Eb60726ChrisDede
Monday, September 11, 2006
Chris Dede and eLearning taking Education out of Dark AgES
Bill Gates and Educational Transformation
Eb60616Transformation
SB1512 Rational and Committee Dynamic
eb0304SB1512Rational.doc
SB1512 eLearning digital (curriculum) institute; data warehouse will be at its most critical hearing next week:9:00 am Wednesday, March 29th, 2006.
SB1040 school districts; minor boundary changes (Waring)
SB1272 education technology committee (Huppenthal) (held from last session)
SB1382 AIMS test; dropout prevention (Hellon, Bee, Downing, et al)
SB1512 e-learning centered school system(now: e-learning digital (curriculum) institute; data warehouse) (Bennett, Bee, Hale, et al)
SCR1031 public programs; citizens (Martin, Blendu, Boone, et al)
You know the drill:
http://alistrack.azleg.gov/rts/login.asp to weigh in with your vote.
http://alistrack.azleg.gov/alistrack.asp to register on ALIS if needed.
There have been a number of discussions about the three parts of SB1512. The “what” is presented in the bill. I thought I would explore the context of the bill and “why” of each element.
CONTEXT
The eSATS systems design team focused on the teacher-student for the center of it’s design. The most critical eLearning decisions to be made by the teacher and district for the student are:
Should legacy curriculum of books-lecture-worksheets be used or is digital curriculum the better choice?
Advocates with influence and expert power are a critical for the start of an innovation process. But at as the innovation takes off the reins must be shared with governance having legitimate power. The eLearning Task Force will knit together the critical State level entities and provide guidance and legitimate support for the ten year long-haul required for effective eLearning rollout.
Digital Curriculum Institute => eLearning/Research/Enterprise Institute
university system. Its practical task is to assess, make recommendations from the universe of K-12 digital curriculum. This wisdom and advice will be provided by a portal based knowledge system for educators. From this data the DCI can determine gaps in K-12 digital curriculum, specify solutions and advocate with providers. A hands-on extension service to schools and teachers is expected build to 100 curriculum experts and 150 instructional technologist extension agents. With the multitude of eLearning aspects at each of our universities it is expect that the DCI will have a networked flavor to its organizational design. The funding requirement for 1:2 matching funds requires outside enterprises, companies, foundations and philanthropists to become seriously engaged with the DCI. This positions the DCI as to develop and extend its reach and contributions to K-12 education.
Create and operate statewide field testing operation for digital curriculum
be the advocacy center for greatly increased funding for elearning research in
like the biodesign institute with direct linkages to elearning enterprises
build major laboratories and virtual
become recognized as the center of the elearning research universe.
like NASA: global network of l/r/e’s
like NIH:
like NSF:
benefits for AZ elearning enterprises
innovation driver at many levels
research driven product development
comprehensive knowledge of and guidance over the global elearning R&D community.
effective field testing at doorstep
abundant elearning savvy workers
elearning enterprise cluster collaboration
Digital Curriculum Institute – Launch Concept
eb60218DigitalCurriculmInstitute.doc
1. Research: Survey all sources of existing digital curriculum. Determine which have educational effectiveness for specific courses and grade levels, and align with
2. Provide Knowledge Access with a web portal for the data and knowledge base to support acquisition decisions of digital curriculum to school administrators, staff, teachers and parents. Data from the Arizona Department of Education’s IDEAL (Integrated Data to Enhance
3. Support: Develop and field a cadre of specially trained education technologists who work as on site agents with school administrators, staff, mentors, teachers and parents.
Operating under the auspices of
President
eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Students Inc.
Not-For-Profit 501 c(3) volunteer advocacy organization
602-944-8557(d) tkraver@qwest.net azeLearning.org
How to Support eLearning Legislation
Support eLearning Legislation Now
Subtitle: Your written vote from your desktop on SB1512 can really make the difference.
Each of us wants to influence legislation vital to our interests. Unfortunately few of us can travel to the capital for a hearing, wait around for a two or more hours and then state our case to the legislative committee. Lead advocates usually provide effective verbal testimony. But your written message and vote can be critically important.
Here is how the “Request to Speak” system works from your desktop in the age of the Internet.
First you have to make a real (not virtual) trip to the Arizona State Capital –
1. Then with your sign in name and password you can "Request to Speak" in an efficient manner (3 minutes at your desktop). You just key in a short, crisp message with yes, no or neutral recommendation on passing the bill:
Request to Speak Login:
http://alistrack.azleg.gov/rts/login.asp
2. If you don’t know when bill is to be heard, key in your bill number in the top bar, right side of screen and find this information under Show Senate/House Agendas.
