New Comments : US Educational Broadband Planning

Comment by bbracey

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:21:41 PDT

I work in supercomputing outreach as a passion . We are buiding in our project this model.

Modeling, Simulation, and Visualization:

If you doubt students’ general interest in learning about the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in the world around them, visit the Museum of Science in Boston, or the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and simply watch as countless children dash from exhibit to exhibit to observe the phenomena on display. However, despite their best promotional efforts, these institutions are largely underutilized, even by students in their own cities. One of the things that makes these two institutions stand out is that most of the exhibits are hands-on and encourage the students to interact with the concepts on display. For any of a number of reasons, Emaginos will never be able to bring a major portion of the country’s students to experience these treasures. But Emaginos can bring the treasures to them through simulations.

Today’s students are totally comfortable in a virtual world where the reality around them is all a simulated experience. Emaginos needs to bring the hands-on and educational experiences from great institutions like the Exploratorium, Boston Museum of Science, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, National Geographic, The Smithsonian, NASA, Department of Energy, NOAA, and countless other national cultural and intellectual treasures to the student virtual desktop through computer simulations. Emaginos has begun exploring the licensing and simulation of the many wonderful hands-on technology exhibits at these institutions. The licensing relationship Emaginos would build with these institutions will fund the institutions’ creative staff to continue to develop additional models and simulations. Using the Emaginos broadband network computing environment and virtualization of the servers, Emaginos will be able to deliver the required High Performance Computing (HPC) resources to build many of the simulations within Emaginos’s infrastructure.

There are already a number of excellent simulations in use in the K-12 learning space. They range from complex social programs like Sim City to very specific virtual science labs that allow students to experiment quickly and safely. Emaginos’s plan is to expand the use of simulations across the curriculum. In addition to Emaginos’s own plans for encouraging new simulations, Emaginos will license and integrate many of the existing or being developed programs such as the one being guided by former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to give students a better comprehension of the country’s judicial system. Emaginos will provide the development tools and support people in the development of a broad range of simulations.

Many simulations will be beyond the power of a cluster of servers. In those cases Emaginos will work with universities and supercomputer centers. The complexity of the properties being exhibited will determine the level of computing resources required to simulate the issue. Some simulations can be built by accessing a server or servers in the cloud. In many cases, the resources to identify and portray the effects of manipulation of the exhibit will be processor intensive and require sophisticated programming. It is not Emaginos’s plan to teach high performance, massively parallel computer programming at the high school level. That is not to say that no high schools will make it available to the students. In those cases of exceptional students, they will participate in HPC programming classes at a university as a part of their high school experience.

Beyond what can be or is being exhibited at the country’s museums, there are many other simulations that would be of great value. For example, the more Emaginos learn about physics and chemistry, the more blurred the distinction between the two fields becomes. A clearer understanding of the physical/chemical building blocks of atoms, molecules and compounds and their resulting properties is fundamental to discovery and innovation in so many fields. However, the molecular modeling needed to visualize and simulate the effect of adding protons, electrons or neutrons to a stable atom or molecule requires supercomputing at the highest level. In order to make it possible for K-12 students to be able to manipulate and observe even the lowest level of molecular modeling provides an interesting challenge at several levels.
• K-12 Level – As part of the demonstration school rollout Emaginos will work with the national labs and supercomputer centers to design multi-disciplinary projects that will push the students to want to understand the value of using supercomputing modeling and simulations to solve many different complex issues. Emaginos might use the “green” issue of how CFC emissions impact the earth’s ozone levels. One example might be to simulate the physical changes in the properties of an atom or molecule when a proton, neutron, or electron is added or removed. A common example might be to illustrate how oxygen gets changed to ozone and the resulting change in its physical properties. The next step might be to examine the terabytes of data in the NOAA and DOE databases to see the effects of ozone on the Earth’s atmosphere and temperature. This could then be integrated into an environmental politics project related to regulating CFCs.
• At the university level, the computer science students could work with students in other disciplines to write the supercomputer code to calculate simulations of the effects being discussed. The computational results would then have to be put through a process to create visual representations of the effects. By storing the results of a variety of values of the key parameters, high school students could then run the simulation on the server using previously calculated results from the supercomputer. In this arrangement, the supercomputer would be required to build the model, but the resulting simulations would be able to be run on the servers in the cloud. Emaginos would work with the Council on Competitiveness to identify industries where simulations would be appropriate.
• The Supercomputer centers would provide the computational horsepower to do the calculations. They would also serve as mentors for the college students in the designing and writing of the computer code.

