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Can computers help distract kids from television's mind-numbing wasteland? Parents seem to think so, says a survey released in October 1995.
According to the American Learning Household Survey, which polled 1,200 families nationwide, 64 percent of parents in households with personal computers say they believe their kids' attachment to the boob tube has declined as a direct result of using the PC. In households that have fancy multimedia PCs, 75 percent of parents report the same result. Two consulting companies--Find/SVP and Grunwald Associates--conducted the study.
Surprisingly, the study also found that girls initially spend more time using their home computers than boys, though boys overtake girls by seventh grade.
From prekindergarten through third grade, girls use computers at home an average of 4.8 hours a week, compared with boys' 3.8 hours. But by seventh and eighth grades, boys put in 8.5 hours at the computer, compared with 5.4 hours for girls. In high school, it's 7.7 hours for boys and 5.7 hours for girls.
But what are these boys and girls actually doing on their home computers? In the early grades, kids spend one hour per week doing homework on their home computers, a figure that increases steadily to 3.9 hours per week for ninth to 12th-graders, the study found.
And how do they spend the rest of their computing time? We're just speculating now, but they're probably playing Doom and Myst.
How many people are plugged in, and who are they? Good questions. The demographics of Internet and on-line users are by nature hard to come by, but that hasn't stopped anyone from trying. Last fall, several major new studies attempted to find answers. Here's what they uncovered:
Twenty-four million adults in the United States and Canada actually use the Internet, according to a study by the CommerceNet Consortium and Nielsen Media Research. The spiffy World Wide Web portion of the Internet has 18 million users, the CommerceNet/Nielsen study says. The study also found that males make up 66 percent of all Internet users.
Another survey, this one by O'Reilly & Associates and Trish Information Services, found that 5.8 million people in the United States have direct access to the Internet, a figure that can't be directly compared to the CommerceNet/Nielsen study because of differences in the way the studies were designed.
A third survey, by the Times Mirror Center for The People & The Press, found 12 million total U.S. on-line users, still fewer than the 18 million American homes that have modem-equipped computers.
One thing's for sure, though: Americans are ahead of the rest of the world. According to a study released by the International Telecommunications Union, a United Nations agency, Americans are first when it comes to having the telephone lines, computers, and TV sets to use multimedia services that combine telecommunications, computing, and broadcasting.
When the budget-cutting 104th Congress shut down the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) last September, some observers said the lawmakers in effect killed their science teacher.
Created to serve Congress, the nonpartisan agency analyzed the role of science and technology in society and advised legislators how to meet future challenges. In its 23 years, OTA produced 750 reports--on topics that include security issues, education, commerce, and government efficiency, among many others.
The reports generally were considered useful and objective, and although Congress was the primary audience, they were read widely by other constituencies. Public school leaders were an especially dedicated audience, says Roger C. Herdman, OTA's director since 1993, who led the skeleton staff in shutting down operations at the end of 1995.
The agency's 1988 report on education, "Power On!: New Tools for Teaching and Learning," was a landmark for educators. It is a comprehensive distillation of research on instructional software--including student experience with the software--that is still valuable and forward-looking today.
One of the report's many recommendations would likely be received coolly by today's Congress: "Because of the great promise offered by interactive technologies for learning, Congress needs to consider a substantial Federal investment in research and development to exploit more fully the power and potential of technology for education."
A year later, "Linking for Learning: A New Course for Education," made a similarly thorough study of distance learning, telecommunications, and networking.
Linda Roberts, who led the OTA teams that produced those two reports, says they "broke all records for OTA in terms of [Government Printing Office (GPO)] sales." Roberts notes that school board members--often the school leaders least versed in technology--"have called me over the years to say that ["Power On!"] really has made a difference."
David Brittain, who for 16 years was bureau chief of Florida's education-computing project, agrees. He credits the agency and those two reports with helping "schools and folks from all over give attention to how technology could be of value in the classroom. They did a good job of studying the issues . . . [and] consulting with folks from all over."
Brittain, whose job entailed organizing consortia for bringing technology into schools, says the reports let school leaders tell voters that Congress thinks technology is important, too--not just educators in the district.
The agency's last major education report, "Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection," appeared last spring. Although no more reports will follow, OTA's body of work--including unpublicized background papers--will be available in print and on the Internet. OTA's Herdman says the reports of the last two years "will be available shortly" on OTA's Web site; they can be downloaded and viewed with Adobe Acrobat software. Eventually, the site will be shut down, but its contents will be available at a Web site administered by GPO. And, Herdman says, a complete collection of reports will be released on five CD-ROM discs--perhaps by the end of January 1996. A number of reports also are available through Telnet and FTP and other methods--for details, send e-mail to netsupport@ota.gov.
