eLearnign and Wall Street

Two things tell you an industry is maturing and will not be as much fun. The US Census Department recognizes it in the North American Industry Classification System. A major benefit is that news and other researchers now have access to county level data. The second is when Wall Street creates an industry index fund for investors.

About four years ago we vigorously campaigned the U.S. Census Department to include eLearning but to no avail. Looks like many more years of waiting because of their 7 year upgrade cycle. At about the same time I created and have been tracking a virtual eLearning Industry Index fund. With dominance by a couple of major players, consolidations, failures, Riverdeep going private, and other major players owned by larger companies the results are too volatile to be ready for Wall Street.

Last week I decided to checkout the current eLearning territory with a Wall Street researcher.

S. Andrew St. Pierre, VP Information Technology research for citigroup’s Smith Barney was in town giving a presentation at the Arizona Technology Council’s breakfast “Council Connect.” His delightful presentation included analysis and forecasts for data networks, storage and software. At one point he mentioned that IT industries were becoming mature. There are lots of new features but no new “killer software application” was on the horizon. He just saw expanded use of current technologies. He lamented the lack of “disruptive technologies” reaching the IT marketplace. (Image how the turbojet engine disrupted the piston engine aviation market in the 1950-60’s)

Not being able to resist the temptation, I asked him if Wall Street tecno-gurus ever considered “eruptive markets.” “If Arizona goes to 1:1 eLearning in ten years, the market for data networks to deliver instruction will increase 20 to 100 times. Computers with software will increase 20 times to 300,000 units a year.” From his answer I once again realized that Wall Street is almost totally focused in the short term – one year or less. The serve speculators; including the institutions not long range investors. The longer range investors; “value” (5 to 10 year horizon) and “income” (10 to 30 years); are of little interest (no-fees!!!).

Chatting with Andrew afterward he lamented the lack of focus on eLearning emerging markets with longer range analysis and forecasts. But he did say that his investment tips for the start of 2007 was HP (great recovery) and Cisco (data networks).

Between The Lines

01/10/07

We all interpolate our understanding of the world and sometimes extrapolate. And then we just fantasize.

As I sat with partner Bob in a capital hearing room on Monday and listened to Governor Napolitano give her State of the State speech, I let my mind wander into a dream state:

“modernize our classroom curricula … success in the knowledge economy … give our children nothing but the best…”

” >>> eLearning eLearning eLearning;

“curiosity, discovery and invention … technology embedded in our schools – to enhance student learning process …”

>>> Wake up, I am just dreaming?;

“new ways to engage them in learning, to individualize their learning paths ... change our learning environments to match 21^st century needs …

>>> eSATS all the way!;

“get results to teachers, students and parents in real-time so we can help students in real time. Nothing else suffices …”

>>> Real-time means formative assessment with coaching and scaffolding integrated into digital curriculum.;

“School Facilities Board … to build schools … providing an educational environment for our children to learn and compete in 21^st century.”

>>> Stop building schools with 20^th century connectivity and LANS, and embrace the age of high speed broadband.

“our universities … to graduate more students faster.”

>>> K-12 too – faster, better, and more $ for teachers.

“return on our investment will be profound…graduates … will thrive on an economy where creativity, ingenuity and adoption are the rules of the game.)

>>> In this economy, eLearning rules!

“our economy … runs on knowledge and innovation”

>>> What could be more innovative and knowledge based that Arizona’s emerging eLearning industry.

“the bedrock ... infrastructure … includes roads, water supply, … land preservation, … housing, health care, … coordinated growth planning.”

>>> Opps! And where is broadband telecommunications to every Arizona citizen?

“new Arizona Water Institute…”

>>> How about a Digital Curriculum Institute?

“ Innovation Arizona … Education, Foundation, Innovation … roadmap for successful 21^st century… necessities for a rapidly growing state…”

>>> And this grow is profound, growing from 1,000,000 K-12 students to 1,400,000 in 2017. eLearning is not only a great way to increase academic performance, but as the design method for 400 new schools.

Then Bob poked me in the ribs to bring me back to the real world and reminded me we still had work to do.

eLearning and the New Economy

o1/08/07

News Flash: AZ Republic page V6, 1/7/7. Editorial on Managing Arizona’s Growth. “Running Faster Just to Keep Pace” Item # 1 Educating our Kids:

Along with all the funding issues and teacher salary imperatives, we see for the first time “making sure that technology is integrated into the classroom to keep our kids competitive…”

Maybe the eLearning buzz has started and will grow over the year.

New Economy:

Governor Napolitano included capitalizing on the new economy in her acceptance speech at the inauguration last week. Let’s see what this really means for Arizona. In 1999 there was a major planning process by Governor Hull with many hundreds of participants statewide to study the new economy with the Arizona Partnership for the New Economy (APNE).