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/default.asp
3. Put in name and password and select House or Senate, Click, input the bill number;
4 Then fill in your organization (self is just fine), select “For” as your stance on the bill, put in your comments; and select No when it asks if you want to speak.
Why do all this? The reason is that the committee chairman usually reads each comment just PRIOR TO VOTING on the bill and tallies the For, Neutral and Against stances. You can have direct influence on an undecided legislator just before they cast their vote. Usually there are only a few comments read. A large volume with For stances makes a real impression.
One trip to the capital and you are set to influence legislation for life. Our SB1512 for the eLearning Centered School System will be heard in the K-12 Education committee this coming Wednesday afternoon, February 15th. We need your written support.
Cheers
Ted Kraver --- eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Student
602-944-8557 tkraver@qwest.net eb60211NewDemocracyRequestToSpeak.doc
How to Support eLearning Legislation
Support eLearning Legislation Now
Subtitle: Your written vote from your desktop on SB1512 can really make the difference.
Each of us wants to influence legislation vital to our interests. Unfortunately few of us can travel to the capital for a hearing, wait around for a two or more hours and then state our case to the legislative committee. Lead advocates usually provide effective verbal testimony. But your written message and vote can be critically important.
Here is how the “Request to Speak” system works from your desktop in the age of the Internet.
First you have to make a real (not virtual) trip to the Arizona State Capital –
1. Then with your sign in name and password you can "Request to Speak" in an efficient manner (3 minutes at your desktop). You just key in a short, crisp message with yes, no or neutral recommendation on passing the bill:
Request to Speak Login:
http://alistrack.azleg.gov/rts/login.asp
2. If you don’t know when bill is to be heard, key in your bill number in the top bar, right side of screen and find this information under Show Senate/House Agendas.
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/default.asp
3. Put in name and password and select House or Senate, Click, input the bill number;
4 Then fill in your organization (self is just fine), select “For” as your stance on the bill, put in your comments; and select No when it asks if you want to speak.
Why do all this? The reason is that the committee chairman usually reads each comment just PRIOR TO VOTING on the bill and tallies the For, Neutral and Against stances. You can have direct influence on an undecided legislator just before they cast their vote. Usually there are only a few comments read. A large volume with For stances makes a real impression.
One trip to the capital and you are set to influence legislation for life. Our SB1512 for the eLearning Centered School System will be heard in the K-12 Education committee this coming Wednesday afternoon, February 15th. We need your written support.
Cheers
Ted Kraver --- eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Student
602-944-8557 tkraver@qwest.net eb60211NewDemocracyRequestToSpeak.doc
Briefing: SB1512 (early version) eLearning Centered School
Senate Bill 1512 – eLearning centered school system
Rationale: A statewide K-12 eLearning system with 1:1 student per computer will bring a surge in academic performance, a plunge in the dropout rate and a highly competitive 21st Century workforce.
Background: This eSATS bill is sponsored by Senate President Ken Bennett. More than two dozen Senators and Representatives signed the introduced bill. This shows strong bi-partisan support. The bill is based on the eSATS statewide systems design for transforming Arizona K-12 education focused on the Teacher-Student interaction.
SB1512 Strategy for 2006: Create and develop three critical elements for the launch of the Arizona K-12 eLearning system:
Digital Curriculum Institute will create knowledge systems and portal for all available K-12 digital curriculums (education software). These experts will evaluate the effectiveness of this digital curriculum for increasing student academic performance, supporting Arizona Academic Standards, student motivation and ease of use, and automated assessments. Educational technologist extension agents will support the adoption of the most appropriate digital curriculum by working with administrators, curriculum directors and teachers in their schools and classrooms.
Integrated Instructional and Data System with data warehouse will support the student and teacher in the class room while providing decision support for school and state leaders. This statewide system will support eLearning, knowledge access and communications with internet Web based services for all
Arizona eLearning Task Force will be created under the Arizona Board of Regents with three members each appointed by the Governor, Senate President, and Speaker of the House; and one each from the Board of Regents and the Superintendent of Education. The Task Force's charge will be to establish statewide policy for eLearning programs, oversee the implementation of these programs and develop innovative eLearning solutions.
Funding:
Digital Curriculum Institute: $1,000,000 to
Integrated Instructional and Data System: $1,900,000 Arizona Department of Education.
Ted Kraver, 602-844-8557, tkraver@qwest.net, azeLearning.org
President, eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Students
Bob Rosenberg 602-206-2856 bob@bobrosenberg.com Eb60204SenateBill1512lBrief.doc
Lead with Digital Curriculum
Eb60128LeadWithDigitalCurriculum
Most current K-12 state initiatives are still focused on the computer or online aspects of eLearning.
