Ted Nellen
 Education
-- which already begins with an e -- will profit by the
boom in e-commerce and digitized government. The first part is
to make the students' work public by publishing it on the Internet.
By making it public, it is now available for public scrutiny by
peer reviewers, telementors, employers, college admissions officers,
teachers, and interaction with parents and guardians. Instead
of one teacher working with as many as 40 students in one class
and some teachers having five classes, I see the digital technology
reversing those numbers so we have as many as 10 telementors of
all shapes and sizes working with one student. Digital technology
lets us realize the idea that it takes a village to educate the
child. In this case, it's a global village, taking advantage of
the Age of Interactivity.
This is not as difficult as one might imagine. Computers are
already in place in front of millions of college-educated people
and being placed in schools across the country. Workers in government
and business can serve as telementors without leaving their office
and taking valuable time from their own work. Remember it is business
and government that have been making the most noise about education;
I see telementoring as a way for them to contribute, besides merely
talking about the problem of education in this country.
Imagine business CEOs taking those 15 minutes between meetings
to log on and critique a student's paper. A late appointment can
provide time for an executive to share an anecdote about a favorite
novel, or for a government official to check in with a student
via e-mail. An isolated soldier can telementor kids, alumni can
provide sage advice, and the genius and talents of our growing
retirement villages can be tapped. Communities around the country
have already wired their entire towns and have provided better
government, services, business, and education because they have
actively engaged and harnessed this power. The possibilities are
infinite.
Ted Nellen,
Cybrarian, has been teaching high school English since 1974. He
began using computers in his New York City public high school
Cyber English class in 1983, has been using the Internet since
1985, and has been on the web since 1993.
Frank B. Withrow
 The
printing press made a quantum change in the way youth are prepared
for adult life. The digital world will make a comparable change
in modern schools. Our very concepts of what and how we learn
and teach will be forever different.
The printing press, books, and traditional libraries have served
us well for more than three centuries. However, digital information
brings a new dynamic to the world of stored and retrievable information.
We do not yet fully understand the importance of these changes.
We are still trying to adapt the new technologies to the old standards
of education. We are putting new wine in old wineskins. We must
avoid creating egg-carton digital classrooms to do the same thing
we have always done.
Part of our challenge as teachers and learners is how to organize
the vast amount of data that streams into all our lives and change
it into usable information. Once organized into information, it
may become meaningful knowledge. Once that knowledge has been
tested by time, it may become wisdom, and once the wisdom is confirmed,
it may be thought of as foresight.
Learning in traditional schools has been effective for the top
15 percent of students, but far too many schools have wasted the
potential of many learners. Joseph Wepman was one of the first
to classify learner styles as being primarily visual, auditory,
tactile, and kinesthetic. Howard Gardner has demonstrated that
there are many different types of intelligence.
With technology we can provide individual learning plans and
programs for every student. We can collect warehouses of data
on the learning styles, habits, content, and achievements of all
students. Through data mining we can enable the learner and the
teacher to chart efficient and effective learning programs. In
the early days of computer assisted learning, Don Bitzer, Patrick
Suppes, and other pioneers dreamed of collecting information about
each learner's skills and knowledge and relating that information
to learning resources. We now have the power, knowledge, and resources
that allow us to create that kind of educational structure.
The question is whether we have the political and cognitive will
to create such improved learning environments. The challenge is
up to you who work in the field of education. Each of you will
make a difference in the new age of education. Each of you will
in part determine the future of technology and learning.
Frank B. Withrow has 50 years in education, including
senior learning technologist at the U.S. Department of Education,
technology policy specialist for the Council of Chief State School
Officers, and director of education programs for the NASA Classroom
of the Future. His most recent book is Preparing Schools and School
Systems for the 21st Century. He is currently the director of
development for Able Company, a firm devoted to early childhood
education.
Sue Collins
 Ten
years ago, I worked on a multimedia planning tool for educators,
and these lines we wrote have stayed with me: "You can usually look
at a group of students and their teacher and tell when the educational
process is working. The atmosphere is just right -- and you know
it."
Technology has changed a lot since then, and has enabled us to
move away from the narrow notion of a teacher in front of a class
of students to the broader notion of learning at any time and
place. But the goal of a "just right" education is still the same.
