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ALTP
News September 2, 2000
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Recent ALTP News |
Reminder: ALTP BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING (OPEN) Wednesday, September 27, 2000
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, September 2, 2000Arizona Learning Technology Partnership, Inc. ACTION – THE E-LEARNING HOT TEAM FORUM FORUM CUTOFF IS SEPTEMBER 19th IDEA’s AND CRITIQUE NEEDED THIS WEEK.
Over the next 14 days, the Breakthrough Ideas of the E-Learning Hot Team will be formulated. The Web based forum is taking input (ideas and critique) from over 140 Arizonans. These are the people that have either expressed interest in the HOT TEAM or have attended their first meeting. If you are part of this group then sign in at http://www.rfpforum.com/ . For you lucky 140 your name and password are the same, first initial and last name, like "tkraver". If you do not have access, sent your input to me at tkraver@qwest.net and I will try to get it posted into the discussion. For ALTP, we designed our four mutually supporting breakthrough ideas from four years of ALTP study, stakeholder strategic planning and civic engagement; the APNE E-Learning Hot Team study paper; and the results of the first E-Learning Hot Team meeting on August 14, 2000. They are: (4) The E-Learning Economic Cluster is the driver for (1) accelerated E-Learning adoption throughout education and workforce development, (2) E-Learning professional development system for teachers-trainers-professors, and (3) globally competitive E-Learning research/technology/enterprise system. I spent an hour on the forum last night and posted a dozen comments to the large number of idea modules with components (listed below). The four Breakthrough ideas (above) that ALTP is advocating are within this listing. But each cuts across two or more modules when the individual ideas are considered. There had only been a few responses and the forum has been active for a week. After all our efforts we cannot let this opportunity pass us by via default. You need to contribute your time for at least one online session with this forum, and you need to do it this week.
1. Accessibility 2. Breakthrough Ideas Focused on Adults (Post K-12 New Learning Tools/Access for Adults Student Achievement 3. Breakthrough Ideas focused on Alignment of Stakeholders Alignment of public and private entities (i.e., an e-learning cluster) Alignment of Public Institutions 4. Breakthrough Ideas focused on Teacher Development Alter current structures to work better with E-Learning Professional Development 5. Breakthrough Ideas focused on Youth/K-12 New Learning Tools/Environment for Youth Student Achievement Students, employees, and adults become and remain internationally competitive; K-8 should have fundamental reading/writing/math skills 6. Comprehensive "Cradle-to-Grave" Approach 7. Individualized Learning Meet the educational needs of all learners not just self-motivated
E-LEARNING CORPORATE VIEW FROM PAUL ELSNER CHANCELLOR EMERITIS OF MARICOPA COMMUNITY COLLEGE Similar issues [to Arizona E-Learning Breakthrough Ideas] but this group, many of whom are Chief Learning Officers of the larger Corps, ratchet up the stakes much higher. They see as one approach to make vanguard states "learning" states and they tie all learning to performance. They are not too complimentary about higher education. They speak of terms like TZT (time to training) and TZP (time to performance). In most government and educational institutions training and learning is seldom on time if it exists at all and we have depressed notions of technology impact. Their notion is that if technology is not adaptive to project tasks, it is useless and if it does not augment human performance it is mistargeted. Sort of like the surgeon who sees three steps ahead (augmented technology) before he ties the critical suture. Or the Boeing electrical harness installer who is assisted by augmented reality to sort correctly and connect the 400 wires before him. Life long learning they say is ok, but not sufficient--try every second learning. The Net is always on and computing is ubiquitous as a given. Not new news --but one other point of view expressed there is that the free market does not do everything, but if it were held to accountability for the public good, it might do better than the existing public sector. I just served on a screening committee as past chair of ETS at Princeton. We hired the Chief Fiscal Officer of Dupont world wide and the CEO of Dupont-Merck ,Europe. Looks like the free market may be getting its chance--I wonder about that. LAPTOPS ARE NO LONGER A LUXURY FOR STUDENTS As many private schools around the country make laptop ownership a requirement, some public schools are also grappling with the potential role laptops can play in classroom instruction. The number of high schools where laptops have replaced the computer lab has risen to more than 500 nationwide, says Albert Throckmorton, director of technology curriculum at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Va., which will be a laptop-only institution beginning this fall. By far the biggest obstacle is the enormous cost of shifting the expense of the traditional computer lab to a parent-student responsibility. At Episcopal, students can buy or rent laptops or apply for "scholarship computers." Other schools are experimenting with plans that allow students to lease laptops that they can purchase or trade up in their senior year. Villa Park High School, a public school in Orange, Calif., has offered eHistory and eEnglish electives for those students who supply their own laptops. But a similar proposal at another Orange County school met with disapproval from parents who felt the program would exclude poorer students. [SOURCE: USAToday (8D), AUTHOR: Karen Thomas] (http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20000831/2600541s.htm) CHOOSING QUICK HITS OVER THE CARD CATALOG Many younger students today prefer to do their research online rather than at the library. They feel more comfortable sorting through hyperlinks than card catalogs even though libraries are organized and easily navigated. The trend troubles educators who fear that point-and-click research can lead to lazy study habits and ineffective searches. "Students have an idea when they come into the library that everything they need is on the Internet," said Mary Arnold, president of the Young Adult Library Services Association and a librarian at the Cuyahoga County Public Library near Cleveland. "That may be true, but they often don't know how to find it." The University of Michigan's School of Education developed Artemis to help students do better Web searches: it included a spell checker and a thesaurus to help poor spellers [like me] and students who don't know synonyms for the terms they are searching for. The URL also includes eight hints for better Web searches. [SOURCE: New York Times (D1), AUTHOR: Lori Leibovich] (http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/08/circuits/articles/10thin.html) COLLEGES WITH NO WIRES ATTACHED BY KATIE DEAN KATIED@WIRED.COM When freshmen at the College of Mount St. Joseph arrive on campus this fall, they'll be given a new handheld PC Pro to surf the Web and check their email, as well as do more scholarly tasks like take notes and write papers. Officials at the small, Roman Catholic college in Cincinnati chose the handheld devices -- which are slightly smaller and lighter than laptops -- as an alternative to computer labs. Building more labs, they determined, would be costly and gobble up precious classroom space. EDUCATION AND THE INTERNET: Interesting story in Monday's NY Times on computers in education and Internet initiatives. Original story at http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/09/cyber/commerce/04commerce.html (free registration may be required to view). Cablevision has launched an education initiative called Power to Learn. Since the program's inception last year, Cablevision has provided more than 350 public and private schools and 50 libraries on Long Island with high-speed, broadband Internet connections, at no charge. Based on the company's projections, by the end of this year more than 200,000 of the 500,000 students on the Island will have access to the Internet through Power to Learn. "Even little tiny schools with tiny budgets can get online in a way we never thought we'd be able to," said Caryn Meirs, technology coordinator at Westbury Friends, where the number of classroom computers went from 5 to 30. More than just connections, the Cablevision program provides content: online resources available through their Web site, www.powertolearn.com. Followed up by looking for more on Cablevision's initiatives and find a brief description on their web site about The Power to Learn http://www.cablevision.com/cvhome/cvinet/ptolearn.htm which has its own well-developed support site at http://www.powertolearn.com/home/index.html . Perhaps some good ideas for our own initiatives [with APNE]. Mark Goldstein; International Research Center; markg@xroads.com CUSTOMIZE TEXT CONTENT--MAKE LEARNING MORE COLLABORATIVE BETWEEN STUDENT AND TEACHER While e-books are gaining popularity in the mass market, proponents say that enhanced textbooks have even greater potential to revolutionize the education market. Students can buy textbooks on the Web from vendors such as WiZeUp.com, where they can download the entire book or individual chapters to their hard drive. They can add customized features such as sound and video, and they can take notes, highlight and bookmark text, use hyperlinks, and even email their professors. Professors can take notes in one of WiZeUp's textbooks and export them to the entire class. Students can also send individual notes to their study groups that will appear in the exact same place in each member's digital textbook. Such customized content makes learning more collaborative and interesting to students, said David Gray, CEO and founder of WiZeUp.com. With custom publishing, professors no longer have to structure a course around a textbook. Instead, they can mix and match online material to create their own textbooks around their course ideas. With no printing, binding, inventory, or shipping costs, electronic materials may cut costs and save time for professors and students. XanEdu's course packs are priced 20 percent below print packs, averaging around $15 to $25. XanEdu's electronic course packs can arrive in 24 hours or less. Free textbooks on the Web: OpenMind Publishing's open source publishing model, launching this spring, will offer free, collaborative content for instructors to create personalized textbooks and teaching tools. Students will be able to buy textbooks that they can access via the Web, CD-ROM, or print for approximately $20, about a third of the cost an average $60 textbook. With virtual online libraries such as NetLibrary, students can download e-books immediately from the Web or download them to their PCs. Versaware's eBookCity.com allows students to create their own customized, personalized research center where they can checkout, search, and organize books.
ADULT ONLINE LEARNING 'FIRST' IN NORWAY Norway's government is keen to "re-skill" the workforce. Norway is claiming a world first with nationwide internet-based adult learning. A joint effort by businesses and trade unions has resulted in The Competence Network (NKN), designed to bring online learning opportunities to millions of people. Some 50 organizations will be providing content for the network, which uses technology developed by California learning management firm Saba. http://www.saba.com/english/index.htm Saba is a leading provider of e-learning infrastructure, which consists of Internet-based learning management systems, business-to-business learning exchanges, and related services. A key benefit being claimed for the government-backed initiative is a substantial reduction in public and private sector training costs, currently estimated at 20bn Norwegian kroner (about $2billion) a year. NKN is led by a coalition of the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions and the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry. "Norway's competence network links employees at various sites throughout the country to personalized training and education from primary school to university-level establishments," said NKN's managing director, Sven Erik Skønberg. "Our goal is to implement an e-learning network that provides flexibility, speed in delivery of training solutions, and the ability to integrate multi-discipline learning applications - all on a platform that is accessible to all who desire, or require, training." Underlying the scheme is a government drive to enhance basic skills in the workforce, the "competence reform" program. New laws promise schooling, to upper secondary level, to all workers who, for whatever reason, have missed out on it. Norway's generally high standard of education still has many adults who lacked basic education. Distance learning is seen as crucial in a country with a scattered population and where some 97% of the workforce are in businesses with fewer than 20 employees.
WISDOM IN A FEW WORDS The essence of wealth is the capacity to control the forces of nature, and the extent of wealth depends upon the level of technology and the ability to create new knowledge. -- Julian Simon Facts do not "speak for themselves." They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities. -- Thomas Sowell By words the mind is winged. -- Aristophanes 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 Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant. -- F.A. Hayek
Note: Some of above reports were edited or paraphrased to shorten them to this newsletter format. Ted the Ed. 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
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