Over the next ten years computers and connectivity will ramp power and plummet in price. A most of student and teacher homes will have a computer for online learning. Teacher education and professional development is well understood. The critical remaining factor to delivering a K-12 eLearning solution to every
Digital curriculum for early grades reading and math, and algebra and physics is pretty good, and there are lots of choices. But there are over 130 courses within ten major academic standards groupings of the full K-12 curriculum. For many courses the accessible eLearning offerings are less than satisfactory.
For the next ten years
Digital Curriculum Institute- would be a statewide K-12 support organization within our state university system that will:
- Cooperative learning through social computing;
- Personal broadcasting (text-audio-video) for sharing media;
- Portable access devices such as iPods and cell phones;
- Education gaming for engagement, comprehension and retention;
- Augmented reality and enhanced visualization for 3-dimensional experience to transform understanding.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Web Based Request To Speak - New Town Hall
Each of us wants to influence legislation vital to our interests. Unfortunately few of us can travel to the capital for a hearing, wait around for a two or more hours and then state our case to the legislative committee. Lead advocates usually provide effective verbal testimony. But your written message and vote can be critically important.
Here is how the “Request to Speak” system works from your desktop in the age of the Internet.
First you have to make a real (not virtual) trip to the Arizona State Capital – 17th Avenue and West Washington. The parking lots east of the capital (also west) are fairly open at the beginning or end of weekdays and on Friday when the legislature is not in session. Register yourself at a Kiosk in the lobby of either the Senate or the House. Take about 3 minutes and you are on your way again.
1. Then with your sign in name and password you can "Request to Speak" in an efficient manner (3 minutes at your desktop). You just key in a short, crisp message with yes, no or neutral recommendation on passing the bill:
Request to Speak Login:
http://alistrack.azleg.gov/rts/login.asp
2. If you don’t know when bill is to be heard, key in your bill number in the top bar, right side of screen and find this information under Show Senate/House Agendas.
Arizona Legislative Information System Homepage:
http://www.azleg.state.az.us/default.asp
3. Put in name and password and select House or Senate, Click, input the bill number;
4 Then fill in your organization (self is just fine), select “For” as your stance on the bill, put in your comments; and select No when it asks if you want to speak.
Why do all this? The reason is that the committee chairman usually reads each comment just PRIOR TO VOTING on the bill and tallies the For, Neutral and Against stances. You can have direct influence on an undecided legislator just before they cast their vote. Usually there are only a few comments read. A large volume with For stances makes a real impression.
One trip to the capital and you are set to influence legislation for life. Our SB1512 for the eLearning Centered School System will be heard in the K-12 Education committee this coming Wednesday afternoon, February 15th. We need your written support.
Cheers
Ted Kraver --- eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Student
602-944-8557 tkraver@qwest.net eb60211NewDemocracyRequestToSpeak.doc
Senate Bill 1512 – eLearning centered school system
Rationale: A statewide K-12 eLearning system with 1:1 student per computer will bring a surge in academic performance, a plunge in the dropout rate and a highly competitive 21st Century workforce. Arizona will be highly attractive for high-quality well-paying jobs and economic development, and our Arizona cluster of eLearning enterprises will continue to flourish. Arizona will lead the nation in the newest high tech industry, eLearning. Also, eLearning is demonstrably effective in teaching languages: That means an effective resolution to the English Language Learner challenge.
Background: This eSATS bill is sponsored by Senate President Ken Bennett. More than two dozen Senators and Representatives signed the introduced bill. This shows strong bi-partisan support. The bill is based on the eSATS statewide systems design for transforming Arizona K-12 education focused on the Teacher-Student interaction.
Long Range Strategic Goal: Create an intellectual infrastructure of digital curriculum, knowledge and access; telecommunications and information system; eLearning savvy teachers; piloted eLearning Centered Schools; and cyber-schools during the early years. Over the remaining ten years build out K-12 eLearning with one computer on every student desk (1.3 million) with broadband connectivity, continuous teacher professional development and individualized digital curriculum.
SB1512 Strategy for 2006: Create and develop three critical elements for the launch of the Arizona K-12 eLearning system:
Digital Curriculum Institute will create knowledge systems and portal for all available K-12 digital curriculums (education software). These experts will evaluate the effectiveness of this digital curriculum for increasing student academic performance, supporting Arizona Academic Standards, student motivation and ease of use, and automated assessments. Educational technologist extension agents will support the adoption of the most appropriate digital curriculum by working with administrators, curriculum directors and teachers in their schools and classrooms.