The final report, January 2001, “An Economy the Works for Everyone” http://www.arizonatele.com/atic/docs/APNE%20Final%20Report%202001.PDF addresses the importance to Arizona’s future and how Arizona can position itself as a leader. Immediate implementation was kicked of by participants in two of the five “hot teams”: eLearning (with Co-Chairs of Gregg Holmes of Cox Communications and Roy Herberger of Thunderbird, AGSIM); and Building Connections (with Co-Chairs of Mary Upchurch AT&T and Sergio Carlos, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.)

Members of these teams immediately founded the Greater Arizona eLearning Industry Assoc. an economic cluster of eLearning enterprises with combined revenues of $3 billion. GAZEL was soon sanctioned as an official Arizona cluster organization by the Governor’s Strategic Partnership for Economic Development.

Other APNE participants took the Building (broadband telecommunication) Connections challenge to heart. They have been working hard within the Arizona Telecommunications and Information Council and Government Information and Telecommunications Agency to bring cost effective broadband to all of Arizona. Rural and underserved urban schools are expected to be anchor tenants in their communities.

Both GAZEL and ATIC soon realized that the third piece was missing: accelerated adoption of effective eLearning within Arizona’s K-12 classrooms. In 2003 some of these APNE participants spun off once again into a new task team: eLearning System for Arizona’s Teachers and Students (eSATS). This 20 person team has designed the next generation statewide K-12 eLearning system based on teacher-student interaction in the classroom. They had success in garnering legislative support last year and expect a major increase in support for all students this year.

It looks like our Governor and governance-business-education leadership have decided to renew their efforts to put Arizona on the New Economy track. If so, they should be delighted that the eLearning and broadband telecommunications train has left the station with a full head of steam.

Arizona Inauguration

01/04/07

Bob Rosenberg and I had a grand time at the inauguration of for Governor Napolitano, Secretary of State Brewer, Attorney General Goddard, Treasurer Martin, and Superintendent of Public Instruction Horne. Judge Sandra Day O’Connor officiated the oath of office. The Inspector of Mines was ignored.

Governor Janet Napolitano started with schools, innovation, pride and strength. Arizona has innovated before: from the hard hat, Hohokam irrigation, to scientific tools on Mars. She followed with educating 21^st Century children (math and science), teachers, the new economy (Governor Hull theme) and protecting citizens (resonated with Terry Goddard’s address.). Our #1 rating of growth will produce thriving sustainable communities. She closed with “One Arizona.” I collected an Arizona red rock poster which is now on my office wall with that two word theme.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne started the proceedings with (in my opinion) the grandest two minute speech I have heard in many years. He said just two things with a very loud “LISTEN UP!”.

1. Although Education Week determined Arizona is 49^th - tied with Louisiana - the real truth is that three separate national tests have determined academic performance of Arizona’s students to be above average.
2. If Arizona increased its K-12 funding from dead last to average then we could become a top ten state or even first in academic performance.

Wow!

Consider eLearning as the Governor’s is the top technology based innovation play for Arizona. Now apply to the eSATS system design about 30% of the K-12 funding increase our Superintendent of Education is recommending. Arizona could zoom (my aeronautical engineering term) to the top of 50 states plus give our economy a kick that would sustain it for decades.

eLearning Productivity

01/03/07

Student Academic Productivity

Driven by technological advances, productivity of U.S. business workers has grown about 3% a year. The current process has been driving by information, not automation. U.S. K-12 education has about 60 million student workers and only 10 million effective instructional computers. Our industry-business system has about 5 computers per worker, integrated through out their global working environment. Our students may have a few in the back of the room, or worse 50 minutes every 7 school days in a computer lab.

Schools are striving to use eLearning. They rotate/share, consider $100 palm pilots, and apply what little eLearning they have to one discipline. After 15 years of experience schools know they must focus on digital curriculum and not technology. They know they need highly interactive computing in their education system. They can almost taste the 3% increase a year in academic performance.

Did I say compounded 3% a year for ten years? Why that would sail Arizona right past Massachusetts into the lead position. Goodbye being 49^th, 43^rd, 45^th, whatever and hello number one. Hey! If Boise State can do it by force of will and some trick plays, why not Arizona?

HI-CE

http://hi-ce.org/ (Highly-Interactive Classrooms – Curricula – Computing in Education; School of Education/College of Engineering; University of Michigan) Check out for palm-sized computers for K-12 and many other nifty research papers. Ron Marx was part of the research team, before he became the Chair of the UofA College of Education.

Advanced Distributive Learning System – Wisconsin

The Academic ADL co-lab at the University of Wisconsin is hiring an executive director. State of Wisconsin, not a federal job. Contact Holly Wells 608-263-8603 hwells@uwsa.edu.

