K-12 (Primary / Secondary)

It seems lately that the details surrounding the funding on Obama’s stimulus package, also referred to as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), are changing on a daily basis. I am sure many of the “changes” are due to pure confusion on what and when activities will be funded. I have spoken with numerous educators from all across the country and each one has shared a different translation of how they heard the money would be rolling into their regions and how it will be spent on education within their state and/or district.

In a quest to provide factual information about the stimulus package, many websites are popping up to help demystify the ARRA for us. One of those sites that has recently launched is The Economic Stimulus Learning Center. The site, hosted by Dell, is focused on the ARRA funding distribution and as more information becomes available, the site will be updated with eligibility criteria, grant resource tools, and news alerts for Education, Healthcare, Energy, and National Infrastructure issues.

Other sites recommended to me to help educators understand the details of the stimulus package are the following: EdTech Action Network (ETAN), National School Board Association (NSBA), and the U.S. Department of Education.

In addition to sites listed above, I am sure there are other extremely informative sources out there that can provide information regarding the distributions of funds from ARRA and I encourage you to list them in the comments section. I’d also like to hear your opinions about ARRA and if you think it will have a positive impact for you and/or your district. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately depending on the outcomes, time will only tell if the ARRA was the right thing to do for us….

Student-owned technology has been a hot topic amongst EduBloggers for the past couple of weeks. 

Ewan McIntosh's blog highlights new research describing the damage of filtering 'real-world' technology in his blog today (3/12/09).

The Cool Cat Teacher Blog discussed the top 10 reasons cell phones should be allowed in schools on Wednesday (3/11/09). I personally agree with #8 regarding digital citizenship and #2 which discussed the organizational features that is standard on many cell phones today.

Bill Ferriter blogged yesterday (3/11/09) about the idea that engaging students to help combat boredom may curb handheld misuse in the classroom.

On another note, Graham Wegner blogged last month about disruptive student-owned technology in the form of USB drives.

What types of student-owned technologies are you currently using in your classrooms? Please share your successes, concerns, and issues around incorporating these devices.

Please welcome Rick German to our Community! Rick is the Co-founder, CEO and Chief Technology Officer of Stoneware, Inc.  Rick and Stoneware are driving change in educational technology and helping bridge the gap between technology and resources. Please welcome Rick to Edu4U. -Bri

Changing the game: Shifting the conversation from device to access

For over 8 years Stoneware, Inc. has been developing solutions designed around providing secure web-based access to organizational applications and information.  Today "Cloud Computing" has become the commonly acceptable term in describing this paradigm shift.  The "Cloud" becomes a metaphor for access, it is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals allowing users to access applications and data at anytime, from anywhere, using any device. 

Many educational institutions are finding themselves in middle of this shift from a "device-centric" to an "access-centric" world.  With tightening budgets and limited resources, the ability to provide each student with an individual computing device is increasingly more difficult.  Many educators are considering new computing models to solve this resource mismatch.  Cloud computing provides a viable solution by changing the focus from hardware devices to end user access. 

In a private cloud model, data and applications move off of the device and back into the computer room where they can be more easily managed and provisioned.  The cloud creates a secure framework by which students, teachers, and parents can access educational applications and content from any device.  Schools can readily leverage existing machines, home computers, and new classes of computing devices (i.e.- netbooks and smartphones) to extend and improve on their delivery of educational services and while driving down operational costs.

Many of you probably have an interest in answering questions about the impact of technology on students, teachers and learning. Dale Mann, a distinguished scholar at Columbia University and most recently with Interactive, Inc., has done some of the seminal work in answering these questions. He led the way with research about a large-scale technology deployment in West Virginia early in this decade, and most recently research about Henrico Public Schools and their large groundbreaking 1:1 Initiative. I’m pleased to introduce my good friend, Dale. –Mark Weston

Our independent analysis of Henrico County Public School’s individual take-home laptop program for all the County’s high school students indicates that for all the state-measured curriculum topics over the three years of the program, the all-topics, all-years average gain was 21 points on a Virginia Standards of Learning test scale with an approximate range of 300 points. More laptop use was associated with higher achievement in Biology, Chemistry, History, Reading and Earth Science. Students were also better prepared for 21^st Century skills and high school graduates who had used laptops in school reported that, compared to colleagues from other high schools who had not studied with individual laptops---they were better prepared for college and/or for paid employment. Interactive, Inc. collected unusually detailed data to document laptop use by students and teachers. The single---if complex----addition of 1-to-1 laptops has levered changes in six pivotal areas of schooling: student (1) achievement, (2) study habits and (3) future preparation and teacher (4) instructional practices, (5) student progress monitoring and (6) productivity.

Relevant URLS:

http://www.boarddocs.com/vsba/henrico/Board.nsf/Public?OpenFrameSet

Select “meetings”’

Find the 11/13/08 work session link, and choose “#6 (Instruction)” and then go to “high school laptop initiative”

Damian Bebell is an Assistant Research Professor at Boston College's Lynch School of Education and a Research Associate at the Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative. In that role he has been evaluating the 1:1 initiatives in Massachusetts and NH.

Please welcome our distinguished blogger, Damian, to the Community. –Mark Weston

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Describing his early childhood discovery of gears and transmissions, Seymour Papert warns of the challenges (or impossibility) of addressing and quantifying the potential educational and personal impacts of providing children with rich learning environments and tools. In his seminal Mindstorms, Seymour writes: “If any “scientific” educational psychologist had tried to “measure” the effects of this encounter, he would probably have failed. It had profound consequences but, I conjecture, only many years later. A “pre- and post-“ test at age two would have missed them.”

For the past decade, my colleagues and I have conducted research studies using varied methodologies to address and quantify the impacts and effects of technology-rich learning environments. In this era of increased accountability, many policy makers have come to define the “positive impact of educational technology” as increased test scores. However, within school settings, “new” and “engaging” ways of teaching and learning are generally seen as the most meaningful outcome.

As a community, how well are we determining what the meaningful and worthwhile outcomes are to address? Through this forum, we can share results from specific studies and programs, but perhaps also consider the bigger issues surrounding the direction of our inquiries and what we’re missing.

Relevant Links:

Technology and Assessment Study Collaborative

www.intasc.org

1:1 Research and Evaluation Studies

http://www.bc.edu/research/intasc/researchprojects/researchprojects.shtml

Educational Technology in the News

www.educationaltechnologynews.blogspot.com