Integrated Instructional and Data System with data warehouse will support the student and teacher in the class room while providing decision support for school and state leaders. This statewide system will support eLearning, knowledge access and communications with internet Web based services for all Arizona public schools.
Arizona eLearning Task Force will be created under the Arizona Board of Regents with three members each appointed by the Governor, Senate President, and Speaker of the House; and one each from the Board of Regents and the Superintendent of Education. The Task Force's charge will be to establish statewide policy for eLearning programs, oversee the implementation of these programs and develop innovative eLearning solutions.
Funding:
Digital Curriculum Institute: $1,000,000 to Arizona Board of Regents. Additional $3,000,000 available for 1:2 matching support from other sources. Total potential $10,000,000.
Integrated Instructional and Data System: $1,900,000 Arizona Department of Education.
Ted Kraver, 602-844-8557, tkraver@qwest.net, azeLearning.org
President, eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Students
Bob Rosenberg 602-206-2856 bob@bobrosenberg.com
Digital Curriculum - Leads eLearning
Most current K-12 state initiatives are still focused on the computer or online aspects of eLearning. Texas tried for $400 million for computers but failed. Minnesota will use $55 million for computers and software from Microsoft court settlement. Florida Governor Buss proposes $180 million ($45 per student) for laptops for all teachers (164,000) to help recruit and retain.
Over the next ten years computers and connectivity will ramp power and plummet in price. A most of student and teacher homes will have a computer for online learning. Teacher education and professional development is well understood. The critical remaining factor to delivering a K-12 eLearning solution to every Arizona student is digital curriculum. That is why the Digital Curriculum Institute is the first item in Senate Bill 1512.
Digital curriculum for early grades reading and math, and algebra and physics is pretty good, and there are lots of choices. But there are over 130 courses within ten major academic standards groupings of the full K-12 curriculum. For many courses the accessible eLearning offerings are less than satisfactory.
For the next ten years Arizona needs to be currently cognizant of what digital curriculum is available. Not only aware but be able to sort it into the “good, not so good, bad and ugly” categories with data supported decisions. Here is where the Digital Curriculum Institute comes into play.
Digital Curriculum Institute- would be a statewide K-12 support organization within our state university system that will:
1. Research: Survey all sources of existing digital curriculum. Determine which have educational effectiveness for specific courses and grade levels and which align with Arizona academic standards.
2. Provide Knowledge Access with a web portal for the data and knowledge base to support acquisition of digital curriculum to school administrators, staff, teachers and parents to support their decision.
3. Support: Develop and field a cadre of specially trained education technologists who work as on site agents with school administrators, staff, mentors, teachers and parents.
If Arizona is to lead this K-12 transformation two more actions are needed: focused advocacy and mapping the future.
DCI leadership will target K-12 courses that are inadequately supported by current digital curriculum. They will not only specify requirements but apply advocacy pressure to and form alliances with sources to accelerate delivery of effective digital curriculum for all of Arizona K-12 education.
There will also be great changes in the digital curriculum over the next ten years. Arizona will stay in the forefront by track emerging technology and methods in many eLearning areas. Current wisdom (The Horizon Report 2006) suggests the following will improve academic performance will above the current eLearning levels:
Cooperative learning through social computing;
Personal broadcasting (text-audio-video) for sharing media;
Portable access devices such as iPods and cell phones;
Education gaming for engagement, comprehension and retention;
Augmented reality and enhanced visualization for 3-dimensional experience to transform understanding.
The strategy is to lead with digital curriculum and complete the system with eLearning savvy teachers, awesome computers and bandwidth, many layered data and decision systems and professional technical support.
Others will surge in the short run, but guess who the leader will be in the long run?
eLearning on an Economic Wave
eSATS has posited that legacy K-12 education industry started its long wave in the late 1880’s industrial age with compulsory education and has long since reached the end of its innovation cycle.
Industry leaders in one wave rarely make the leap to the next wave. The top ten Wall street performers in 1925 were railroads, metals and autos. In 2005 they were information technology, financial services and healthcare/pharmaceuticals. K-12 education has about 17,000 community based school districts and the industry leader does not apply. But the “wave” is merciless. Transformation with eLearning is the only option for K-12 education as the distributed intelligence wave surges toward its crest.