Carpe Diem Seizes the Day

01/02/007

I had a lively chat with Rick Ogston yesterday. He is president of the Carpe Diem eLearning Community a 6-12 charter school in Yuma (rogston@cdayuma.com, www.cdayuma.com , 928-210-5777.

The Carpe Diem purpose build school is designed for hybrid eLearning. This concept is spot-on. As we start moving up this innovation-transition from legacy education to eLearning there will be a good ten to fifteen years where eLearning learning model will be hybrid. We do not yet have adequate knowledge on teacher practice and digital curriculum to jump in full (hedge) hog, as their mascot implies.

The school building outer periphery has elearning stations (cubicles) for each of their 300 students. In the center are larger workshop rooms for up to 30 students. They have a special arrangement where Florida Virtual School provides the comprehensive core subject digital curriculum to the eLearning workstations. The teachers move from student to student assisting them and providing guidance. The electronic testing by the digital curriculum provides individually paced assessments of each learning module,

For Arts and many electives the student are involved and projects and programs within the Yuma community. One partner is the Yuma Community Arts Foundation. The teachers gather students in the workshop rooms to present concepts and assess their process. A very rough average of student class time is 70% learning station and 30% workshop.

Rick has two current challenges. One is finding a really good means to bring reading levels of faltering students up to the AIMS criteria level. The MCREL study, November of 2005 Robert Blomeyer (Robert.bolmeyer@elearningpt.org), http://www.ncrel.org/tech/reading/index.html, that we flagged last month has been helpful his quest.

The other challenge finding the best teacher education and professional development curriculum and sources. Rick needs to increase the capabilities of his teachers specific to his unique hybrid eLearning system.

Any ideas out there for Rick Ogston of Carpe Diem at the gateway to Arizona and the new world of eLearning.

Governor's Council On Innovation and Technology and eLearning

12/21/06

News:
The eLearning Task Force created by SB1512 met for the first time yesterday. Cathy Poplin of Arizona Department of Education was elected chairperson. The development of the Request for Proposal for the three year Middle School Math Pilot program will begin immediately. The task force decided to jump start the proposal development with five meetings within two months.

The ADE web page for the eLearning Task Force (meeting dates/times, agendas, meeting reports …) is http://www.ade.az.gov/E-Learning/.

The legislature web page that summaries the bill and appointees is http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/icommittee/Arizona+E-Learning+Task+Force.doc.htm.

Blog:

The Governor’s Council on Innovation and Technology heard from three speakers at their meeting this week.

Bill Harris, President of the Science Foundation Arizona www.sfaz.org, presented their plan to accelerate Arizona’s economic grow based in focused support in science and technology. The SFA is using a recent study by the National Academies “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” http://lab.nap.edu/nap-cgi/discover.cgi?term=Rising+above&GO.x=5&GO.y=9 to guide their efforts. The study elaborated on two critical elements: energy and math-science education.

Carol Peck, President of the Rodel Charitable Foundation, http://www.rodelfoundationaz.org/initiatives/lead_five.shtml remarked on the knowledge she gained on the effective way to use eLearning in the classroom as Superintendent of Alhambra district. Rodel has a major K-12 math initiative. Their Lead by Five study noted that “embedding technology in instructional programs has a significant effect on test scores…the effect of embedded technology rivals that of class-size reduction in the lower elementary grades…the (annual) cost is about $250 per student.”

Debra Raeder, Governor’s Office presented on the P-20 Council http://www.governor.state.az.us/P20/ completing their current effort to develop a number of polices to significantly enhance Arizona’s education system. The Pathway committee selected eLearning as one of means to implement many of the policies. At the public testimony section of the P-20 meeting I distributed the eSATS 12 page study that selected 16 emerging education policies and discussed how eLearning could provide efficient, effective, and accessible implementation.

During the public testimony of the GCIT meeting I noted that two years ago GCIT education sub committee under Barbara Clark created a significant set of eLearning recommendations http://breeze.ltc.arizona.edu/p88404065/ in the areas of formative data and teacher preparation and renewal. I recommended that GCIT address eLearning within the current context of both innovation and technology, the new P-20 policies, the progress made in the past two years including the K-12 eLearning Task Force, and growing support for eLearning implementation in our schools. After a goodly amount of very positive discussion the GCIT chair said they would consider this recommendation during the annual review of their study committee structure over the next several months. The eSATS polity-eLearning study paper was accepted for distribution to the GCIT members.

All in all, a very good ten days for Arizona K-12 eLearning at the policy level. Now on to the minor details, like implementation!!!