And the best teacher is still the one who looks at the whole person
and brings judgment to the learning process.
The following technologies excite me because they have the potential
for making learning (and teaching) even more effective in the
coming years:
* Wireless technologies will enable learners to access their
own tools and information whether they're in the library, at the
pond, or in an art gallery, and will allow teachers to consider
the whole world as a single, connected learning environment.
* E-books will be constantly updated and customized and, when
combined with intelligent agents, will give learners interactive
content designed with them in mind -- tuned to their personal
learning styles as well as their current level of knowledge.
* Collaborative tools will capture the advantages of the social
aspects of learning in groups, allowing teachers and students
to coach, mentor, and work together when they're not in the same
place.
I can't predict the path of technology or the speed at which
it will change. But I hope we will keep in mind that "just right"
learning atmosphere as we integrate tomorrow's technologies into
education.
Sue Collins, an Internet education consultant,
has held senior positions at Jostens Learning, Compaq, and Apple.
She is a former teacher and administrator at the district and
state level.
Ken Komoski
 In
his prescient 1938 novel World Brain, H.G. Wells wrote
of a predigital database that would democratize worldwide access
to information, knowledge, and learning for all humankind.
Today, as the Internet fosters a remarkably democratic World
Wide Web, I find myself asking two questions: What is this "world
brain" thinking about? And how can we help fulfill its potential
as a means of democratizing and increasing learning, knowledge,
understanding, tolerance, creativity, equity, productivity, and
wisdom for all?
The answer to the first question is clear. Our emergent "world
brain" is thinking about commerce, music, communication, sports,
spirituality, dating, nature, stocks, pornography, poetry, building
bombs, making peace, real estate, books, games, the environment;
anything its users are thinking about -- even learning and education.
To re-phrase Pogo, "We have met the world brain and it is us!"
The answer to the second question is much more a work in progress,
and it is being pursued by those who care about democratizing
access to digitized learning in schools and homes -- particularly
in homes where lack of technology and skills keeps parents and
children on the far side of the digital divide.
Computers that can help these families cross this unnecessary
divide are in ample supply. They can be found among the 20 million
computers being discarded each year by business and home users.
Each represents a potential tax-deductible donation, as well as
a family-empowering tool for accessing the world brain and global
economy. Those looking for a strategy to help digitally disenfranchised
families can begin by tapping into our nation=s
endless supply of discarded but still-useful, web-capable computers.
Families that lack computers should have an opportunity to earn
them by learning how to use them in training spaces provided by
schools, libraries, faith groups, and community organizations.
Such democratized access to collaborative, user-generated information
could make a significant contribution to improving the quality
of the learning sector of our emergent world brain.
Ken Komoski is executive director of EPIE
Institute and founder of LINCT Coalition, organizations working
to provide educational consumers with information about the quality
of learning resources and to help bridge the digital divide. He
is currently directing a web-based project to provide homes and
schools with access to learning resources and on-line mentoring.
James Tenbusch
 The
literature on using technology in schools will lead one to the
conclusion that teachers have to change the way they currently
teach in order to be effective. For some reason constructivism
has been coupled with technology as "the right way to teach."
The problem that I have with this philosophy and the literature
on constructivism is that it is short on applied methodology a
teacher can use. Constructivism, in this context, implies that
using technology requires the development of a whole new curriculum.
I thought that technology was a tool, and only a tool -- not
a whole new curriculum. Why are we expecting teachers to change
the whole way they do things just so they can bring computers
into the instructional mix of their classrooms? How are first-
and second-graders supposed to collaborate meaningfully on the
setting of instructional standards? They don't have the cognitive
skills necessary to be self-determined learners. Besides, what
teacher has the time to engage in such an elaborate group-determined
educational process that does not focus on any discrete skill-level
development when they have to worry about state performance goals
and standards that do focus on discrete skill-level sets?
It's hard enough getting teachers to use the computers they have
in a meaningful way without forcing them to change they way they
currently teach.