Distributed intelligence started with precursors to the Internet, continued with client-servers and is rapidly accelerating with the World Wide Web. Part of the distributed intelligence wave is what Mills Davis consultants in their Project10X call the semantic wave. www.project10x.com. Although when I see the word semantic it seems to be used in a new context with a varied definition. But it is emerging as a critical factor as K-12 education addresses transformation of school-by-school and state-by-state.
eLearning exists because of the $1.2trillion installed IT base and global market of hardware, software and services from the computer wave. K-12 eLearning has experienced the past 20 years of computer labs and laptops for teachers. The birthing pains continue as student computing moves into the classroom and the focus shifts to digital curriculum and formative assessment. This is where semantic wave collides with the classroom.
Business is transforming from automating transactions and record keeping to enabling knowledgeable interactions with customers and suppliers. Semantic wave is all about net-centric infrastructure, knowledge work automation, supporting cognitive processes and building systems that know what they are doing. The teacher-student dynamic is grounded in knowledgeable interactions. Semantic technologies enable people to create, discover, represent, organize, process, manage, reason with, present, share and use meanings and knowledge to accomplish human purposes.
Seems to me that learning is a prime human purpose. K-12 education is destined to be caught by the semantic wave. It’s up to us to time the launching the surf board and keep it in the groove.
DARPA and the English Language Learner
While thinking about how we generate this “technician talent pipeline” my mind drifted into the image of computer adoption over the past ten years in K-12 education. In the mid 1990’s there was about one modern, multimedia computer for every 15 students and most of these were in isolated computer labs. By 2000 the School Facilities Board had wired Arizona classrooms and brought modern computer ratio to 1:8 with some migrating into classrooms. Today these computers and operating systems have aged toward obsolescence, and cannot even run current computer based tests. Then the image – what if this situation continues for another ten years?
There will be no reason for training and educating elearning savvy teachers because they have no place to practice their new expertise. The potential cost savings from eLearning will vanish. Costly but less effective legacy enhancements will continue to push up education costs while academic performance lags well below expectation. But the biggest loss will be the inability to exploit emerging digital curriculum and automated formative assessments.
Three years ago I was asked by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to participate in a workshop to write specifications for an eLearning research RFP. I found myself in a group of the nation’s top language learning experts. The result was a DARPA contract to University of Southern California’s Center for Advanced Research in Technology for Education http://www.isi.edu/isd/carte/proj_tactlang/index.html.
I met with the DARPA group leader in Mesa last month and he was enthusiastic about how even he was able to learn Arabic in his busy schedule with the tactical language trainer. The training system enables learners to communicate directly with on-screen characters using a speech recognition interface.
If Arizona had stayed on the computer system adoption march from 1995’s 16:1 to 2000’s 8:1 to 4:1 in 2005, we could have been 2:1 in 2010 and reached 1:1 by 2015. I am pulled to frustration by what physiologists call cognitive dissonance. I have a clear vision of what is and will be coming with emerging digital curriculum for our K-12 students. This tactical language trainer is only tiny piece of what will be available.
I also have a very clear image of how Arizona children could be mired in legacy lecture, recitation and seatwork education for the next ten years. If we stay this course where is our technician talent pipeline? Looks more like a few tanker trucks with flat tires! If we stay the course global competitive advantage opportunities will slip so far away that we won’t even know they existed.
eLearning a Leapfrog?
“Outthinking and jumping way ahead of competition vital to Arizona’s future” was the tag line.
They circled around eLearning but never quite identified it as a recommended Leapfrog for Arizona. Bill Gates was mentioned as saying that you can’t teach kids about today’s companies on a 50 year old mainframe. Their quintessential leapfrogger was picture of young Steve Jobs holding an Apple II. Their five “Big O’s”: bio, nano, info, cogno and condo hinted at the intersection of digital curriculum and systems (info) and the cognitive process of teaching and learning (cogno).
Leapfroggers pick their shots. They are often followers of the “first movers” by building on a pioneer’s idea and initial experience by grafting on their own ideas. Leapfrog players pursue big jumps in performance with single minded focus.
Every state, district and school has “pioneered” in using digital technology to support education. No state and less that 1% of the schools have adopted the eLearning systems to leapfrog K-12 learning out of the 100 year old legacy education design. The research and meta-studies from many sources show the “big jump” in academic performance is for the C student to learn at a B student level, and the F student graduates with a C.
eSATS certainly has a “single minded focus“ and we are proud of it. “Outthinking” the rest of the “competition” we “picked our shot” in the early 1990’s. Strong support has been building over the past two year. This Arizona leapfrog has left the ground and while the rest of the 49 states are still enjoying their pond.
Proposed eSATS K-12 eLearning Legislation
I am assuming that you understand the significant benefits that 1:1 student per computer eLearning will bring to Arizona’s K-12 academic performance, dropout rate and 21st Century competitive workforce. This brief is on the details of the proposed bill.
