Any Child Can Have an Expert Mind - Just Takes Years of Full Time Work

Eb60815ExpertMind

An article in the August, 2006 issue of Scientific American addresses an emerging brain-mine theory of learning that could have profound effect on the demand for eLearning. On the other side of the coin, it could be foundation for an emerging K-12 eLearning pedagogy. The title is Expert Mind by Philip E. Ross.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=00010347-101C-14C1-8F9E83414B7F4945

An expert such as a chess master has what is called “apperception” – a rapid, knowledge-guided perception that does not require logical thought. This ability is far above the layperson with imposing credentials such as professional stock picker, wine connoisseurs or psychiatrists whose performance rarely exceeds un-credentialed amateurs.

Chess masters have a vast memory store house of game positions. These “chunks” are quickly drawn from long term memory and manipulated in working memory. To achieve this memory store house requires years of effortful study (key works) tackling challenges just beyond their competence. Top performers in any area gain this expertise by motivation from competition and joy of victory.

Using magnetoencephalography It was found that chess masters used the frontal and parietal cortices (recalling from memory) while the weak players had much more medial temporal lobe activity (analyzing new moves). Grand masters do no better than others on general tests of memory.

Herbert Simon of Carnegie Mellon University found that it took 10 years of heavy labor to master any field. Many recognized experts started as early as pre-Kindergarten prodigies (Mozart, Gauss, Bobby Fischer, Tiger Woods). Playing in the specific area does not develop “apperception” but intense study and training does. The operational aspect is scaffolded study support that delivers learning challenges just out of reach. The critical student factor is intense and long term motivation which needs to be supported with competition and success.

Innate talent does not seem to be a factor. Many tests of novices and experts of visual-spatial abilities, general memory, etc. show no significant differences. A Hungarian educator home schooled his two daughters and son up to 6 hours a day in chess, producing one international master and two grandmasters. He showed that grandmasters can be reared and woman can be grandmasters.

Motivation is a more important factor than innate ability. In music, chess and sports where expertise is defined by competitive performance rather than academic credentialing, professionalism is emerging at even younger ages. Invariably there exist dedicated parents and some times extended families.

Experts are made not born. Therefore K-12 education must be structured to support “effortful study” across the curriculum. The question would shift from “Why Johnny can’t read or do math?” to “Well, Johnny can learn to do anything in the world he wants to do!”

US Dept of Ed 4 Year Test of Digital Curriculum

Eb60812USDOESoftwareProductTesting

This week’s edition of Education Week (August 9, 2006) had a front page story. “Reporting of Software Product-Testing Stirs Debate.”

In 2003 the US Department of Education’s Institute for Education Sciences (IES) commissioned a $10 million study of fifteen eLearning products in 132 schools. The digital curriculum types differed, including the level of hybridization with textbooks and activities. The intent was use the “gold standard” of random assignment to test the educational effectiveness. There were 9,000 students and 439 teachers in the control and experimental groups. The enterprises providing the products for testing in the 2004-05 school year were:

Grade 1 – Early Reading:

Autoskill International, Riverdeep, Waterford Institute, Headsprout, and PLATO Learning;

Grade 4 – Reading Comprehension

Autoskill International, Scholastic, Pearson Digital Learning, Leapfrog Schoolhouse;

Grade 8 – PreAlgebra

Computaught, PLATO Learning, Meridian Creative Group;

Grade 9 – Algebra

Carnegie Learning. PLATO Learning, Meridian Creative Group.

The project will continue in a second phase for 2005-2006.

A year after the first phase the IES is about to release the first report (end of summer.) It will release only the aggregated findings for the four categories. The enterprises will receive the results on their products. For the time being the methodology of the national-level, randomized-trial evaluations and the individual product results will be kept under wraps.

Too bad! Arizona needs both to not only as experimental design methodology for our Middle School Math pilot RFP but to help locate and attract potential bidders. This theoretical approach is fine for high level theories on the current state of digital curriculum, but schools need tools now to. The admonition of “eat your vegetables” does little for market basket selections.