Correction: Many apologies to our friend Robert Blomeyer PhD. Here is the correct email address for Bob (rblomeyer@learningpt.org ) His MCREL - Learning Point Associates research report “The Effects of Technology on Reading Performance in the Middle-School Grades: A Meta-Analysis With Recommendations for Policy” is correct at. http://www.ncrel.org/tech/reading/index.html

Governor's Council On Innovation and Technology and eLearning

12/21/06

News:
The eLearning Task Force created by SB1512 met for the first time yesterday. Cathy Poplin of Arizona Department of Education was elected chairperson. The development of the Request for Proposal for the three year Middle School Math Pilot program will begin immediately. The task force decided to jump start the proposal development with five meetings within two months.

The ADE web page for the eLearning Task Force (meeting dates/times, agendas, meeting reports …) is http://www.ade.az.gov/E-Learning/.

The legislature web page that summaries the bill and appointees is http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/icommittee/Arizona+E-Learning+Task+Force.doc.htm.

Blog:

The Governor’s Council on Innovation and Technology heard from three speakers at their meeting this week.

Bill Harris, President of the Science Foundation Arizona www.sfaz.org, presented their plan to accelerate Arizona’s economic grow based in focused support in science and technology. The SFA is using a recent study by the National Academies “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” http://lab.nap.edu/nap-cgi/discover.cgi?term=Rising+above&GO.x=5&GO.y=9 to guide their efforts. The study elaborated on two critical elements: energy and math-science education.

Carol Peck, President of the Rodel Charitable Foundation, http://www.rodelfoundationaz.org/initiatives/lead_five.shtml remarked on the knowledge she gained on the effective way to use eLearning in the classroom as Superintendent of Alhambra district. Rodel has a major K-12 math initiative. Their Lead by Five study noted that “embedding technology in instructional programs has a significant effect on test scores…the effect of embedded technology rivals that of class-size reduction in the lower elementary grades…the (annual) cost is about $250 per student.”

Debra Raeder, Governor’s Office presented on the P-20 Council http://www.governor.state.az.us/P20/ completing their current effort to develop a number of polices to significantly enhance Arizona’s education system. The Pathway committee selected eLearning as one of means to implement many of the policies. At the public testimony section of the P-20 meeting I distributed the eSATS 12 page study that selected 16 emerging education policies and discussed how eLearning could provide efficient, effective, and accessible implementation.

During the public testimony of the GCIT meeting I noted that two years ago GCIT education sub committee under Barbara Clark created a significant set of eLearning recommendations http://breeze.ltc.arizona.edu/p88404065/ in the areas of formative data and teacher preparation and renewal. I recommended that GCIT address eLearning within the current context of both innovation and technology, the new P-20 policies, the progress made in the past two years including the K-12 eLearning Task Force, and growing support for eLearning implementation in our schools. After a goodly amount of very positive discussion the GCIT chair said they would consider this recommendation during the annual review of their study committee structure over the next several months. The eSATS polity-eLearning study paper was accepted for distribution to the GCIT members.

All in all, a very good ten days for Arizona K-12 eLearning at the policy level. Now on to the minor details, like implementation!!!

Correction: Many apologies to our friend Robert Blomeyer PhD. Here is the correct email address for Bob (rblomeyer@learningpt.org ) His MCREL - Learning Point Associates research report “The Effects of Technology on Reading Performance in the Middle-School Grades: A Meta-Analysis With Recommendations for Policy” is correct at. http://www.ncrel.org/tech/reading/index.html

Three Wise Gifts

12/18/06

The first wise person gave us a gift of proof the eLearning works for literacy. In November of 2005 Robert Blomeyer (Robert.bolmeyer@elearningpt.org) published the (NCREL funded)-Learning Point Associates research report. The title is “The Effects of Technology on Reading Performance in the Middle-School Grades: A Meta-Analysis With Recommendations for Policy” From 204 candidate research reports form1988 to 2005 20 passed the rigorous criteria for inclusion in the study. The thoughtful and deliberate uses of powerful eLearning digital technologies show evident evidence of making 50% improvement in assessed academic performance. Note: A 30% effect factor produces an approximate one letter grade increase in learning (D => C). http://www.ncrel.org/tech/reading/index.html

The second wise person gave us a gift of formative assessment for learning to write. “It takes, like, two seconds,” she said, beaming when she recalled that the automated essay scoring system had given her high marks for content and organization. Robin Squirrell – East Haven High School. Sophisticated Internet and classroom based systems are quickly and thoroughly providing feedback on student writing. With the teacher providing higher level skills assessment on analysis and interpretation the students write and revise at a much higher level. A Phoenix district is using this type of formative assessment system for 25,000 students. Hartford Courant, 11/25/06

The third wise person gave us a blended cyber schools and site base education. Katie Devanney, a 16-year-old from Paoli, likes the high school she has designed for herself. She takes three online courses in and a gifted literature course in a basement of a former church in Paoli and Chester (PA) County cyber charter school. She also takes a statistics course at Cabrini College. “ Freedom to plan schedules allows student to do much more: work, credit recapture, take electives and athletics. Students that can meet their individual needs and follow their interests make happy students and achieving students.