Instead, I have focused on developing a much more practicable
model for technology integration -- I call it the Technology Augmented
Lesson -- that does not require a teacher to change a thing. You've
got to give teachers something they can use directly, that won't
interfere with their individual teaching styles, and that won't
take a lot of time to plan for and implement, or they simply won't
use it.
James
Tenbusch is superintendent and technology coordinator of the
Allen Township Community Consolidated School District No. 65 and
the Otter Creek-Hyatt School District No. 56 in Illinois.
Steve Cisler
 Changes
in information and communications technology will enable the development
of devices that learn about the natural world, talk to each other
via wireless data exchange, and learn about us as we use them.
Our kids will relate to these changes with less suspicion than
we will. As the devices -- toys to start with -- become "smarter"
and learn more about the child, new relationships will emerge
that may be as intense as the one you had with your old teddy
bear, but more complex. This will change the way children relate
to each other, to their families, and to their human teachers.
We will spend a lot of time trying to understand these changes.
Some have worried that, in the age of cheap machines and expensive
labor, only the wealthy will have real teachers in the future.
They worry that learning and teaching devices will be used to
fill the gaps in our school labor force when a large number of
our teachers retire early in the 21st century. This could be,
but I also believe that there will still be many areas of the
world where learning will happen with a teacher sitting in a classroom
or under a tree, and a circle of students listening.
In the same way that traditional, unmediated storytelling has
had a resurgence of interest around the United States, I think
that people learning from other people will be valued even more
than at present, and that will be both traditional and refreshing,
if costly. It will be embraced for the same reasons as it is today,
but it will also be in reaction to Furby, Aibo, virtual-reality
caves, distance learning, and virtual universities. I believe
that the citizens who flourish in the future will be those who
can afford to mix different types of learning -- and who will
be wary of their technological servants whispering behinds their
backs.
Steve
Cisler is a consultant whose background is in public and special
libraries. He has been a teacher in the Peace Corps, a wine maker,
a researcher at Apple Computer Inc., and a search-and-rescue coordinator
in the Coast Guard. Now he focuses on public access projects and
community computing projects in the United States and developing
countries.
Veronica S. Pantelidis
 Colonies
on space stations, the moon, Mars, and beyond will need every
type of education on every subject that we now have on Earth.
Virtual reality will provide a three-dimensional stage and environment
that can be used to simulate any classroom in any nation on Earth.
It will be used to give students a feeling of being on Earth.
They will be able to visit -- virtually -- any location on Earth
and any historical time period. Virtual reality will be the interface
between Earth and the colonies. Students and educators at many
locations in outer space and on Earth will meet in virtual classrooms
which could originate at any location in the solar system. They
will collaborate together and learn together. They will produce
new knowledge together.
The future of education is more fantastic than we can even imagine.
Today's children may well live into the 22nd Century. Their world
will be as different from today's as our world is different from
1899. The foundations have been laid. Educators around the world
have a challenging and exciting future ahead.
Veronica S. Pantelidis is a professor in the
Department of Broadcasting, Librarianship, and Educational Technology
in the School of Education at East Carolina University in Greenville,
N.C., and codirector of the Virtual
Reality and Education Laboratory. She began working with computers
in 1958 and currently teaches all her undergraduate and graduate
courses online over the Internet.
Reed Hundt
 We
were always aware in our policymaking at the Federal Communications
Commission that the wealth of the New Economy was accruing to
the top third of the country ranked by income, while the lower
two-thirds were not much wealthier than they had been 25 years
earlier. If our policies increased investment, job growth, and
economic expansion, there remained the need to meet the unrequited
claims of the middle class and the poor for an education worthy
of our times. We believed that some benefits of technology should
be put at the fingers of all children right away, and we wanted
to improve not just the quality but also the equality of education.
In short, we wanted to put the Internet in every classroom.
We believed that information-age technology overthrows existing
education systems. Instead of merely certifying students as meeting
the standards of the educational institution, an Internet education
system focuses on maximizing the capabilities of each student.
Education becomes a specialized benefit, not a commodity product.
An Internet education takes place in fluid and nongeographic communities:
students form communities of learners anywhere, anytime; teachers
collaborate with each other at any distance.