The past 20 years of research and Meta studies on K-12 eLearning shows that even primitive computer aided instruction and Internet with productivity applications will consistency produce an effect factor of .3 to .4 more learning for given time. We know eLearning works and is highly cost effective. Now we need “Consumer Reports” type of buying data (Ted the Ed.)

The intent was to have enterprises volunteer for a competitive selection process. There was a huge turn out in 2003 of 163 products with 17 selected (two were subsequently dropped). The companies can release their individual data from Phase 1.

The Phase 2 data will be broken out product by product for consumer comparison.

This pioneering effort by the U.S. Department of Education has broken new ground. Building on their data and process, the Digital Curriculum Institute design and implementation will be more comprehensive and collaboration with the eLearning digital curriculum Industry is expected to be strong.

Governor Napoltano at National Governors Conference Part 2

Our Governor Janet Napolitano seems to have shifted the focus of the National Governor Association by turning a powerful spot light by applying innovation to education.

www.eschoolnews/news/showstoryts.cfm?ArticleID=6503

“‘Innovation America’ plan aims to ready schools for 21^st-century success” is the headline.

Her plan is to boost the global competitiveness including a focus on math and science. Her goal of educating America’s students to become innovators. The learning process of math and science will develop the student’s true problem solving skills. Her initiative is well beyond the generic call for school reform. She is actually proposing an effective means to get the job done.

Governor Napolitano has long been heralded for her and Arizona’s lead in educational technology. Empire High School was the first in the nation to go all digital last fall. A wide range of virtual-cyber schools and schooling permeate Arizona serving 10,000’s of students. Teachers can track their professional development through a partnership with TrueNorthLogic (Utah-based).

Governor Napolitano has a comprehensive approach for Arizona that includes both reform/restructuring and transformation of education. Her year-old P20 council is actively addressing the entire education system of Arizona. In close support are her Governor’s Council on Innovation and Technology, Aerospace and Defense Industry Commission (SMET). Governor’s Committee for Teacher Quality and Support and others. Currently most of the efforts are on marginal changes and realignments urgently needed to address critical issues in legacy education.

But last fall the GCIT education subcommittee delivered a transformative set of policy recommendations that addressed adoption eLearning in K-12 education to the P20 council. Innovation and education are now joined. In June Governor Napolitano signed into law a ten year eLearning Task Force and a $3 million middle school mathematics pilot.

Our eSATS initiative over the past few years has its first foot hold as we climb the cliff of K-12 eLearning transformation. We believe our governor is now on our belaying rope from the top. At least we are feeling a few gentle tugs.

Governor Napoltano at National Governors Conference Part 1

B60806GovatNAG1.doc

Our Governor Janet Napolitano is attending the 98^th National Governors Association (www.nga.org/ ) annual meeting in Charleston, South Carolina, August 5^th through 8^th. Arkansas’ Governor Mike Huckabee led off the conference plenary with a wrap-up speech about his NAG 2005-2006 initiative on Health and Wellness. Vice-Chair Napolitano will be elected Chairman for 2006-2007 on Monday. Her initiative will be on Education. Arizona’s progress with the governor’s P20 Council is expected to shape her leadership direction.

What about K-12 eLearning becoming a center point for the NGA 2006-2007 initiative? There is a progression of eLearning interest by the NGA since 2001.

An NGA study on the “State of eLearning in the States” 30 pp. addressed just post secondary education. http://www.nga.org/Files/pdf/060601ELEARNING.pdf

In 2005 the NGA first addressed K-12 with “Phase Two: Use of Virtual Learning to Advance High School Improvement.”

http://www.nga.org/portal/site/nga/menuitem.9123e83a1f6786440ddcbeeb501010a0/?vgnextoid=ad8df68ff8f87010VgnVCM1000001a01010aRCRD

It seems to me that they are now ready for a serious look at the adoption of eLearning well beyond the advance improvement in a part of K-12 education. The 2006-2007 NGA Education Initiative should address all academic performance aspects of K-12 education with a systematic adoption of eLearning.

