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ALTP
News March 3, 2001
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Recent ALTP News |
Reminder: ALTP BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING (OPEN) Wednesday, March 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, March 3, 2001Arizona Learning Technology Partnership, Inc. II. LETS GIVE CHRIS A HAND AGAIN IV. NEW ADMINISTRATION WORRIES SOME E-RATE PROPONENTS; V. WHY E-LEARNING COULD SCORE AN A CHANGE IN MONTHLY MEETINGS ALTP is in a lull as APNE reorganizes and we wait to direction of the E-Learning implementation plan. As a result our board meeting attendance has decreased to a few leaders and a few new people. Qwest has been providing our video conferencing facilites for the past 5 years, every month at a cost to George’s budget of $250 a month (with a great big thank you). During active, formative, legislation pushing times the video conferenced meeting was vital in creating a solid Phonenix-Tucson axis of strength. But cost are excessive during this period of less activity. Our current plan is to have video conferenced meetings in January, May, September and November, and the other months use a Qwest Phoenix location but have an audio bridge setup so anyone can call in to participate. Time-Date would be the same, last Wednesday of the month from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. RESULTING RECOMMENDED INITIATIVES
II. LETS GIVE CHRIS A HAND AGAIN Chris desperately needs Technology Literacy Challenge Grant reviewers for all 3 Phases: If you will please pass this message on to anyone you think might be interested in reviewing for us I'd really appreciate it. We need approximately 15 more reviewers. Phase Ia - review on your own from March 16 to March 25th - approximately 10 application packages - will take roughly 15 hours of time. Pay is $100. Phase Ib - Required if you work Phase Ia. All reviewers will meet on Monday, 3/26 at ASU Downtown to work the day with the other members of your team in agreeing on a team review for the application packages you reviewed during Phase Ia. Approximately 7 hours of work. Pay is $100. Phase II - All reviewers will meet on Tuesday 3/27 - you'll work with 2 other people to review the work done by Phase I reviewers. Approximately 7 hours of work. Pay is $100. Phase III - All reviewers will meet on Wednesday 3/28 - you will work with 2 other people to review budgets of top ranking applicants from Phase I and II. Approximately 7 hours of work. Pay is $100. You do not have to work Phase I in order to work Phase II and/or III. However, if you work Phase Ia, you need to work Phase Ib also. Our greatest need is for Phase I reviewers at this time. Appreciate you help. Chris Castillo, Technology Specialist AZ Department of Education 602-542-5233 Cox Business Services is the primary and preferred alternative for business grade telecommunication services throughout greater Phoenix and Tucson. Cox Business Services also has strong strategic partners to extend our capabilities and range to provide both network management of multi-vendor transport and district-level network integration. Cox Communications has always been proactively engaged in the education community from providing quality digital voice, video and high-speed data, training teachers how to integrate technology into the classroom, to providing complimentary video service with over 500 hours of educational programming a month. Key Arizona projects include Horizon Learning Center (Arizona’s First Model Technology school), the Challenger Learning Center, and the Osborn School District (a Cox Model Technology District). In addition, Cox Communications has already stepped up to meet the requirements and qualify for the services you require under the State ATS/ TOPAZ contract, including the rural requirements. We truly believe that competitive open markets will best assure that services can be brought quickly and most cost effectively to the entire state of Arizona. IV. NEW ADMINISTRATION WORRIES SOME E-RATE PROPONENTS; REBECCA S. WEINER Advocates for the E-rate, a program that subsidizes Internet connections for the country's schools and libraries, are worried that President George W. Bush's proposal to consolidate federal education technology programs into a single block grant could stifle its success. The E-rate is supported by payments telephone companies make into a fund for low-cost services to rural and under-served areas that provides very poor schools with up to a 90 percent discount on telecommunications services, including connections to the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission oversees the E-rate, and the Schools and Libraries Division of the government's Universal Service Administrative Corporation administers the $2.25 billion program. President Bush, in his "No Child Left Behind" education proposal, suggests combining the E-rate with technology programs run by the Education Department and distributing the money through block grants to state education agencies. Supporters say the telecommunications aspect of the E-rate makes it incompatible with the rest of the Education Department's technology grant programs. By the end of the program's second year, 70,000 public schools, 5,000 private schools and 4,500 libraries were participating in the program, according to a study released by the Education Department in September of last year. By 1999, 63 percent of classrooms had Internet connections, up from 3 percent in 1994, according to statistics compiled by EdLiNC. V. WHY E-LEARNING COULD SCORE AN A Michael Costello Computimes reports that the future for e-learning is promising. But there is a risk of creating a two-tier system of education. Web-based education, although still in the early phase of development, has extraordinary promise says the US Congress Web-based Education Commission in its report www.webcommission.org. The report highlights the need to invest heavily in the professional development and provision of technical support for teachers using Web-based education. It also calls for research into how people learn in the Internet age and emphasizes the need to update and replace outdated regulations governing education. It concluded that the promise of the Internet lay in its unique ability to center learning on the student instead of the classroom, to focus on the strengths and needs of individual learners and to make life-long learning a reality. Qraphics, sound, video and interaction to give teachers and students multiple paths for understanding. However, that Web-based education is fraught with risk. Internet could result in greater divisions between those with access and those without access to the opportunities of Webbased learning. The Internet is not a panacea for every problem in education. Powerful new Internet resources, especially broadband access, must be made widely available and affordable to all learners. The commission stresses the need for continuous and relevant training and support for educators and administrators at all levels. It sees the professional development of teachers, lecturers and administrators as the critical ingredient for the effective use of technology in the classroom. Allied to this initiative, it sees a need to research how people learn in the Internet age. They recommend the establishment of a benchmark goal for research and development investment in Web-based learning consistent with similar benchmarks for other industry segments. There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it.
Throw moderation to the winds, and the greatest pleasures bring the greatest pains. -- Democritus Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead.
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