[Bridging_the_digital_divide] NECC 2004

[Jason Barkeloo]

NECC 2004: Heavy corporate hitters put their weight behind ed tech
  By Dan David, Online Editor, and Cara Branigan, Associate Editor, 
eSchool News
  June 30, 2004

Anyone seeking evidence of a healthier U.S. economy and renewed 
tech-sector growth should have been in New Orleans from June 20-23 for 
the 25th annual National Educational Computing Conference (NECC).

  The largest educational technology exhibit in the world drew a record 
crowd of more than 17,500 people, according to the International 
Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), which staged the 
conference. The massive crowd included 13,302 registered attendees from 
roughly 50 countries. They made the trek across an expansive convention 
floor that featured 1,189 booths and 450 companies displaying their 
hardware, software, and other solutions for educators.

  News from the exhibit hall

  The host city's festive reputation helped shape an upbeat atmosphere 
surrounding the four-day show, but the real engine of enthusiasm was a 
tangible sense that the future is bright for ed tech. NECC 2004 seemed 
proof that the entire technology industry has reawakened after several 
difficult years, and the education field is one of its top priorities.

  How else to explain the presence of so many high-profile attendees at 
this year's show? Two of the world's largest technology companies, Dell 
and Intel, both sent their CEOs to New Orleans, a clear indication of 
the field's promise and NECC's importance.

  Michael Dell, the founder and chairman of Dell Inc., who will 
relinquish his CEO post next month, was at NECC to launch his company's 
Intelligent Classroom initiative. The program will provide schools with 
a low-cost bundle of computers, projectors, cameras, presentation 
screens, and other high-tech devices, giving classrooms an entire 
technology upgrade in one fell swoop. (See Dell expands push into 
classrooms.)

  Dell, whose company's success has translated into a personal net worth 
of more than $13 billion, spoke of Dell's central role in education. 
Nearly half of all U.S. school computers and computer equipment are 
Dell products, and the new Intelligent Classroom initiative could make 
Dell's educational presence even greater.

  This rapid growth, dubbed the "Dell Effect" by Business Week, resulted 
from the company's commitment to lowering prices in all sectors in 
which it competes. From 1998 to 2003, Dell's sales to the education 
field increased by 224 percent, the company reported, compared with the 
average rate of 36 percent.

  "By passing savings along to our customers, we have grown education 
and made technology more available to students," Dell said. "& This 
helps the country develop a future workforce that can stay competitive 
with the rest of the world."

  For Craig Barrett, the CEO of Intel Corp., NECC offered the perfect 
setting for a black-tie gala awards ceremony at which 20 schools were 
named winners of the Intel-Scholastic 21st Century Schools of 
Distinction Award. The awards recognized these schools' "comprehensive 
programs exhibiting excellence in the use of technology, involvement of 
parents and community, professional development, teamwork, and high 
academic standards."

  Several major ed-tech companies teamed up to present more than $2.3 
million in technology grants to the 20 winners, with each school 
receiving curriculum materials, professional development resources, 
software, and hardware worth more than $120,000. The big winners at the 
Academy Awards-style event were Houston County High School in Warner 
Robins, Ga., and MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, which were 
named "Best of the Best" among the 20 honorees. The Intel Foundation 
awarded a $25,000 grant to each school, while distributing $10,000 to 
each of the 18 other schools.

  "By sponsoring these awards, we hope to share the outstanding programs 
and efforts these schools have put in place with other schools around 
the country," Barrett said. "We have to learn from each other in order 
to transform our classrooms and our schools."

  Dell and Barrett weren't the only corporate heavyweights in New 
Orleans. Also on hand, having just engineered a $77 million initial 
public offering--the largest IPO of 2004--was Blackboard Inc. chairman 
and co-founder Matthew Pittinsky. He gave a speech on how online 
learning has affected relationships among education stakeholders.

  Pittinsky's recent Wall Street success was yet another indication that 
educational technology's key players feel the economic climate is ripe 
for expansion. Mona Westhaver, the president and co-founder of 
Inspiration Software, who was ahead of her time 16 years ago in 
developing one of the most popular educational programs in U.S. 
schools, also sees big opportunities in 2004. Westhaver came to New 
Orleans to showcase Inspiration for the Palm OS--making it one of the 
first major educational software applications to take the leap to 
handhelds.