Adoption is accelerating in Arizona. In 1992 there was one school wide adoption of 1:1 eLearning. Starting in 1995 a number of charter schools went eLearning. Then 14 Cyber schools were formed to serve over 10,000 students. Out of state virtual eLearning providers now support approximately 20,000 Arizona students. In 2005 Tucson high school went 1:1 eLearning. In 2006-2007 expect several more 1:1 schools to transform to eLearning. Just about every district and school has implemented eLearning classes and systems and are poised to move on eLearning adoption. In 2007-2008 the Arizona Middle School Math Pilot funded $3 by the legislature will provide world leading eLearning to about 10,000 more students.

Sir Ken Robinson - Leading Expert on Creativity, Innovation and Human Resources will deliver his closing speech on the education of students to meet the challenges of living and working the 21^st Century. We hope that the NGA Education Initiative has pick up on the essence of eLearning.

http://www.washingtonspeakers.com/speakers/Speaker.cfm?SpeakerID=3758

What is the essence you might ask? The essence of eLearning is that if the NGA really wants to make progress on their eLearning Initiatives well beyond expectations, then eLearning is the only horse to ride.

We will keep you updated on what comes out of the NAG Annual Meeting as it progresses.

Chris Dede and eLearning taking Education out of Dark AgES

Eb60726ChrisDede

I just listened to a short (seven minute) talk by Chris Dede. Chris has been a long time thought leader and researcher on what has emerged as eLearning. He was at George Mason and is now at Harvard. The following may sound familiar since eSATS design and advocacy has “borrowed” freely from his work for the past 15 years.

Chris believes this is a dark age for K-12 education. Naïve ideas abound on learning. Economists have sold the public that they are better off if jobs to move oversees and they are. Health specialists are convincing people that many things which feel good are harmful to health.

But attitudes about learning is still rooting in the 1800’s. The model of learning that drives K-12 education is out of date. Policies continue to expound that basic skills lead to a capable workforce, academic success can be measured with one number, and that all simple learning must be complete before complex learning can take place.

The next decade needs a globally competitive knowledge workforce, and these world views are not up to the task.

When the industrial revolution started in the early 1800’s England took a solid lead in adopting technology and a trained workforce with resulting global dominance for over a century.

The dominance countries in the information age will be those who use education system based on the integration of information technology with learning technologies (i.e. eLearning Ted the ed.) But our country is moving backward. Support is decreasing. (For example only 25% of the planned funding for federal support of eLearning is being appropriated: Ted the ed.)

All the major attributes our society we enjoy, including education, needs a flourishing and competitive economy. But education attitudes must change if we are to transform education for the information age.

In other countries, companies are focusing on higher level skills and educational technology. In the U.S. we must band our business, education, governance and technology communities together to promo educational technology and a 21^st century perspective. Public awareness is key.

The one thing that parents agree on is that they want more economic opportunities for their children than they had.

The federal government has made a good start with standards, assessment and access policies. But they must realize that this is just a start. It is now time for a next generation policy

The newest educational technologies must be applied to the skill building and education needs. But the teachers hold the key. There must be significant rewards for teachers that transform their practice to effective use of technology supported learning. – end –

Note: eSATS task team is having a wide ranging set of meetings in July and August with Arizona’s thought and influence leaders across the communities that Chris mentioned. We are seeing a profound change in attitude and awareness of the effect of an eLearning system design of which Arizona would be an early adopter. These folks are now fully aware that the key is the teacher who can transform the classroom to fully use the digital curriculum. We now need to bring the message to Arizona citizens.