Over a dozen of Arizona public schools, both charter and traditional are delivering this flexibility to students – including Pinnacle Education under the leadership of Michael Matwick mmatwick@pin-ed.com.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/16181331.htm

Kyrene School District

12/17/06

ELearning innovation continues to break out all over Arizona.

Kyrene district won national acclaim with its “Kyrene Teaches with Technology Project” by the National School Board Association (NSBA). Only three districts in the United States won this award in 2006. Why is the KTTP so great?

Intel made a significant early contribution by providing significant technology support in the 1990’s to a Kyrene school The result was significant learning on how to and how not to implement eLearning. This current generation of Kyrene innovation now focuses on curriculum, assessment and classrooms not computers and connectivity. The plan is not a technology plan but a long range strategic plan. Longtime and innovative Technology Director Mark Share, originally at Scottsdale in the 1990’s and now at Kyrene, has focused on evolution (not revolution) with his dedicated classroom teachers.

We had a delightful connection in the 1970’s when Superintendent Ben Furlong and Gifted Director Klonda Ball were leaders in an innovative gifted program call HIP (don’t remember the words in the acronym but Klonda had the kids chanting “Hip Hip Hip” as they walked down the halls. Klonda and I worked on founding the Arizona Association for Gifted and Talented and brainstormed the name “Potential” for the AAGT newsletter.

Like a star being found at a lunch counter in Los Angeles, the news ignores the years and decades of unheralded work behind the “instance success.” Hundreds of other Arizona districts are ready for innovative eLearning breakout. And so is the State of Arizona.

TurningPoint – Transition - Transformation

Nov 25,06

Non-Update: No further news on K-12 eLearning legislation being written nor the formation of the eLearning Task Force. After Thanksgiving – hope blooms eternal for next week.

A thank you: Brandon Ames, President of Able Information Technologies Inc. has stepped up big time in support of eSATS. We now have professional image expressed with logo, cards, folders and marketing materials designed and procured by his team. For years Able Information Technologies has provided planning, design and installation of turn key IT systems for schools. 2915 W. Fairview St., Chandler AZ 85224 480-477-0100 ww.ableinc.com.

Blog: Innovation is unique within our society does. Its center is neither in the current culture nor institutions. It centers in an emerging vision few can see and a very small group of individuals that some how link it all together.

1927 Herman Hesse “Steppenwolf” the primitive renews a structured society

1978 Hazel Henderson “Creating Alternative Futures”

1979 Willis Harman “Incomplete Guide to the Future”

1980 Marilyn Ferguson, “The Aquarian Conspiracy “ --- The past is not our potential… We can liberate the future… You are the conspiracy.

1981 Fritjof Capra “The Turning Point” --- What we need it to prepare ourselves for the great transition we are about to enter.

2004 Mark Satin “ Radical Middle” American is never been so open to innovative new energies as it is right now.

2006 David Korten “The Great Turning Point, From Empire to Earth Community” --- It is within or means to choose our future,,,, We are the ones we have been waiting for.

I guess it’s up to us. The vision is attracting attention. The grand ride is starting. There is always room for more. Jump on board.

Cheers! Ted

eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Students Inc.

not-for-profit 501-c3 volunteer design and advocacy organization

Theodore C. Kraver Ph.D. President

602-944-8557(direct) tkraver@qwest.net http://AZelearning.org

225 West Orchid Lane Phoenix, AZ 85021

CoreDrill-Goodies-21stCenturyOutcomes

Update: eLearning Task Force. The Arizona Department of Education has the appointees from the Governor’s Office for Boards and Commissions and is organizing the first meeting.

Update: K-12 eLearning legislation for 2007 is well ahead of schedule. I hope to have specifies in a few weeks.

Blog: eSATS focus has always been on increased mastery of core subjects at all grade levels leading to higher graduation rates. Our friend Ken Kay and his Partnership for 21^st Century Skills has added an additional dimension. He has expended from Core Subjects to 21^st Century Content, Life Skills, Information and Communication Literacy and Learning and Thinking Skills. We had assumed that an eLearning classroom focused on teacher practice transformation and digital curriculum with Internet would address all of the above.

Apparently; not so! A faltering student cuts text and graphics from the Internet and presents a dandy PowerPoint book report, is applauded and is enthusiastic about school. Has she learned an ICT skill? Yes. Has she learned part of a core subject, a life skill, 21^st Century content, or learning and thinking skills? Probably not.

To be continued.

Why eSATS? To Deliver Poerful Increase in Academic Performance

This report is a summary of a presentation on “Advanced Technologies for Learning in the Department of Defense” made at the Forum on the Digital Promise, 14 June 2006. Its author is a long time associate J. Dexter Fletcher, a leading researcher of the Institute for Defense Analyses, fletcher@ida.org. Dexter is a Wickenburg native who received his doctorate at Stanford. Knowledge from his many studies has been a major contributor to the design of eSATS for Arizona’s K-12 students.