  "We moved to the Palm OS because our customers were asking for it," 
Westhaver said. "Educators felt there weren't good products available 
for the handheld."

  Handhelds were a major focus at the show, and the Consortium for 
School Networking (CoSN) turned up the spotlight by releasing "A Guide 
to Handheld Computing in K-12 Education." The 56-page report, compiled 
by CoSN's Emerging Technologies committee, features 12 case studies 
that describe how different schools are using handhelds and graphing 
calculators. CoSN examines the benefits of this technology, while also 
considering challenges that include management issues, the breakage and 
loss of handhelds, inappropriate use of the devices, and the relatively 
limited availability of software.

  "As more schools use handheld computers or are considering their use, 
it is critical to address the potential impact these devices can have 
on the education community," said CoSN CEO Keith Krueger. "& We needed 
a resource to answer questions about how handhelds can function to 
facilitate student learning and development." The handheld-computing 
guide is available for purchase at CoSN's Online Store.

  Assessment and professional development

Another key theme of the show was professional development solutions 
for teachers who are struggling to keep up with the available 
technology. Robin Surland and Deanna Somers, both members of the 
Instructional Technology Department for the Wichita Public Schools, 
gave a presentation on the history of their district's innovative 
Standards for Teachers through Educational Projects (STEPs) program, 
which helps Wichita teachers learn new technology skills, create 
project-based lesson plans, and meet ISTE's National Educational 
Technology Standards for Students (NETS*S). The intensive-but-optional 
program has enabled many Wichita teachers to become more comfortable 
with technology, while inspiring them to make it part of their 
curricula.

  Assessment and professional development have taken on added 
significance because of an approaching deadline. The No Child Left 
Behind (NCLB) legislation mandates that by 2006 every eighth-grade 
student in the United States must be proficient in technology literacy 
skills. To help teachers monitor student progress toward meeting those 
requirements, several initiatives were announced at NECC. For starters, 
a new free, web-based assessment tool made its debut. The tool was 
developed as a collaboration between ISTE and Microsoft Corp. and is a 
component of Microsoft's U.S. Partners in Learning program. Based on 
NETS*S, the tool will contain 12 assessments along with classroom 
curriculum and teacher support materials. Seven assessments have been 
available since June 19 at the ISTE web site, and the remaining five 
will be available in mid-August. Each assessment meets at least two 
NETS*S standards and includes a mapping tool to specify the standards 
met. ISTE also is working directly with two educational testing 
companies to develop a technology literacy assessment for middle-school 
children. The assessment, which also draws on ISTE's NETS*S, is 
designed to help school administrators meet the technology literacy 
requirements of NCLB. The International Computer Driving License U.S. 
company (ICDL-US) and online testing company Vantage Learning are the 
partners with ISTE in this venture. The web-based assessment will 
consist of several specific test units, each lasting up to an hour, 
with knowledge-based, performance-based, and open-ended questions that 
require students to apply what they've learned. A pilot project for the 
new assessment will launch in five to 10 states or large districts 
during the 2004-05 school year.

  In addition, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills--a public-private 
organization whose members include the AOL Time Warner Foundation, 
Apple Computer, Cable in the Classroom, Cisco Systems, Dell, Microsoft, 
the National Education Association, and SAP--issued a series of free 
tools to help teachers, administrators, and lawmakers incorporate 
specific "21st-century skills" into the core curriculum. (See New 
guides help teach 21st century skills.)

  Few companies were as busy on the NECC news-making front as Sprint 
Corp. The global communications provider made several announcements in 
conjunction with the show. Two of Sprint's announcements involved the 
company's Empowered Education Desktop for Schools program, which 
combines Sprint's network with online delivery of many learning tools 
from a wide range of K-12 content producers.

  At NECC, Sprint announced that the Empowered Education Desktop for 
Schools has added Atomic Learning's online software tutorials and an 
application service provider (ASP) version of ParentLink, a web-based 
program that lets parents and teachers securely access essential 
school-related data through the web. Sprint also announced that it was 
teaming with Cisco Systems to offer a network video solution to enable 
teachers and administrators to provide rich, dynamic video content to 
classrooms using the school's existing bandwidth.