The eSATS bill is based on a design developed from ten years of statewide strategic planning and our legislative success resulting in the $240 million wiring and computers for schools by the School Facilities Board. We ran a very similar bill (SB 1181) last year that became stuck in committee.
A Ten Year Financial Analysis: The system implementation results in a net cost of only 2.1% (of $96 billion total spent on K-12 in Arizona) over the next ten years. The reason is that 1:1 eLearning delivers significant cost savings because of early graduation, teacher efficiency and construction avoidance. These savings also provides for a 20% salary increase over ten years for all eLearning certified teachers. At year ten the initiating expenditures are complete, 1:1 eLearning in every Arizona classroom continuously renews itself, and the productivity and student academic performance continue to grow.
K-12 eLearning Adoption Bill Strategy: Create Arizona public policy that addresses the system and funding aspects for eLearning adoption for every K-12 student within the next ten years. The first three years will be used to build the intellectual infrastructure to bridge from traditional (lecture, recitation, seatwork) education to eLearning. Pilot adoption will grow to embrace 5% to 10% of Arizona students in those three years. The following seven years will be used to transform all self-selected Arizona schools to eLearning Centered Schools.
eLearning Centered Schools: have 1:1 computer system access per student with at least 50% of learning delivered by digital curriculum with formative assessment and technical support. The schools are funded for students upon their mastery of an individualized learning plan (minimums set by Arizona Academic Standards) for a curriculum year.
BUILD INTELLECTUAL INFRASTRUCTURE (First 3 years):
Teacher Education and Professional Development Institute (TEPDI) will create the curriculum framework, locate and determine cost effective sources, and develop the certification system to transform 50,000 growing to 65,000 cadre teachers to teach effectively within an eLearning environment. Arizona’s Colleges of Education will transform to graduate eLearning savvy teachers.
Digital Curriculum Institute (DCI) will create knowledge systems and portal for all available K-12 digital curriculums. Each of the instructional technologist extension agents will work with about seven schools to vector the most effective digital curriculum for each classroom and subject. The DCI will assess the availability gaps and be an advocacy force with providers to develop effective K-12 digital curriculum for all subjects and grade levels.
Broadband Initiative will assure that high speed access is available to every classroom in Arizona. By going from the current 8:1 to 1:1 student per computer ratio, and greatly expanding needs for simulation, graphics and video in ten years bandwidth should grow 100 fold.
Laptops and Essential Software including white boards and projectors for all teachers.
ADE Data and Instructional Support System: Expand the scope to directly serve the student-teacher in the class room with formative assessment and accelerate the complete build out of the SAIS accounting and the IDEAL portal and data warehouse to operational status.
Auditor General develops the rules and accounting system design from Chapter 9.1 to support the funding mastery learning of individual students.
Pilot eLearning Centered Schools: Building on the current 1:1 eLearning success of about 20,000 students in Wilson Elementary District (1992), Empire High School (2005), many Charter and other schools, and 14 Arizona Virtual Schools by implementing addition pilot eLCS’s for 10K students by 2006; 25K by 2007 and 100K by 2008. .
Programmatic implementation of eLearning will address critical areas such as English Language Learners, Gifted, Special Education, etc.
BUILD OUT TO SERVE ALL ARIZONA STUDENTS (7 years)
Deliver $1200/year professional development for all teachers with one mentor teacher per 50 teachers.
Develop access to digital curriculum for every subject and grade level.
Transform most of Arizona Schools to digital learning schools, with 1:1 computing and full technical support.
K-12 ELEARNING ADOPTION BILL TACTICS:
Policy: Stand firm for system launch and rollout. Avoid any more one shot investments without continued support until fully implemented.
Funding Requests are for the next three to four years and will bend to the will of the legislature to assure that the policy aspects of the bill be heard and passed.
Current Results: We are working with Senator Ken Bennett who has opened a folder. We are working with Senator John Huppenthal who is developing legislation for replacing our current 8:1 ratio of obsolete computers and systems and growing to 4:1 over a five year period with long range ongoing renewal. He may also produce a bill for a taskforce based in the Arizona Department of Education to develop a means to assess the situation at each school and manage required eLearning transformation in teacher access to ongoing professional development and digital curriculum.
Arizona Board of Regents
$18M/yr create and operation the DCI with it extension service to 2000 schools.
$5M/yr transform their colleges of education and support the TEPDI Institute.
Arizona Department of Education
$5M/yr to create and operate TEPDI Institute with ABOR.
