He who can take no interest in what is small will take false interest in what is great. -- John Ruskin The ALTP News/Action Agenda is produced by the Arizona Learning Technology
To subscribe, send email to LISTSERV@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU with the message
To sign off the list, send email to LISTSERV@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU with
the |
We need to know what you think of ALTP News. Please send your comments to tkraver@qwest.net.