Moreover, on the net and with e-mail, parents and teachers can
work together to help children learn, and new parent-teacher communities
can transform the management of schools. And the Internet can
distribute the resources of education and make the best educational
opportunity as ubiquitous for everyone as telephony or electricity.
Reed Hundt is a senior advisor on information
industries to McKinsey & Company and a principal of Charles
Ross Partners, LLC. As chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission from 1993 to 1997, he presided over the implementation
of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the E-Rate program that
dedicates more than $2 billion annually to connect classrooms
to the Internet. He is the author of a forthcoming book titled
You Say You Want a Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics.
Bonnie Bracey
 Teachers
today face several difficulties: Preparing for the realities of
the classroom, creating learning environments within the confines
of the budgetary and supply system of the school system, and breaking
through the mythic memories that people have in their heads about
what "school" is in order to convey to the public an understanding
of what really happens in the classroom. In many places education
is in a locational fog.
To attract and keep teachers in the evolving learning environments
of tomorrow, teachers will need to be treated as real professionals,
and there will need to be a variety of paths offered to them within
the field of education for their own learning and career advancement.
We will learn to esteem those educators who have particular skills
that translate to better learning for children and not elevate
them to positions that separate them from children. In fact, we
will esteem those skills and create learning systems that will
support their collaboration with others in the field of education
and knowledge who may be distant from the classroom. Schools can
only be as good as the teachers in them. Continuous teacher learning
is the key to helping students achieve high standards of learning.
Children respond to technology that is interactive because it
is responsive in important ways. There are rewards to the use
of smart technology. Internationally, we will collaborate, share,
and create systems that allow for entry using whatever technologies
that may exist.
Most important of all, we will have a better understanding of
our customers -- the children -- and learn to communicate with
the families of these children. We will also learn to connect
to whom the child is, and not just try to fill up their heads
with knowledge.
Bonnie Bracey has been a member of the National
Information Infrastructure Advisory Council and the NCATE
Technology Task Force. She is a cofounder of the Online
Internet Institute, a former director of networks for the
21st Century Teachers Project,
and former lead teacher for the Cyber Ed technology initiative.
She is a Christa McAuliffe Educator and a Challenger Fellow and
currently works on the NASA Program Review Advisory Committee.
Larry S. Anderson
 The
most remarkable impact upon education this century has been the
influx of the personal computer into the learning experience.
For some, this means the increasing proliferation of technologies
directly in the classroom. For others, it conjures up thoughts
of the extra burden the computer revolution placed upon educators'
lives by requiring completely new understandings about teaching,
learning, evaluation, administration, community involvement, legal
issues, and planned obsolescence.
I have supremely high hopes for the new Millennium. My hopes
lie in the magic of the people using technology. Among
my brightest hopes for the future include some of the following:
* Totally independent learners, interconnected electronically,
with robust support structures that enhance, rather than limit
or restrain, their learning.
* "Role-blurring" that makes it practically impossible at times
to tell who is the traditional "learner" and who is the "teacher."
* New, rich-featured, aggressive technologies designed completely
around the notion of what best will support learning on an individual
basis.
* A renewed, sincere respect for each individual, and a more
noble societal existence, with technology as one of our chief
support partners.
* A society in which we will live with technologies but not be
dominated by them. They will support us. They will
be designed to meet our needs so we can interact in ways that
bring the maximum good to all. We will continue to have techno-pioneers,
but, like the flights of the Space Shuttle, we will pay them less
attention. We will be focusing upon what is best for our societies
rather than "what's cooking" in the Silicon Valley kitchens around
the world.
Larry
S. Anderson is an associate professor in the Department of
Technology and Education at Mississippi State University's College
of Education. He is the founder and director of the National
Center for Technology Planning.
Nora Sabelli
 A
new tool is always first owned by experts -- its priests -- but
then it gradually outgrows the priesthood and produces change
throughout society. This happened with writing and the printing
press, which democratized the creation of knowledge and turned
it into a commodity. That is now happening with information technology.
As with writing and printing, knowledge does not reside in the
tools -- clay tablets or books -- but in the habits and concepts
of those who use them.