The reason that military research on eLearning is so important is that they started using analog technology 70 years ago, and digital 30 years ago. Innovation based transformation is usually driven initially by adoption across industries. Here is what IDA and the Office of the Secretary of Defense say about why they are well on the way to totally transform their education and training system.

The DOD spends $16 billion per year for residential instruction; Arizona spends about $10 billion going to $14 billion in ten years. They have 1,300,000 uniformed service members, 750,000 DOD civilians and 80,000 K-12 dependents that must be educated and served with professional development programs. Arizona K-12 has 1 million students and about 60,000 educators.

A typical example of the reach, sophistication and investment by the DoD is their global distributed mission training system. The Air Force Research Laboratory, adjacent to the ASU Polytechnic campus, is a major contributor to this real time simulation and communication system. The eLearning technology leader of the AFRL has been advising and connecting eSATS team members to the latest eLearning research for 15 years.

The golden imperative of eLearning is to provide the means to transform the one teacher – 30 student classroom into a learning environment that supports academic achievement similar to full time tutoring. Fortunately the adoption of the current level of K-12 eLearning digital curriculum and pedagogy gets us half-way there, or one sigma (30% increase in learning or one letter grade improvement.)

For one form of eLearning, CBI, the interactivity emulates the human tutor.

The decreased time to learn required K-12 academics can shave years off the current 13 calendar years of K-12 education, and provides enrichment and arts opportunities.

The old text based CBI of the 1980’s gets better each decade as multimedia and intelligent systems add simulation, rich knowledge sources, scaffolding, exploratory and constructivist learning, and real time formative assessment.

The real payoff of eLearning in K-12 is dropout reduction by 90% (maybe), extraordinary achievement by motivated students ready for college, and major cost savings that free up funds to bring educator salaries up to a professional level.

These “eventualities” are all built into the eLearning Systems for Arizona Teachers and Students design (Circa 2003) with its Personal Learning Plan being launched statewide in Arizona.

Arizona also has these pieces for K-12 education. eSATS has assembled them into a systems design with will engage every student in every classroom.

Math and science has emerged as a critical issue in Arizona at the highest policy levels. The 2006 SB1512 has legislated a three year $3million eLearning middle school math pilot for 10,000 Arizona students. The Arizona Business and Education

Coalition, Governor’s P-20 Council and many others have math and science as a major policy initiative. One stand deviation in math is the absolutely lowest goal for Arizona education. The adoption of eLearning is the only possible cost effective way to achieve this goal.

Gordon Dryden Response to Drill and Practice

Gordon is our guru from down under. As a media icon in New Zealand he has studied the world of learning during his travels, and has credits in transforming learning in whole counties. His book “The New Learning Revolution” has sold over 10 million copies and he was the Keynote speaker at the Greater Arizona eLearning Assoc. conference in Mesa last May.

Gordon…

Re "drill and practice" as the forgotten requirement, I think this needs to be balanced - and I come back to Buckingham and Coffman's book, "First, Break All the Rules", with its summary of ALL Gallup's polling of "what makes great companies and great managers":

1. Everyone has a talent to be great at something (and talent is different than "specific skill". See their definition of different elements of "inbuilt talent" on page 180 of "The New Learning Revolution" www.networkpress.co.uk .

2. Great managers select for specific talents and build them into multi-talented teams.

3. Select for talent, but then train to add all the additional skills.

4. Some of those skills are "a good grounding in basics": reading, writing, math, spelling, composition and personal and inter-personal communications skills. Others are very specific to tasks and jobs (a nurse must have a great inbuilt "empathy talent", but needs specific nursing skills; a "great communicator" will have natural "communications" talent, but will then need additional "drill skills" - in my case keyboard touch typing, good spelling, ability to write clearly, specific computer skills, and - depending on what branch of communications - skills in journalism, radio, television, advertising and many other fields.

5. So some of those inbuilt talents show a great propensity for success (I could never be a great composer or musician, a great surgeon or a great accountant, or a great fiction writer - although I could perhaps learn to be reasonably good at the latter; I don't have the inbuilt personality, passion, empathy or behavioral traits.) Nor have I ever had the drive to be a "naturally brilliant ball player" - so could never be a Gretsky, Jackson, Tiger Woods or Federer.