As for new research, Brittain, now a management consultant in Tallahassee, hopes the Office of Educational Technology at the Department of Education will fill part of the void left by OTA's demise. Linda Roberts is director of the technology office.
But the loss to congressional decision making remains, Brittain says. "The importance [of members of Congress having] a body--part of their organization--to help them look at issues and to present objective studies, was a tremendously valuable thing that they have lost."
In a Silicon Valley warehouse, volunteers from the Computer Recycling Center take truckloads of broken-down, near-obsolete computers and turn them into technology schools can use.
According to the New York-based Committee for Economic Development (CED), schools are hungry for such help as they struggle to keep up with technology that offers great promise but can seem far out of financial reach. CED's recommendation: Others should follow the nonprofit center's example and find ways to get computers into students' hands now, rather than wait for a time when schools will have enough money to buy perfect equipment.
"That day will never happen," says Mark Hass, an engineer who runs the nonprofit center.
Nationwide, U.S. schools have one computer for every nine students, according to the now-defunct congressional Office of Technology Assessment. CED estimates it would cost 5 percent of schools' budgets to increase that number to one for every four students.
"We realize it's not easy to find that kind of money," says Henry A. McKinnell, an executive at Pfizer, who helped develop CED's recommendations for school technology, released in a report last fall. "But frankly, we have to do it. [Technology is] no longer just a frill."
CED, supported by universities and businesses, is a research organization whose interests include the inner cities, education, and trade policy. Its report, "Connecting Students to a Changing World," raises a special alarm about low-income students, already at a disadvantage because their parents are less likely to own home computers. Poor inner-city or rural schools also have inadequate electrical and phone wiring, and no phone jacks in classrooms, the group says. And that's worrisome because without such tools, teachers can't tap into databases and other research materials offered free by colleges and universities on the Internet.
Hass' center in Silicon Valley has more than doubled the number of computers in the San Francisco Unified School District, plus provided modems and other equipment. The center donated 1,000 computers to the school system, with each computer "reengineered" from two or three castoffs donated by corporations. The center also provides low-cost maintenance to schools and teacher training.
Such training is crucial, the CED study says, because teachers are the only ones who can ensure that computers are used efficiently and creatively--not as glorified workbooks, but put in students' hands.
Earlier this year, teachers clogged roads around the recycling center's warehouse after Hass advertised a Saturday giveaway. The center handed out 1,200 computers in one day.
"These people are desperate for equipment," Hass says. "They know the benefits this can bring to their students."
Around the country, students are earning high school credits from the Eugene, Ore., school district without ever going to class there. They're doing so by participating in the district-conceived CyberSchool, taking any of 10 courses entirely over the Internet.
Patrick Portway, executive director of the U.S. Distance Learning Association, says although many public school districts use the Internet for classroom projects, CyberSchool probably represents the first time a district has offered courses over the Internet. He says such experiments offer enormous possibilities. CyberSchool classes are open to a limited number of students at no charge. This year, 60 students are enrolled in subjects that include Russian literature, U.S. history, Advanced Placement European history, and the sociology of baseball. The teachers are mostly from the Eugene district.
Tom Layton, the teacher who started CyberSchool, says he believes the computer network eventually will revolutionize public education by linking students and teachers around the world and by giving students in remote areas opportunities they otherwise would not have. "So much of education is determined by where you live, and it really shouldn't be," Layton says. "This eliminates the tyranny of geography."
Layton says in its first year CyberSchool is trying to work out the glitches that go along with offering Internet courses. For instance, CyberSchool teachers are donating their time this year as Layton and others try to determine how much CyberSchool teachers should be paid in the future. The school also has to overcome the geographic orientation of school officials, who do not feel comfortable giving credits for classes taken via computer.
At CyberSchool, assignments are given and turned in electronically via the Internet. Layton advertised the courses on various electronic bulletin boards.
Robert Beeck, a teacher at Eugene's International High School, is using filmmaker Ken Burns' documentary on baseball as a basis for his Cyberschool course called "Baseball: The Impact of the National Pastime on America."
Layton has heard from critics who say students taking these courses are missing important lessons in developing social skills that come from classroom learning. But he says CyberSchool will not replace the traditional classroom entirely.