$30M/yr – 2 years to provide laptops, essential software, etc for every teacher
$5M yr1; $4M yr2 – K-12 education’s support of broadband initiative.
$10/yr – 3 years to implement broad scope SAIS and IDEAL
$10 year one to bring to operation ASP and portal system for 1 million students and 60,000 educators.
$7M yr1; $39M yr2; $160M yr3 and $352M yr 4 to support transformation of eLearning Centered Schools for approximately 5K, 25K, 100K and 200K additional students in each of the respective years.
Government Information and Telecommunications Agency
$200K/yr – 2 years to support management of the broadband initiative to K-12 education.
Entrepreneurs Credo
I had a marvelous discussion yesterday (any one listening would have called it an argument) with one of our representatives. The conjecture that met me at the door was: “Education leadership is set in their ways and would not change the system even if student academic performance could be improved. The best strategy is not to waste any more funds, and in a few years the system will crumble as parents move their kids to private schools.”
Let’s face it; any 120 year old system is difficult to change from within, frustrating the best of administrators with few available resources for innovation.
Wilson District pulled off a complete eLearning transformation but they had two unique advantages. The first was that in 1992 they were the poorest performing district in Arizona, and could not fall any further. The second was that they had a unique one time opportunity to secure funding needed for the several years that their 1:1 eLearning transformation took. Then with the ongoing cost savings from eLearning they were able to keep modernizing and retain their teachers to secure their #1 position as a feeder district to Phoenix Union High School District.
So let’s feature the fact that Arizona K-12 schools are not meeting the No Child Left Behind mark of C level or better academic performance, have a major challenge from English Language Learners, and have a too-high drop out rate.
Then let’s use the theory of innovation, a favorite topic for Governor Napolitano. Most successful system innovations have a driver from outside the system. We propose that eLearning (of course) be that outside driver. For a few thousand dollars a student (out of the $85,000 we will be spending over 13 years) we fund the eLearning transformation school by school. The innovation leader schools will snap up the offer in the early years. Statewide support systems are developed concurrently under eSATS for digital curriculum and teacher professional development. We expect that the late adaptor schools will complete the transformation within ten years.
Nothing crumbles, investment funds have a significant return on academic performance, and in ten years the eLearning cost savings are being used to the benefit of every aspect of K-12 education.
Go figure! We have.
Wilson - Poorest District, Highest Performance
Poorest District, Highest Performance
In December 2005 we had an opportunity to show one of Arizona’s prize jewels to a Cisco Fellow, Mimi Fletcher who is supporting New Tech High School development in North Carolina. Technology director Betty Olivier and Principle Cynthia Campton of the Elementary School (4-8) toured us within a classroom and science laboratory followed by a delightful conversation with Betty Olivier.
Wilson is a small two school ( K-4 and 5-8) district of 1500 students, just north of Sky Harbor Airport. Academically it rates first among the 13 feeder districts to Phoenix High School District. What make this really interesting is that Wilson is has the next to highest poverty-disadvantaged rating of all districts in Arizona. Their English Language Learner rate bumps up to seventy percent. So what is their secret?
In 1992, well ahead of just about any school in the nation, secured unique funding and installed a networked computer in every student’s desk. Yes, I said in the desk. A local architect designed an interlocking desk system to fit the classrooms. Each desk has a viewing window on the surface and a lockable keyboard tray and mouse. One master-mentor teacher was hired for each school of about 50 teachers each. They installed digital curriculum in math, reading, science and other subjects. Keeping the books on the desktop surface along with the monitor-under-the-window, they developed a highly effective integrated eLearning environment. Teacher retention increased and student academic performance soared from worst in Arizona in early 1990’s to best in class for Phoenix.
Full digital curriculum and teacher professional development integrated with one-to-one computing and the best of legacy education is the current gold standard for eLearning. The question that I am continually asked is how eLearning boosts academic performance. Two answers arise from research of Benjamin Bloom and many others. The first is that 1:1 human tutoring will invariably boost a “C” student to “A” level performance. The second is time on task where you double the time spend you learn twice as much.
The numerous times I have visited Wilson District over the past ten years I have yet to see a teacher sitting at her desk or lecturing. She has always been coaching students and working with small teams. Students are continuously engaged on their work and studies.
In the tradition “legacy” education (lecture, recitation and seat work) the student’s mind is engage in learning for only a fraction of the time. Also students receive only one minute per day (average) of direct teacher coaching. Formative assessment of paper tests and essay grading is separated by hours and days from the learning process. The interactive aspect of eLearning continuously engages the student. Automated formative assessments and a high level of teacher engagement provide guidance as the learning takes place. Student time-on-task and “tutoring” soar. Wilson student academic performance is best in class, and is a model for Arizona.