6. And I believe the same applies to schooling - vitally important to:

a. Develop and nurture talent - and again the ability to flower in multi-talented teams. (From my experience with the best IT schools around the world, this is one of their great attributes: by starting kids from grade one as video producers and editors, scriptwriters, designers, musical composers - they show how talents can come together, and how each person can blend his or her best talent with those of others.)

b. Develop core competency in the basics: reading, writing, spelling, basic math, basic science - and often that requires drill.

c. Develop other social and lifestyle skills: reasonably good communicators, confident to operate in any company.

d. Develop creative abilities: the ability to be creative thinkers and creative producers and contributors.

e. Inculcate a drive to be high achievers in specific skills to build on one's own talent. Again that will require addition "drill and kill" for (as in your example) shooting goals at basketball, playing every possible on a tennis or squash court, kicking goals at rugby, playing a musical instrument.

f. And introduce assessment systems that both record "standardized test results" (where appropriate) and enable students to assemble digital portfolios to demonstrate their talents and skills.

I am sure you are aware that the US public school system, in particular, seems to have substituted "standardized testing" (largely based on rote-learning drills) as the main form of assessment - in a land where your incredible success has been based on terrific "non-standardized creative ideas and non-standard innovation!”

Key point: eLearning is not just about developing "repetitive drill skills". Memorization of how to spell and count (while important) is not the only thing that matters.

In New Zealand, I often use Peter Jackson and his team as "New Zealand's answer to America's Silicon Valley" (you may remember that analogy when receiving our honorary doctorates at UAT). Here is a guy who never went to college, but started making his first movie, with an 8 mm camera at age eight, and even then dreamed of producing his own version of King Kong. Years later, in one night he and his team picked up 11 Academy Awards in a night - and, by putting together an incredible multi-talented team, have turned Wellington (our capital city) into a South Pacific Hollywood.

He is, of course, highly skilled in a multiplicity of skills (and painstaking in every detail) - as well as being brilliantly talented.

Feel free to circulate this to the team if you feel it might add to the discussion.

I always have a real fear (especially from having worked in Japan, Singapore and China) that eLearning may become synonymous with rote learning. That is PRECISELY what happened in Singapore when it launched the world's biggest-per-capita investment in technology in public schools. And in China, the schools are still using computers in a very narrow way when, for example, most kids learn English much faster out of school singing English to karaoke machines in coffee shops than they do in their computer lab.

Best wishes to the team.

Gordon Dryden, Down Under gorden@learningwewb.co.nz

Building for AZ Legislative Session

Ah! Cool morning in the first of October and our doors are open, listening to the birds in the garden. What you cannot hear is the buzz of the quickening legislative season. Although the election is dominating the news, your faithful eSATS has had hundreds of meetings and conversations with allies and supporters to keep eLearning advocacy alive and kicking.

In 2005 we took the eSATS eLearning transformation bill to the legislature. Dozens of legislators supported the concept, but we were unable to get it out of Senate committee.

In 2006 we were asked by Senate President Ken Bennett to create and run an eLearning bill. The result was $2.5 million to support a state wide data system, $3 million for a three year middle school math pilot for 10,000 students. The policy for expanding effective eLearning to all students and courses was established along with ten year task force appointed at the highest levels.

For 2007 we expect to make significant progress in establishing the intellectual infrastructure required to assure student mastery learning, effective digital curriculum and eLearning savvy teachers. We will also begin the process of transforming schools into eLearning Centered Schools by focusing on what is required for individualized and small group, self pace elearning for students. The range of implementation will be from adopting efficient personal learning plans for students to creating major institutes.

A number of current efforts are underway with eSATS leaders engaged or being appointed to serve:

Eleven member eLearning Task Force from SB1512;

A legislative working group;

A council that is developing a strategic plan for cost-efficient broadband into every community and school;

A vision group for Arizona’s 2012 centennial that posits eLearning as the means to

transform K-12 education into national leadership;

We have had discussions with the leaders of half of the major Arizona educational policy groups (with good acceptance) and expect to complete this outreach by mid November.

During October we will be meeting with our dozen plus team of industry sponsored lobbyists to setup our legislative plan for 2007.

The 2007 bill is expected to be in draft form by November.

Many of you helped with advice and efforts in 2006. Your grass roots efforts were highly effective. Your talking to legislators; and attending or messaging the hearings was a major reason that SB1512 had over 100 positive votes cast for it, and approximately five negative.

This year we must triple our efforts. The time for education and interest building is over. Now is the time for long term commitment with real funding. If you can play a role, just send me an email and we will contact you directly.

In the mean time we have a small task for all or you readers.

The legislative working group needs to know of where students are using individual learning plans as a part of their eLearning system. We are not talking about the highly structured and costly IEP used in special education, but of informal learning plans that are with the eLearning system and use automated formative assessments to support student-teacher decision making.

Just drop an email to tkraver@qwest.net or 602-944-8557 with information of a source, a URL, or a digital curriculum.

Hoops and Hard Drills

Dave Hopla is the US's top shooting coach and can put 110 out of 111 shots through the hoop. What's this got to do with education? Dave's message is pure => learning is about memory, and skills need to be practiced to be learned.