Is information technology a tool different from other electronic
tools that have not delivered on their promises for so much of
the century? It is a communication tool, and tools that eliminate
middlemen and bypass time and distance have always been very powerful
agents of change. Besides empowering human communications, the
new technologies enable individualization to each learner, and
help represent key concepts visually while hiding many layers
of abstraction that lie behind the concepts.
For most of the history of science and education, research and
pedagogy depended on tools not well suited to study the whole
as more than the sum of its parts. But many scientific phenomena
of general interest are quite complex; understanding the whole
is not the same as understanding its parts. The new technologies
offer a pedagogy that makes visual the abstract, ties abstract
concepts with observable reality, and thus promises to empower
much larger groups of learners -- since not everybody's best path
to learning starts from abstract, symbolic concepts.
The near-universal presence of informal electronic networks is
already democratizing information; users are formulating their
own goals, gathering their sources (good and bad), and creating
and sharing information in new forms of collective, combined social
and individual learning. Everybody needs, and most will learn,
skills for separating the wheat from the chaff in a sea of information.
Everybody will be able to be -- and many will become -- experts
in some activity, whether related to their work or not.
Nora Sabelli is senior program director in the
Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National
Science Foundation, where she is focusing on the use of current
scientific advances and technological opportunities to help provide
quality science and mathematics education for all students.
William E. Kennard
 Benjamin
Franklin once remarked, "If a man empties his purse into his head,
no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always
pays the best interest."
The E-Rate is one such investment. It's a down payment on the
future of our kids and of our economy. By being exposed to the
Internet and information technology, our children will learn the
skills needed to gain the jobs of our Information-Age economy.
They will be linked into our national community. They will be
given the digital tools needed to fulfill the promise of American
life in the Information Age.
Before the E-Rate, only 39 percent of classrooms in poor school
districts in the United States had any Internet connections, compared
to 62 percent of classrooms in wealthier districts. The on-ramps
to the information superhighway were bypassing the communities
that needed access to opportunity the most.
But as we get ready to move into the third year of the E-Rate,
we=ve found that over
528,000 public school classrooms and libraries -- and more than
40 million kids -- have been helped by the discount. Because of
the E-Rate, more than half of the unconnected classrooms will
now be linked to the Internet, the bulk of which are found in
schools where over half of the students live in poverty. Moreover,
according to Forrester Research, Internet access among African-Americans
is expected to increase 42 percent, and among Hispanics 20 percent
-- two phenomena that Forrester chalks up to the E-Rate and its
ability to bring this technology into every community.
Simply put, libraries and schools that never would have been
able to access these services will have the opportunity to connect
to the Internet. If you have ever traveled through our nation
and spoken to the people who live in its small towns or in its
inner cities, you will hear firsthand how important these connections
are. With links to the on-line world, students have the opportunity
to take courses not offered in their schools. More time can be
spent in the community giving children the nurturing and support
that they need. Educational and economic opportunities will become
available where once they would have been nearly impossible.
William E. Kennard is chairman of the Federal
Communications Commission. The first African-American chairman
of the FCC, he is committed to making sure that all Americans
have access to the technologies that are driving our economy and
shaping our society.
Terry Crane
 The
evolution of technology-supported learning systems holds tremendous
potential for educators in the new millennium. These learning
systems will expand greatly on the concept of ever-more-customizable
interactive programming that is searchable and accessible anywhere
on the globe. Naturally, information literacy will be essential
for both teachers and students.
With the emerging acceptance of high-stakes testing as a prerequisite
for graduation, new technologies also are being applied to assist
classroom teachers. We all know that ongoing assessment is one
of the best ways we can track academic progress. The trouble is
that most assessment data is at the district or school level,
and typically results are not available until the end of the year
when itís too late for teachers to use the data to make adjustments.
While these assessment results may serve as useful benchmarks,
theyíre not in the hands of those who can change the outcome and
results of student learning, namely the teachers.
By contrast, classroom-based assessment allows for data-driven
decision making on a daily basis. Through the effective use of
technology, teachers can have access to data immediately that
can drive their decisions in the classroom. One of the goals I
have steered my company toward is support of daily assessment
in the classroom because of the significant difference it can
make. Technology can provide teachers with the tools that allow
them to make day-to-day decisions. It can allow them to understand
which standards the students have mastered and to arrange objectives
to meet their specific instructional goals.