Bill Gates and Educational Transformation

Eb60616Transformation

Today’s headline news: “Bill Gates … will allow others to run the company he co-founded and guided to dominance…” This richest man in the world (Forbes) had the skills, timing and luck to amass his $50 billion fortune by transforming an industry. Know he will spend most of his time giving it away with his foundation.

A key date noted in the AP article is: “1980: IBM chooses Microsoft to create the operating system for its first PC.” That’s why I mentioned luck. My brother-in-law Bill Clark IV was one of the designers of the IBM PC in Boca Rotan, FL. The IBM selection happened when he won the argument with marketing and within his engineering team for Microsoft’s DOS vs. Digital Research’s CPM. Could have gone either way!

Over the past 25 years, Microsoft and other software on our personal computers from has transformed many aspects of our business and personal life. But now a transformation is taking place. The software on our PC is being replaced by Internet centric computing (Google, Yahoo, eBay, etc.). Purchases of packaged software are now competing with advertising on the Internet as the business model. Over the next 25 years Microsoft and PC software faces huge challenges. They could fade like once dominant steam locomotive as the next technological wave sweeps our desktop.

What gives me fits is that we all know these transformations happen, but we rarely strategic plan, redesign, and implement to reap the early benefits. K-12 education was invented 300 years ago by the Prussians and implemented universally in the U.S. 120 years ago. Me-thinks K-12 might be ready to embrace a well proven transformation to eLearning. With plummeting costs of computing and increasing effectiveness of digital curriculum and online teacher professional development we are at the tipping point. What is it going to take to Arizona tip toward eLearning?

It’s not as simple as one person winning a single decision within a small IBM design team during a one-day structured dialectic in 1980. But it’s not impossible. A small Arizona wide team (10’s) with a modest group of supporters (100’s) has been making slow headway for the past ten years. Since 2004 the tempo has picked up. We believe that the year 2006 will the “one day in 1980” which will be seen as the historic eLearning tipping point for massive Arizona K-12 education. And maybe we’ll get real lucky and become the dominate education state as Microsoft became the dominate software company!

The best is yet to come.

SB1512 Rational and Committee Dynamic

eb0304SB1512Rational.doc

SB1512 eLearning digital (curriculum) institute; data warehouse will be at its most critical hearing next week:

Committee on K-12 Education

9:00 am Wednesday, March 29^th, 2006.

Members: Mr. Allen J; Mrs. Kirkpatrick; Mr. Stump; Mrs. Barto; Mr. Lujan; Mr. Nichols, Vice-Chairman; Mr. Farnsworth; Mr. O'Halleran; Mr. Anderson, Chairman; Ms. Garcia M

Bills to be heard:

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 resulted in a three year build out of the K-12 eLearning intellectual infrastructure and piloted eLearning Centered Schools followed by full 1:1 eLearning build out for every Arizona student over the next seven years. SB1512 has the three most critical elements for year one of the build out.

WHY

15-1650 Digital Curriculum Institute

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:

What is the most effective digital curriculum for the course segment?

Should legacy curriculum of books-lecture-worksheets be used or is digital curriculum the better choice?

Book adoptions are for the whole student body for 5 to 7 years. Digital curriculum is rapidly evolving. Digital curriculum is making gains each year in cost, effectiveness, access, formative assessment and filling the gaps not covered within the 100+ K-12 courses of instruction. The school districts and teachers need state level practitioner services that will be provided by the university based Digital Curriculum Institute to make their decisions on digital curriculum deployment.

After digital curriculum decisions are in made, then the rest of the system can be specified and implemented: teacher education and professional development; computers-connectivity-instructional systems; technical support; and the instructional assessment with data driven decision support system.

SB1272 Education technology committee (within ADE) is complementary. SB1272 will provide eLearning data from within Arizona K-12 school, collected and analyzed by ADE. This will data will be critical for the DCI to create and deliver its services as DCI studies the world of digital curriculum outside of Arizona K-12 districts.

