Project
focuses on new tech standards
Public comment is being accepted through June on the Technology
Standards for School Administrators, an attempt to document
what officials should know and be able to do to be effective
technology leaders in their schools.
Don Knezek, the project's codirector, said the standards
identify "knowledge and skills that constitute the core --
what every administrator needs regardless of specific job
role." The standards will be released in October.
"We believe anyone looking at K-12 administration should
be able to meet these standards, but they're truly targets.
Any practicing administrator will look at them and find them
challenging, but we believe they're achievable, too," Knezek
said.
More than a year in the making, the 27 standards have received
support from a cross section of school leadership organizations,
including the National School Boards Association, National
Association of Elementary School Principals, National Association
of Secondary School Principals, and the Consortium for School
Networking. The proposals are available for review on the
International
Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Web site.
The standards will be used in a number of different areas,
including certification, job descriptions, and personnel evaluations
for administrators. Knezek said they also could be used in
accreditation of schools and administrator preparation programs,
as well as setting up staff development opportunities for
administrators.
"If we're going to spend time on teacher and student standards,
it's obvious that we need to spend time on setting some standards
for administrators, too," he said. "Administrators say technology
is where they want to spend their time developing professionally,
but there's no guidance. They're gleaning their own information
for their careers from the teacher standards and student standards
that are in place."
Knezek said the study grew out of sessions with new teachers,
who said lack of leadership at the school level is the largest
obstacle to the effective use of technology in schools. Higher
education policymakers, technology specialists, local school
boards, and the business community agreed, prompting the draft
of the standards in January.
"As the higher education agencies are turning out technology-competent
teachers, they're going into an environment where the school
leaders don't understand what they're doing or what they want
to do," Knezek said. "It becomes an obstacle to what they're
doing to be effective with technology in the classrooms.
"If you infuse technology throughout the school system and
do it well, that implies so much change that it is systemic
reform," Knezek said. "And we know what role the school leadership
has to play not only in implementing this change, but in sustaining
it as well."
Comments can be submitted online at the ISTE Web site.
Students
in Hitchcock, Texas, work on laptops in a renovated school
bus parked in their neighborhood. Jane Ankey, the district's
career technology director, says the bus brings computers
and the Internet into neighborhoods where families may not
be able to afford the technology. The bus holds nearly two
dozen computers with e-mail and Internet capabilities; a wireless
antenna connects the laptops to the district's computer network.
Officials in the tiny coastal school district, which is located
between Houston and Galveston, used federal and state grants
to pay the $57,000 cost, and students helped renovate the
bus as part of a five-month class project.
More than 80 percent of teachers believe computers and access
to the Internet improve the quality of education, but a majority
say the World Wide Web has not changed the way they teach,
a new survey says.
The NetDay
survey, released as the nonprofit organization celebrated
its fifth anniversary, said teachers primarily see the Internet
as a research tool. However, a lack of time prevents the vast
majority (78 percent) from logging on, and another 73 percent
say they are not under pressure by administrators to use the
Internet in classroom instruction. Almost half say equipment,
access speed, and lack of technical support hinder their use
of online resources.
"The critical challenge ahead is to find ways to help teachers
go beyond the research functions of the Internet," said Jodie
Pozo-Olano, NetDay's director of communications and outreach.
"Most teachers don't use the Internet in daily activities
such as communication with students, parents, and other teachers
or for organizational activities."
For NetDay, which started as an attempt to wire the nation's
classrooms for technology, the survey represents a shift in
the organization's focus. Pozo-Olano said only 14 percent
of schools and 3 percent of classrooms were wired when NetDay
began five years ago; today, 97 percent of teachers have Internet
access at school and 80 percent have connections in their
classrooms.
Now that the infrastructure is in place, NetDay's focus
will shift to principals to help teachers use the technology
available to them. The organization has launched an "Education
Technology Leadership" campaign that will travel from state
to state to build a group of mentors for administrators to
draw from, Pozo-Olano said.
"The lack of pressure that teachers feel from principals
suggests the need for more guidance to help principals learn
how to best utilize technology to support education," she
said. "In addition, learning how to provide leadership on
educational technology is a new development area for many
principals."
Kids
who play hooky in Singapore had better watch out: A school
there has set up a mobile phone service that uses a short-messaging
service (SMS) to take roll, Wired News reports. The
system then marks the names of absent students in an electronic
database and notifies parents via a short text message sent
to their mobile phones. The SMS alert system, which costs
about $5,000, is used to save administrators time, the school
said -- not to "cause stress to the students."
Apple Inc. has released a special edition of AppleWorks
6.1 exclusively for educators. The application now features
DataViz MacLinkPlus translators that allow users to easily
view, modify, share, and exchange Microsoft Office documents.
The special edition supports both Macintosh and Windows computers
and is designed for schools with mixed platform environments.
Texas Instruments and FreeVocabulary.com
have joined forces to provide students with a Web-based application
that features more than 5,000 college-preparatory vocabulary
words and definitions. The application can be used with Texas
Instruments' new TI-Navigator,
a wireless, Internet-enabled classroom system that allows
students and teachers to communicate in real-time on class
work.
Premio
Computer Inc. has added a new low-priced desktop system
to its line in an effort to target education and government
markets. The new Aries M133 is priced at $899 and includes
a 15-inch monitor. The system is expandable up to 1GB and
includes a 20GB hard drive, two rear USB ports, and an AMD
Duron 850 MHz processor. The system comes with toll-free technical
support and a three-year limited warranty.
In July, NCS
Pearson is scheduled to launch NCS4School Solution Suite,
a new Internet-based offering that promises to integrate administrative,
curriculum and instruction, financial, testing and assessment,
and community coordination programs into one package. Information
will be delivered to the educator's desktop using a standard
browser interface. School districts using the full suite of
programs can provide real-time access to teachers, administrators,
parents, and students. Additional features are scheduled for
release at six-month intervals. Pricing will be based on an
annual, per-student, school or district subscription.
DIRECTV
Inc. has launched a public service initiative offering
free educational television programming to 50,000 qualifying
schools throughout the United States. The new initiative,
DIRECTV Goes to School, places a special emphasis on schools
in disadvantaged and rural communities not serviced by cable.
The company's free programming package, "School Choice," includes
more than 60 channels of educational programming from such
networks as CNN, The Discovery Channel, The History Channel,
A&E, and The Learning Channel. Participating schools must
purchase and install the DIRECTV system, which will allow
access to the free programming. Information: (800) 926-2508.
Virtual PC is known for allowing Apple products to run Windows
programs. Now, Connectix
Corp. is expanding its product line to Windows-based computer
systems. Virtual PC for Windows, which will be released in
June, allows PC users to run multiple guest operating systems
-- such as Windows 2000, Windows 98/95, Windows NT, or Windows
Me -- on a single PC. The operating systems can run concurrently,
allowing users to switch back and forth without rebooting
their system.
E-Wire is prepared with Associated Press (AP)
reports.