We commend the trailblazers in educational technology and the
day-to-day visionaries committed to exploring the use of technology
to make ongoing instructional improvements in the classroom for
our students. For 20 years, I have watched with pride as my fellow
educators have harnessed and dreamed with technology in order
to help students today and tomorrow realize their full promise.
I believe with a passion that technology will continue to make
a positive difference in learning outcomes for children in the
future while serving as an invaluable tool for educators.
Terry Crane is president of Jostens
Learning Corp.
Bob Walczak
 Moore's
Law, as many of you are aware, projects dramatic increases in
the power and speed of computers -- as well as dramatic reductions
in cost. By 2010, ultra-fast computers, by this law, will cost
$10.
But even these marvelous attributes are not critical in the next
few years in the education environment. After all, these devices
are inanimate objects. What really counts are the users and their
attitudes; I see extraordinary changes occurring here.
In the first place, the stress on test scores and improvement
in learning will vanish, driven out by technology that improves
at a rate that makes longitudinal data collecting impossible.
Another key factor will be the realization that the machines must
accommodate the requirements of the user. Right now, we have all
these big machines that are in labs and becoming less and less
useful to the students. Even so-called laptops are cumbersome,
with limited functionality and even more limited battery life.
I foresee devices that are ultra-small, wireless, voice-activated,
and with unlimited storage, blinding speed, and no moving parts.
Educational computing will become an anytime, anyplace, on-demand
activity.
The result for teachers and students will be profound, and it
will not stop there. The community -- parents, business people,
city government, and the like -- will all become participants
in the education process. This will create a true community of
learners who will be problem-solvers on a local, regional, and
even national basis. The individuals we think of as students will
become fully empowered participants and even leaders in these
communities. We already see this happening: high school students
helping small businesses and not-for-profits deal with Y2K compliance,
and school staff and students working with the community to study
sources of water pollution in their neighborhood.
Bob Walczak is executive director of Computer-Using
Educators Inc., the country's largest teacher organization
supporting the use of educational technology.
Beverly Hunter
 "Every
person is a learner, a teacher, and a builder of knowledge." That
vision has driven my work over the past 35 years. People of all
ages and backgrounds can work and learn together to solve real
problems important to them and their local or virtual community.
Learning can take place in a context that values, respects and
validates the person's world.
Armed with powerful computational tools, historical and current
data bases, multiple representations of knowledge, accessible
learning materials, and telecommunications facilities, people
can form and organize teams based on mutual concerns and complementary
skills, backgrounds, and purposes. The brainpower, energy, talents
and curiosity of each human being is a precious resource to be
protected, nurtured, and used wisely.
Will we continue to segregate people by age, imposing one-size-fits-all
"standards of learning" on our youth, or will we invent new, more
open opportunities for learning, teaching, and knowledge-building
that tap and value the creative energies and talents of each person?
Beverly Hunter
conducts research, development, and professional development activities
to help educators and community leaders take advantage of computer
and communications technologies to build new kinds of learning,
teaching, and knowledge-building communities.
Gerald D. Bailey and
Dan Lumley
 The
immediate past shows educators struggling to keep pace with the
rapid change of technology. Within the last 30 years, computers
have moved from mainframes to desktops. Number crunching and word
crunching were the order of the day. No sooner had word processing,
spreadsheets, and databases become the standard curriculum offerings
when software allowed for integration of graphics, sound, and
video into multimedia. Multimedia became the standard use of educational
technology. Next, the Internet appeared on the scene, and began
to challenge all the rules that we formulated about multimedia.
Soon, information literacy and web site creation became the standard.
 What
about the immediate future? The answer is more change and education
falling farther behind. The newest innovation in computing is
personal digital assistants -- PDAs, also known as palmtop computers
or handheld computers. These small computers fit in your pocket
and they are transforming the way we use and interact with information.
Their small size allows us to take information with us and retrieve
it anywhere. We are no longer tethered to stationary computer.
The question is whether PDAs will change the way teachers and
students use and access information or whether they will be primarily
used as organizing tools. We can't wait for the future to shape
us, we need to create the future. In the words of Gandhi, "You
must be the change you wish to see in the world."