Also: The digital curriculum institute needs the Integrated Instruction and Data System Warehouse to deliver its services and support its research.

15-1044 Integrated Instruction and Data System Warehouse

Rally Cry: “You cannot manage what you cannot measure!”

The data driven decision support system needs to serve the classroom, school districts, Arizona Department of Education and our reporting to the federal government. Much work has taken place to build this system at both ADE and within the districts. The development was started to minimize paper reporting of standard data. The system is evolving to address increasingly sophisticated needs to support instruction, formative (student) and summative (governance) assessments, and research/decision support needs.

As a founding president of an Arizona software company in 1982 whose bank asset-liability decision support software is being used by the top London and New York banks I can tell you that the task is difficult, takes time, requires skilled experts and must be adequately funded. An IBM study on ten states showed that the five with State centric K-12 systems were investing $5 million a year at the state level. The others that had a District – State collaborative system were spending $1 to $2 million at the state level.

I had a chance to speak with the new Chief Information Officer at ADE. She said the magic system design word – extensibility. This means that what ADE is building now can be extended in capability, connectivity and scope into the future.

With the skilled consultant on board and design document approved for Phase I ADE must be supported with adequate funding starting in July 2006 and not lose another critical year. The Government Information and Telecommunications Agency (GITA) has a over-site team to review the following Phases and work with ADE to knit together the system to required standards. The major districts are working on forming a coalition to develop the data collection, oversight, interfaces, change management and roadmap that they need to become a working partner with ADE.

The appropriation will proved adequate funding to support development at the State level for the next year. During this time significant progress can be made in developing the roadmap and district part of the system. At $2 per student, it is a good start on the invested to provide much better decisions on how to spend the $96 Billion over the next ten years as Arizona grows from 1 million to 1.3 million students.

To repeat: “You cannot manage what you cannot measure!”

15-1650.01 Arizona eLearning Task Force

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

Phase I: Digital Curriculum Institute as proposed in Senate Bill 1512 will be based in Arizona

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.

Phase II: There could be a number of near term enhancements to the DCI. Discussions with the Advanced Distributed Learning System out of the Office of Secretary of Defense and Institutes of Defense Analysis addressed their interest in creating an ADL Co-Lab for K-12 education to collaborate with their four other US and one European eLearning Laboratories. The Air Force Research Laboratory at Gateway Airpark in Mesa is to move to Wright Patterson Air Force Base. The seventy percent of the world class eLearning research cadre could be retained to work within the DCI structure. A recent Arizona project for the Office of Secretary of Defense address the design and business case for a global elearning research communities of practice portal and data base. The implementation of this design would put the DCI in the center of knowledge world wide eLearning research. The skilled staff at DCI would develop and operate a service to field test and provide sound data on new eLearning products and services. This collaborative operation with Arizona schools would provide the most advanced and effective eLearning products to Arizona student, and position Arizona as the go-to place for eLearning providers. Through being the knowledge source of K-12 eLearning research, products and effectiveness the DCI would support national and global advocacy for eLearning research and adoption for K-12 education.

Phase III:

Create and operate statewide field testing operation for digital curriculum

be the advocacy center for greatly increased funding for elearning research in Arizona

K-12 digital research institute transforms into l/r/e institute

like the biodesign institute with direct linkages to elearning enterprises

build major laboratories and virtual Arizona and global research partnerships

become recognized as the center of the elearning research universe.

Arizona l/r/e institute is seed for system

like NASA: global network of l/r/e’s

like NIH: Arizona l/r/e is major campus like Bethesda and Arizona schools like U.S. research hospitals

like NSF: Arizona l/r/e manages global research roadmap and funding for thousands of principle investigators

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

The Digital Curriculum Institute is seeing favor with the Arizona legislature with 8-1 and 10-1 votes in the Senate K-12 Education and Appropriations committees. If the bill passes and the funding is unchanged, implementation will be within the Arizona university system. The funding is $1 million launch funds with additional $3 million from the state to match $6 million from other sources (business, foundations, …) There are three primary launch tasks:

1. Research: Survey all sources of existing digital curriculum. Determine which have educational effectiveness for specific courses and grade levels, and align with Arizona academic standards.