Digital video in the classroom

When they weren't talking about professional development or assessment, 
convention visitors focused on digital imaging and the integration of 
video into the curriculum. As teachers strive to make technology work 
for students, high-end video editing applications have been among the 
first to find a home in classrooms. A spokesman for Atomic Learning, 
which offers online tutorials to familiarize teachers and students with 
numerous software products, said the company's most popular tutorials 
of late have been the iMovie program for the Macintosh and Windows 
Movie Maker for the PC.

  Video on demand also is heating up as an educational tool. In an 
independent study commissioned by Discovery Education, the use of short 
video clips during instruction was found to increase students' math 
scores in four Los Angeles middle schools. Results of the study, which 
were released at NECC, supported earlier research that showed the 
company's "unitedstreaming" video solution also was effective in 
teaching science and social-studies concepts. (See Video on demand 
boosts students' math scores.)

  To help more schools experience the same kinds of gains, Discovery 
Education has announced it will offer its unitedstreaming service at no 
cost to one school in every non-subscribing public school district in 
the United States during the 2004-2005 school year. According to the 
company, the service provides access to more than 2,200 full-length 
videos and 22,000 video clips correlated to individual state education 
standards.

  Interactive videoconferencing, another popular use of video in the 
classroom, has gained momentum from the push for more professional 
development and the fact that the infrastructure necessary for its use 
is largely covered by eRate funding. At NECC, Canon USA and Tandberg 
showcased high-end systems that enable districts to bridge physical 
distances between educators looking for more technology instruction and 
IT personnel who might not otherwise be able to visit the school on 
short notice. Tandberg's newest product, a videoconferencing unit on 
wheels, allows schools to easily move the equipment from one classroom 
to another, enabling multiple teachers to employ distance learning.

  ISTE also weighed in on the topic of videoconferencing, releasing 
"Videoconferencing for K-12 Classrooms: A Program Development Guide." 
The book, written by three educators with extensive videoconferencing 
experience, offers numerous best practices for the technology. It is 
available for purchase through ISTE's online bookstore.

  Feeding off the popularity of video, interactive whiteboards were out 
in full force. SMART Technologies, Promethean, GTCO CalComp, Numonics 
Corp., Mimio, and Polyvision all demonstrated their latest incarnations 
of hardware that transforms the traditional classroom blackboard into a 
multimedia learning environment, complete with interactivity and other 
elements designed to engage a generation of children who have grown up 
with video games and other visually stimulating technology in their 
homes.

  Students as technology 'mavens'

Technology's role in helping increase students' enthusiasm for learning 
was particularly evident during a CoSN forum to announce the release of 
the Youth Technology Support Collaborative's new "School 
Decision-Maker's Guide to Student Technology Programs." In this 20-page 
report, YTSC examines the emerging trend of students providing 
technology support and leadership in schools. The entire guide is 
available online at http://www.studenttechsupport.org.

  "When it comes to technology, students sometimes can know more than 
their teachers," said Tim Magner, deputy director of the U.S. 
Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology. "In many 
schools the technology 'mavens' are the kids themselves, and they are 
eager for opportunities to participate in the life of the school."

  In a news conference detailing the report, YTSC presented five 
students, all from grades 5-8, who had spent the past school year in 
such programs.

  "I didn't expect the program to be as rewarding as it turned out to 
be," said Falan McKnight, an eighth-grader from Weir, Miss. "And I 
didn't expect to learn everything that I learned."

  "I was just surprised I could learn how to replace a power supply. I 
had never even seen the guts of a computer before," said Kelly Lott, a 
sixth-grader from Purvis (Miss.) Middle School.

  McKnight, who took the course for a letter grade, recalled having to 
explain software to a science teacher multiple times because the 
teacher kept forgetting how to use it. She also said the experience 
brought her closer to the teachers, helping her realize her own value 
to the school. She noted that younger teachers were more comfortable 
with technology in their classrooms than their more experienced 
counterparts.

  Building a top-notch IT team

Another major CoSN forum in New Orleans brought chief technology 
officers from several K-12 schools together to discuss their 
experiences with building their own IT teams and encouraging teachers 
to embrace technology.