Most of what we learn fades quickly from short-term memory. To push learning from short to long-term memory, you need to practice, regularly and often. The lesson we have to learn is that the 'sheep-dip' experience is wildly unproductive, unless there is follow-through and practice.

So why this sports analogy?

Recently the Financial Times surveyed 431 business leaders about the US losing its competitive edge to fast-growing economies like China and India. They found that three-quarters of incoming high school graduates were deficient in English writing skills, including grammar and spelling. Thirty percent felt that these graduates could not even write a simple business letter. Over half found high school graduates were deficient in mathematics.

How could this be?

Our graduates have high skill levels in use of technology and working in groups. These goal-oriented, tech-imbedded, multitasking, pro learning, collaborative, natural teamers, and community joiners should make idea workers. They trust parents and institutions, and want marriage, family, community, and work/life balance. Ninety percent of teens agree: “it’s cool to be smart.” along with open, honest communication, they want variety, challenge, diversity, action and to be part of something significant

Isn’t this what our employers have been calling for all through the 1990’s?

Opps, maybe we would have listened to “Mister Hoops.” To be motivated to reach goals is one thing. To put in the immense effort into drill and practice to learn vast quantities of knowledge and complex skills is another.

That is why 52 minutes a week in a computer lab is ineffective. That is why a few computers in the back of the room to run applications are ineffective. That is why laptops alone are not effective. That is why teaching students to use technology is not effective. That is why $100 and a couple of days in teacher training per year is not effective.

When eLearning is judged by these implementations then we expect it to be ineffective. eLearning levels of success can only be achieved when a school is transformed with the right level of digital curriculum, continuous teacher education and professional development, professional level of technical support, and 100% student access to instructional computing and formative assessment.

The drill and practice for reading, writing and arithmetic can be imbedded from K to 12, and our graduates will be able to sink the 21^st Century Workforce basket every time.

Why eLearning => Accelerating K-12 eLearning Adoption

This report is a summary of a presentation on “Advanced Technologies for Learning in the Department of Defense” made at the Forum on the Digital Promise, 14 June 2006. Its author is a long time associate J. Dexter Fletcher, a leading researcher of the Institute for Defense Analyses, fletcher@ida.org. Dexter is a Wickenburg native who received his doctorate at Stanford. Knowledge from his many studies has been a major contributor to the design of eSATS for Arizona’s K-12 students.

The reason that military research on eLearning is so important is that they started using analog technology 70 years ago, and digital 30 years ago. Innovation based transformation is usually driven initially by adoption across industries. Here is what IDA and the Office of the Secretary of Defense say about why they are well on the way to totally transform their education and training system.

The DOD spends $16 billion per year for residential instruction; Arizona spends about $10 billion going to $14 billion in ten years. They have 1,300,000 uniformed service members, 750,000 DOD civilians and 80,000 K-12 dependents that must be educated and served with professional development programs. Arizona K-12 has 1 million students and about 60,000 educators.

A typical example of the reach, sophistication and investment by the DoD is their global distributed mission training system. The Air Force Research Laboratory, adjacent to the ASU Polytechnic campus, is a major contributor to this real time simulation and communication system. The eLearning technology leader of the AFRL has been advising and connecting eSATS team members to the latest eLearning research for 15 years.

The golden imperative of eLearning is to provide the means to transform the one teacher – 30 student classroom into a learning environment that supports academic achievement similar to full time tutoring. Fortunately the adoption of the current level of K-12 eLearning digital curriculum and pedagogy gets us half-way there, or one sigma (30% increase in learning or one letter grade improvement.)

For one form of eLearning, CBI, the interactivity emulates the human tutor.

The old text based CBI of the 1980’s gets better each decade as multimedia and intelligent systems add simulation, rich knowledge sources, scaffolding, exploratory and constructivist learning, and real time formative assessment.

The decreased time to learn required K-12 academics can shave years off the current 13 calendar years of K-12 education, and provides enrichment and arts opportunities.

The real payoff of eLearning in K-12 is dropout reduction by 90% (maybe), extraordinary achievement by motivated students ready for college, and major cost savings that free up funds to bring educator salaries up to a professional level.

These “eventualities” are all built into the eLearning Systems for Arizona Teachers and Students design (Circa 2003) with its Personal Learning Plan being launched statewide in Arizona.

Arizona also has these pieces for K-12 education. eSATS has assembled them into a systems design with will engage every student in every classroom.

Math and science has emerged as a critical issue in Arizona at the highest policy levels. The 2006 SB1512 has legislated a three year $3million eLearning middle school math pilot for 10,000 Arizona students. The Arizona Business and Education Coalition, Governor’s P-20 Council and many others have math and science as a major policy initiative. One stand deviation in math is the absolutely lowest goal for Arizona education. The adoption of eLearning is the only possible cost effective way to achieve this goal.