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 Arizona’s Learning) system will provide field data from digital curriculum being used in Arizona’s schools.

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 Arizona’s Board of Regents the Digital Curriculum Institute could and maybe should be distributed within the five current campuses. The following concept suggests the readiness of Arizona’s university system to create a flourishing Digital Curriculum Institute.

Location: Arizona Polytechnic (Mesa) would house the main DCI because of their focus on a practical education and support. Also the Air Force Research Laboratory is on their campus, one of the world’s leading distributed eLearning research operations.

Research: All Arizona universities conduct eLearning research and their research communities would be linked to the DCI. ASU’s Technology Based Learning and Research entity could be the linkage point for DCI.

Knowledge Access: Lots of talent and systems expertise from early ASPIN to current level is available to develop and maintain a high accessible and open K-12 digital curriculum knowledge management system. Linkage, collaboration and two-way knowledge flow through ADE’s IDEAL would be critical.

Support: ASU College of Education graduate program graduates instructional technology experts who could seed the extension program. Arizona School Services through Educational Technology (ASSET) under KAET at ASU has been delivering support statewide to teachers for decades. UofA Agriculture College has vast experience in organizing and operating extension services. NAU has been delivering online/video distance and remote site education statewide for decades.

There is the talent, experience and the will within our university system to build an effective digital curriculum knowledge system and deliver the goods to Arizona’s 50,000 going on 65,000 teachers and curriculum directors.

But why stop there? Lets pick up the concept in my next blog.

Cheers!

Ted

Theodore C. Kraver Ph.D.

President

eLearning System for Arizona Teachers and Students Inc.

Not-For-Profit 501 c(3) volunteer advocacy organization

225 West Orchid Lane

Phoenix, AZ 85021

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 – 17^th 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 15^th. 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 – 17^th 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 15^th. 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 21^st 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 Eb60204SenateBill1512lBrief.doc

Lead with Digital Curriculum

Eb60128LeadWithDigitalCurriculum

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:

1. Cooperative learning through social computing;
2. Personal broadcasting (text-audio-video) for sharing media;
3. Portable access devices such as iPods and cell phones;
4. Education gaming for engagement, comprehension and retention;
5. 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?

Web Based Request To Speak - New Town Hall

Just like you can rise to speak in the mythical New England Town Meeting, you can now directly influence legislation from your desktop.

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

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

Eb60128LeadWithDigitalCurriculum

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

Since the 1940’s economist such as Joseph Schumpeter, Ray Kurzwell and now Norman Poire have recognized a series of 100 year waves of innovation. Groups of these waves transformed an agrarian economy of the 1700’s with the industrial revolution. The industrial waves of textile, railroad, petrochemicals and aviation were driven by mechanical invention such as spinning, iron making, electrification and engines. Starting in the mid-1990’s the information group of waves is once more transforming how we play, work and learn. The original computer wave has spawned the currently surging distributed intelligence wave. Nanotech is expected to take off in 20 years.

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

Battelle presented its Competing with Talent – High Technology Manufacturing’s Future in Greater Phoenix study (www.maricopa.edu/workforce/hightech.php) at Thursday’s Governor’s Council on Innovation and Technology. This work, sponsored by Salt River Project and Maricopa Community College, focused in the rapid changes needed in technician talent pipeline.

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?

In January 8th 2006 Sunday’s Arizona Republic Viewpoints our Mary Jo Waits and Jon Talton teamed up to talk about frogs, Leapfrog in particular. And I thought the AZ state animal was the Horney Toad!

“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

As we enter the 2006 legislative session, lets take a look at what we consider the "ultimate eLearning initiative" launch legislation. A few months from now we can look at what we actually got!

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.