  Jim Hirsch, associate superintendent for technology at the Plano 
(Texas) Independent School District, urged his colleagues to focus on 
personnel issues and recognize that the effective use of technology in 
schools would largely depend on those charged with overseeing it.

  "Mediocre people are going to give you mediocre results," said Hirsch. 
"Good is not an option here. You have to look for great people and find 
staff who take responsibility and want to help others."

  Dave Richards, technology and information systems director for the 
Rochester, Mich., Community Schools, spoke on the importance of a CTO's 
role in creating professional development programs and ensuring that 
adequate funding is available.

  "The real challenge for most of us is getting people to fund 
professional development," Richards said. "Bond money pays for 
hardware, but not for training of teachers. It's our job to do a needs 
assessment and make sure training opportunities are appropriate."

  Although his IT staff was limited, Richards found that by enlisting 
several of Rochester's most respected teachers as "technology coaches," 
he was able to break down many barriers. Teachers who were previously 
reluctant to integrate technology into their curricula became more 
receptive to the idea when presented with esteemed colleagues who had 
made the leap themselves.

  Bringing about change

Two of the convention's keynote speakers also emphasized the valuable 
role technology plays in the learning process and the importance of 
having teachers who are comfortable with it.

  Malcolm Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of The 
Tipping Point, was the opening keynote speaker. He described how a 
single event--a live broadcast of a $1 million prize fight in Jersey 
City in 1921 between Jack Dempsey and George Cartier--helped personal 
home radios take hold in U.S. society.

  "Change happens far more quickly than you can imagine," Gladwell said, 
whether it's getting radios into the mainstream or computers into 
classrooms. The fall of the Berlin Wall is another example.

  It's not economic or political power that brings change, Gladwell 
said. It's social power, and it's social power alone that can "bring 
about change to education."

  Most people have a social circle of about 35 people, but a few people, 
whom Gladwell calls "connectors," have social circles in the hundreds. 
Connectors, he says, have social power because they connect one person 
to the next and spread ideas.

  "Unless you have social power, unless you have the ability to reach 
many, many people in many, many different worlds, then you don't have 
the ability to make a difference, to make a social change," Gladwell 
said.

  Gladwell tied his concept of social power to the unique relationship 
teachers have with their own colleagues as well as students. He told 
the audience that they need to help those who are overwhelmed and 
frustrated by technology.

  "You may not be the most powerfully connected people, you may not be 
the most wealthy, but you have social power," Gladwell said. "If you 
use it wisely, you can bring about social change."

  Peter Reynolds, the author-illustrator who is also founder and CEO of 
Fablevision, gave a rousing speech to end the convention, urging 
educators to get technology into the hands of children because it will 
stimulate their natural creativity. Reynolds told the story of how his 
own high school teacher in Toronto sparked his interest in math by 
encouraging him to apply his artistic talents to an animated film about 
a mathematical concept. Reynolds credited this teacher with changing 
his entire life, putting him on a path to educational story-telling 
that ultimately led to the 1996 founding of Fablevision.

  A strong advocate of school laptop programs, Reynolds demonstrated the 
wonders of a graphics tablet by drawing one of his popular animated 
characters for the several hundred members of the audience. He then 
showed a short film based on his children's book The Dot, which tells 
the story of a young girl named Vashti who feels her artistic talent is 
limited to her ability to draw dots. Vashti's teacher encourages her to 
hone her dot-drawing skills, and by the end of the story, the formerly 
disenchanted girl has become a respected artist who inspires other 
students at her school.

  Reynolds urged educators to think of his story as a model for 
student-teacher relationships. By encouraging young people to use 
technology in creative ways, they can raise their self-esteem and make 
them more excited about learning, he said.

  "Let's put tests in perspective and bring back creativity," he said. 
"Right now, computers are often used in unspectacular ways, like test 
prep and testing. They aren't used to get kids to be creative. Let's 
put the technology right in the kids' hands and let them make their 
mark with it."

  Links:

National Educational Computing Conference

International Society for Technology in Education

Consortium for School Networking

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5136

---

Jason Barkeloo
President
TouchSmart Publishing
http://www.touchsmart.net
tele 513.225.8765


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