"In my vision," Layton says, "kids would take one or two classes like this. I don't think it's good for a kid to sit in front of a computer screen all day."
It sounds so futuristic: cybercamp. But in reality, it is a pretty simple idea.
Farallon Computing of Alameda, Calif., is starting a nationwide Internet awareness program for students, parents, and teachers. The program, Cybercamp, is geared toward inner-city schools, where students are less likely to be exposed to high technology in classrooms or at home. Farallon officials hope to heighten community interest for Internet education and show how Internet resources can be used in school lessons and projects.
Farallon officials say Cybercamp will transcend the hype surrounding the Internet by showing real, practical ways to use it. Cybercamp activities include hands-on computer training, interactive demonstrations of uses of the Internet, and games designed to teach kids Internet search skills.
Students, parents, and teachers learn how the Internet is used to conduct research, learn about their heritage, meet people from different cultures, create Web pages, and surf from home. Sessions also have been designed specifically to help teachers understand how to create and deliver Internet curriculum to the classroom.
The Cybercamp program is free to schools. Public schools interested in participating as a Cybercamp site should call (510) 814-5307. Farallon Computing is a supplier of plug-and-play networking products for personal computers.
A growing number of educational software publishers are designing test-preparation software for such high-stakes college-entrance exams as the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) and the American College Testing (ACT) assessments.
Even the College Board, sponsor of the SAT, the most widely used college admissions exam, has released its own program called One-on-One with the SAT. The American College Testing Program has authorized the ACT Test Excellerator program, largely aimed at classroom use.
"We see a big market," says James Reynolds, director of electronic publishing for Princeton Review, which puts out a line of test preparation books and software, including Inside the SAT and Cracking the SAT.
Many of the new personal-computer software programs--which cost about $30--are multimedia applications that use sound, graphics, and video to enliven some of the esoteric subject matter. All rely on the personal computer's automatic calculations to monitor right or wrong answers and, in many cases, provide quick feedback to students.
Most of the products include timed tests with questions of varying levels of difficulty. Only the products directly from or authorized by the SAT and ACT sponsors are composed solely of actual questions from past tests. Most programs also provide study guides, tips, calculators, and dictionaries. At least one, Princeton Review's Inside the SAT, offers 30 minutes of free tutoring via the telephone.
For more information on the College Board's software program call (800) 323-7155; for ACT's software, call (703) 860-0200; for the Princeton Review, call (212) 874-8282.
Three companies are giving away products and services designed to help your schools gain access to the Internet.
One giveaway comes from AT&T Corp., which promises free Internet links to virtually every K-12 school building in America--approximately 110,000 public and private schools--beginning in the fall of 1996. The AT&T Learning Network will offer free dial-up Internet access, browser software, and 100 hours of free use (followed by discounted service thereafter). The five-year, $150-million program will also give schools three months of free voice-messaging services, with discounted rates thereafter. (This is the first step toward next year's goal of offering a free voice mailbox to every U.S. consumer, according to AT&T.) For more information, call (800) 809-1097.
Ma Bell isn't the only one offering freebies, though. Netscape Communications Corp., based in Mountain View, Calif., is offering free web server software to students from kindergarten through graduate school. The offer also extends to employees of charitable nonprofit institutions and public libraries. For more information, call (415) 528-2555 or e-mail info@netscape.com.
A good technology plan might win free router products, services, and training for your school. Routers enable computer networks to send and receive data from other networks, such as the Internet. Cisco Systems, based in San Jose, Calif., announced it will award Virtual Schoolhouse Grants of about $10,000 each--up to $500,000 a year--to schools with "solid technology plans and the financial and personnel commitment to implement them." This year's applications are due by March 1, and the winners will be announced in June. For more information, contact Cisco at (408) 526-4226 or edu-grant@cisco.com.
What's the point of all this generosity? It could be a classic case of doing well by doing good. As AT&T Chairman Robert Allen told the Dow Jones News Service, "The next five years will see dazzling changes in the communications options open to consumers and businesses. We all have a vested interest in seeing that those options are extended to America's schools."
It never hurts to get young consumers--and those who educate them--used to using one's products and services either, so these companies might be taking a page out of the book written by Apple Computer. Apple saw the potential in school computer sales early and won many loyal customers by offering volume discounts to schools. Today, 63 percent of the computers in public schools are Apples, according to Dow Jones.
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