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ALTP
News February 17, 2001
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Recent ALTP News |
Reminder: ALTP BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING (OPEN) Wednesday, February 28, 2001
Dial-in attendance: contact tkraver@qwest.net |
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| 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, February 17, 2001Arizona Learning Technology Partnership, Inc. II. ELLISON’S LINUX DEVICE DELIVERS COST EFFECTIVE ACCESS III. TEENAGERS TRY ONLINE LEARNING
I. ALTP AND THE ARIZONA ECONOMIC PARNERSHIP The focus for that ALTP board and advocates is to become a strong partner within the Arizona Economic Partnership as an implementation path for our clear vision. As a reminder this visions has four components with a measurable outcome (thank you John Kelly):
The measurable outcome is Arizona K-12 student population moving to the top quartile on standardized national tests, college admissions and high school completion.
The ALTP leadership has been very active over the past two months and will continue with the transformation of APNE into the implementation engine for the Governor named the Arizona Economic Partnership. GSPED Executive Board has had three meetings and the Arizona Department of Commerce had 35 state economic development leaders in a 2 hour meeting on Thursday. On of the dialectics at the meeting was crucial to support of K-12 education and must be resolved before K-12 education and the business-economic development community can go forward effectively. MEETING NOTES: The following discussion with Pro-Con arguments is direct from my meeting notes. Con: K-12 education does not show up to participate at economic discussions and APNE and when they do, they do not know why they are there. Pro: To solve this very real issue, treat K-12 as a customer, act like a business and use focus groups and market research to determine what is needed to transform K-12 as a driver of economic development, not a drag. Con: K-12 education is not fixable from the State level, therefore do not address. It is between the family and the school districts and is a sociology problem, not amenable to being changed by government. Nothing has worked so far. Can’t do anything about K-12, so don’t try. Pro: For shame on us if we leave K-12 out of AEP. There is a solution and it is in the APNE report. Dozens of studies and many examples in Arizona provide that effective adoption of e-learning technology in the classroom will significantly improve student academic performance and reduce dropouts. The APNE Arizona Learning Online will deliver the critical factor, continuous professional development to Arizona’s 50,000 K-12 educators. Pro: K-12 must be radically improved if our universities and colleges are to continue their development progress. K-12 is not an abstract issue. Must be addressed to get real progress in state. WRAPUP The meeting ended with the plan for a second input meeting from state leaders, (including K-12) to be held in a couple of weeks by ADOC. There is a need for a transition team to take APNE to AEP. Need to map – align with Governor’s strategic plan. Will have 2nd meeting like this one in a couple of weeks to allow input from other business – community leaders (and K-12 if they will show). Need straw organization to discuss. Bob Hagen of Tucson software cluster and GSPED tasked will create this straw organization.
COMMENT FROM MY E-MAILING OF THE MEETING NOTES: PRO: After many years in K-12 education [with leadership positions at district, state and national level], I do not agree with the opinions of the group that met to discuss future development of the state's economy. Without a vibrant K-12 program, little will happen at the college level either since students will be less than capable of taking advantage of opportunities. Just the opinion that educators do not know why they are there and contribute nothing to the meetings is a reflection on the real opinion folks have about K-12 educators. It almost approaches disdain. Some of us are both educators and entrepreneurs and can conduct conversations and have insights that match business and other senior government types. One of the obvious ways to improve K-12 education is to take some of the politics out of K-12 education. With the state superintendent elected, the state's educational institutions tend to be led by well meaning, but uninformed politicians. People act as if there is no science to K-12 education, but there is. There is a lot K-12 can do for APNE and several should be at the table Con & Pro: To your point. There are a number of educators: Paul Kohler, George Garcia, Jim Keifer to name a few that do under stand economic development and will contribute a voice from Education. But these are few and far between. To get the voice of my customer the use business marketing tools are needed. Then assume almost no support at the legislature even many $10 of millions for their use are in play. No feet on the floor or calls to their legislators, let alone a $100 donation from their pocket to their district representative or senator Ted the Ed: What I heard on Thursday was a huge frustration, loud and clear, the business community desperately wants K-12 to get better, have worked like hell (on and of) for many years from the business side, and still there is little perceived progress. So half has decided to give up and concoct a theory on why K-12 can never be "fixed". The second half feels we are just now turning K-12 and will make rapid strides through technology adoption, provided the teacher professional development is aggressively funded and implemented. The final half believes that voucher, Charters, choice, site based management is all that is needed. SEND me your thoughts to tkraver@qwest.net and let’s continue the dialog. II. ELLISON’S LINUX DEVICE DELIVERS COST EFFECTIVE ACCESS A low-cost Internet device on display at LinuxWorld a week ago is offering to drive the cost of accessing the Internet below $200. Ellison is the financier behind the New Internet Computer Co., launched last May (www.thinknic.com). Fortune magazine last November dubbed Ellison the second richest man in the world, with $47.7 billion to Bill Gate's $56.4 billion (but who is counting Ted the Ed.). But low cost computers focused on network computers, remains a ruling passion for Ellison, the chairman of Oracle Corp. A successful network computer would undercut the individual and corporate preference for personal computers. New Internet Computer Co. showed off a $199 machine at LinuxWorld that resurrects the idea of a low-cost network computer. A previous Oracle spin-off failed at the $500 machine level. The new device runs Linux, the free open source code operating system, a 266 MHz Cyrix processor, 64 megabytes of memory, a CD ROM drive and a 56K modem. The device contains no hard disk nor monitor. It can be used on either an Ethernet local area network or be plugged into a phone jack. It has the option of free Internet service with NetZero or the device can be configured to dial up your current Internet service provider. III. TEENAGERS TRY ONLINE LEARNING A growing number of teenagers are participating in fully accredited online courses as an attractive alternative to going to high school. Class.com serves 27 students full time around the country and the Florida Online High School, a state-run online program, serves 45 students who receive their entire high school curriculum online and delivers courses to hundreds more who are being taught at home by their parents. Administrators of online programs stress that most of the students they serve are actually in schools, where they use computers in the schools' libraries or guidance offices to take one or two supplemental courses. In fact, many of those administrators say that they discourage students from doing all their high school work online. "I think they would be doing the child a disservice," said Sandra Feldman, president of American Federation of Teachers. "Especially when you are talking about high-school-age children...You would have to have a pretty good reason to have a teenager alone at a computer all day," she said. [SOURCE: New York Times (E1), AUTHOR: Lisa Guernsey] (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/15/technology/15SCHO.html) If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait. -- Robert Heinlein Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. -- F.A. Hayek One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word. -- Robert Heinlein The ALTP News/Action Agenda is produced by the Arizona Learning Technology
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