Best Teachers – More Money and More Students
Over the past couple of Arizona legislative sessions and at the Arizona Town hall on PreK-12 education in June of 2004 an idea has been floated to increase teacher pay by 20%. This raise would be gradual over a number of years, and be in addition to the normal inflation, performance, experience and advancement based increases.
On December 6th the Associate Press reported that the Governor’s Committee for Teacher Quality and Support suggested a raise for starting teachers to $35,000. This increase would be 20% above the current average of $28,000 starting salary.
Most would agree that it would be good to pay teachers more. But this issue is only a piece of a larger system challenge. Arizona is growing 3% a year and the teacher cadre must increase by 15,000 just to support growth. With a high percentage of teachers leaving in first five years of their careers and others in mid career the traditional supply of quality, experienced teachers are not available to meet the demand. Math, Science and English Language Learner teacher are particularly difficult positions to fill. Arizona is resorting to certification courses for not teacher graduates for specific content areas.
In the November 2nd Education Week commentary Saul Cooperman, former New Jersey (one of top 5 ranked K-12 states) state commissioner of education, presented what he called, “One Heretical Route to Quality.” -- “Increase Class Size and Pay Teachers More.”
His argument: The research on class size is decidedly mixed. Significant reductions in class size, say from 30 to 20 would cost about $1 billion (for Arizona school population.) The 50% increase in classrooms and support would be another huge cost. He quotes the Institute of Educational Sciences, “The most robust finding in the current research literature is the effect of teacher verbal and cognitive ability on student achievement.” High pay would attract higher quality teachers, and academic performance would rise in spite of class size increase.
When we developed the eSATS design we realized that we had to pay at least 20% more for eLearning savvy teachers. That would be the only way to attract, retain and motivate teachers to transform their classrooms use effective eLearning methods. In our model we increased the number of students by 2 to 3 students per class, about a 10 percent increase. These cost savings just about paid for the teacher’s 20% raise over a ten year time period. Other savings like one year early graduation, less text books and construction avoidance also kicked in, allowing the entire eSATS implementation to go to “zero” extra cost by year ten. Heretic to Hero --- Why not?
eLearning Tipping Point
The transformation of K-12 eLearning by the innovation of eLearning will happen. The only issue is who will be the “pioneers” (who are the arrow catchers) and the “sod-busters” (who profit from the pioneer do-daring). I recently met and chatted with an eLearning pioneer. Her name is Barbara Bartlett. But first let me set the stage.
At the our Arizona Business Leaders dinner meeting last Thursday our speaker with was Bryan Bartlett, retired Chief Engineer of Saudi Aramco after 23 years. Saudi Aramco is tasked with managing the oil assets of Saudi Arabia – over 25% of the world’s oil reserves. He had more computing power at his command than NASA, Sandia and Los Alamos labs combined. I believe him when he said that with present consumption levels, oil will be all used up in 35 years and natural gas in 50 years.
But to our point, Barbara was an eLearning teacher in the rich Saudi Arabian schools. Her story was identical to most eLearning pioneers. Kids were shuffled in and out of her computer lab whose software did not teach, and computers and systems were continually failing. Technical support was little and late. When the computers went into the classrooms with little or no teacher professional development or instructional curriculum they had little effect. When she left they had been moved back to the computer labs.
Over the past decade we “sod-busters” have learned a lot from these pioneers. We have learned that we must focus and fund teacher education and professional development, digital curriculum and technical support each at the same level as computers and connectivity. We have also learned that eLearning must be designed within the teacher-student nexus to serve the specific learning needs. This knowledge is now showing up in state initiatives.
In 2005 Texas House Bill 4 allocated $400 million for this type of eLearning program for K-12 students. It initial success but when bundled with other education bills it was lost when the package was defeated.
Our Arizona SB1181 which led with $150 million to launch the eSATS system design did not make it out of the Senate in 2005.
North Carolina is working to launch small (400 students) New Technology High Schools, one for each county. They are very interested in eSATS and we expect to visit them in January.
Singapore’s Master Plan II (mp2) has shifted from Information Technology in schools (mp1) to “a systemic and holistic approach in which all the key pieces – curriculum, assessment, instruction and professional development, pupil learning and culture of the school are integrated and addressed.”
Are we at the tipping point for K-12 eLearning? I think we are. With the year a state of significant size will fully commit to implement a holistic eLearning system for all its children. Arizona must be that state. Even with it others launch in parallel, we will have a better design and support from our unique Arizona cluster of eLearning enterprises.