Gerald
D. Bailey is a professor of education
in the Department of Educational Administration & Leadership
and a technology consultant at Kansas State University. Dan Lumley
is the director of curriculum and instruction for the Lee's
Summit School District in Lee's Summit, Missouri.
Susan Ness
 The
digital revolution heralds a Renaissance in education. As long
as classrooms have access to broadband technology, students will
literally have the world at their fingertips. As never before,
this has the potential to awaken creativity and love of learning
in students of all backgrounds and abilities.
I visited a school in Hooper Bay, Alaska, on the Bering Sea.
Thanks to the E-Rate and the Internet, this community -- which
receives newspapers days or weeks after their publication -- will
now be able to get the news instantaneously. Before now, what
Inuit child could hope to tour the Smithsonian, or the Louvre?
Or have access to advanced courses in math or science via distance
learning?
The E-Rate is helping to level the educational playing field.
The benefits are targeted disproportionately to schools and libraries
in low-income and rural communities. The children in these communities
are least likely to have access to computers at home or libraries
with vast resources. But when their classrooms have computers
and Internet access at affordable rates, these children have access
to the same information as students in wealthier school districts.
The E-Rate will make all students better able to face and surmount
the challenges of the 21st Century.
Susan Ness is a commissioner at the Federal
Communications Commission. She chairs the Federal-State Joint
Board charged with addressing universal telephone service issues
and has worked to facilitate delivery of advanced telecommunications
services to classrooms and community libraries through the implementation
of the E-Rate.
Judi Mathis Johnson
The continuum is frightening and glorious. Each time technology
provides opportunities, it also glares cautions. We must fully
consider how each technology application can help students learn
without eliminating other qualities that are equally desirable.
Multimedia today is sound, color, and movement; it raises the
heart rate and enthralls the imagination. Obviously what we define
as multimedia today may seem too simplistic by tomorrow's standards.
How far is educational technology from students wearing virtual
reality gloves and working as a group to virtually row a canoe
down the Amazon River, while they feel the humidity and smell
the flowers? Will that be called multimedia?
My dream is of a time when software is designed to be effective
for students. Currently too much software is designed to be commercially
viable for a short period of time. Focus groups determine content
and delivery style, not effective research conducted in a typical
classroom. Assessment, possible outcomes, and diagnoses should
come with each piece of software to earn the "education" label.
Judi Mathis Johnson is software review editor
for Learning & Leading
With Technology.
Frank Odasz
 A
new global culture will appear, combining caring and connectivity,
led by youth and seniors. Youth will prove to be key change agents
and technology leaders in all cultures. Unmet needs will be matched
with excess resources. World cultures will learn to celebrate
their diversity without censoring alternative worldviews. We'll
all have access to all our joint knowledge through a combination
of social and technical systems.
Niche knowledge specialties will become a viable vocation for
individuals in collaboration with others, keeping the world's
knowledge base current. Multiple tiers of appropriate human assistance
and expertise will be available to all, for the asking. Context
will enhance content, and "less-is-more" will be the measure of
value.
Everyone will become both learner and teacher. Successful mentoring
of others will be the measure of individual success, in association
with creating effective self-directed learning opportunities which
can scale to benefit billions. The best resources to benefit the
most people at the least cost will be identified, to be customized
by citizens for local contexts as an 'instructional entrepreneurship'
service.
We'll come to emphasize our abilities to imagine better ways
to use the social and technical interconnections between people
and knowledge. We'll redefine "community" as those to which we
give our time. The global cultural goal for the human family will
be actualization of our joint full potential.
Transnational activism will evolve to engage daily votes on global
issues which will involve more citizens' daily direct participation
than any past elections in human history. Ideational leaders will
emerge, articulating the pulse of human emotion and thought in
the face of limitless possibilities.
Frank Odasz is president of Lone
Eagle Consulting, specializing in rural, remote, and indigenous
empowerment. He served as a teacher of teachers at Western Montana
College for 13 years and as director of the Big
Sky Telegraph network from 1988 to 1998, offering online courses
to rural teachers in one and two-room rural schools.
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