After the simulations are built, the next step is to integrate the simulations into the curriculum. As the students are working on their discovery and innovation projects, they will reach a point of understanding the interrelationships between several parameters in a system. Emaginos would encourage and support the designing and building simulations that allow the students to test and demonstrate their conclusions about the system. By designing the simulations with web-based interfaces, the simulations can be made available to a wide range of users. As a complement to the HPC activity, Emaginos need to build modules into the curriculum that raise awareness of computational thinking. Emaginos then need to connect their appreciation for computational thinking to the building of models and simulations using HPC.

For example….
So far, Emaginos has focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) topics. In Emaginos’s thematic project-based curriculum, Emaginos easily builds in a growing understanding of and appreciation for the STEM topics. However, STEM is not the only place in the curriculum for simulations. Emaginos can also use desktop simulations to teach about social and commercial systems. In the 1960’s the Sloan Business School at MIT developed and uses a lesson it calls “The Beer Game”. The game involves a simple production/ distribution system for a single brand of beer. There are three players in the game including a retailer, a wholesaler, and a marketing director at the brewery. Each player's goal is to maximize profit. The key understanding that the students should reach is that the individual parts of the supply chain are interdependent and behave as a system. Decisions at one point will have potentially unanticipated consequences elsewhere in the system.
In the game a truck driver delivers beer once each week to the retailer. Then the retailer places an order with the trucker who returns the order to the wholesaler. There's a four week lag between ordering and receiving the beer.
The retailer and wholesaler do not communicate directly. The retailer sells hundreds of products and the wholesaler distributes many products to a large number of customers. Because the supply chain is not managed as a system, the results are both backlogs and overproduction. It is designed as a game because the students best understand the interdependencies by manipulating the system.
The results of a typical beer game are described by Peter Senge in Chapter 3 of his 1990 classic, The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization. This game could easily be turned into a desktop simulation with three different players representing the different levels in the supply chain. The computations and visualization required are relatively simple, but the concepts learned are powerful and lasting.
By exposing the high school students to simulations and the HPC usage within the context of their small-group, multi-disciplinary projects, the students would be given an appreciation for HPC technology that goes beyond just seeing how powerful the computers are. They would begin to appreciate how useful they are for solving problems in many disciplines.

In the Emaginos learning environment, beginning with the ninth grade, students may start taking college/university courses. (We have had students graduate with both a high school diploma and an associates degree on the same day.) By their junior and senior year in high school some students may begin participating in the HPC partnership projects that are happening at universities around the country – and eventually globally. Emaginos’s high school teachers will be trained to understand when it is appropriate to bring these resources to their student’s attention. Emaginos will work with the national HPC program to integrate information about their resources and projects into the Emaginos curriculum resources.

We have a pilot school in Tracy , California.

I have been educated within the Super computing community, taking
workshops and being involved with the Super computing Conference, but at $550 per teacher to just attend the conference not many regular teachers are going to applyteacher

Hear is a draft of a teacher day, that could be web events

Teacher Day – SC Portland
Outreach to Community Teachers
Education and Broadening Participation Draft
Objective of the Event

To create a teacher - friendly invitation to Supercomputing , involving pathways to computational thinking for Portland area teachers.
The program will introduce STEM ideational scaffolding, and use after-school or extended day projects to explore the what to, how to, when to , and where it is on the computer for use. Once they have an overview of supercomputing, we will help them to identify opportunities for further professional development, through workshops and other initiatives for further learning and understanding.
Audience
Targeted teachers in the Portland area, who are not involved in the Education Program or the Broadening Engagement program. The events they can attend? Can also be outreach through organizations for awareness and understand.
Saturday Outreach
Computational thinking is a way of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science. For more background on computational thinking, please see the following resources written by Jeanette Wing:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/
o www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/wing/www/publications/Wing06.pdf
o
Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just for computer scientists. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to the K-12 curriculum.
o ·

Workshops
Workshop 1: Introduction to Supercomputing
90 minutes
What can we do with Supercomputing?
General presentation, similar to the work that Henry Neeman and Diane Baxter do: to the message of what is done with Supercomputing.
What is Supercomputing? Henry’s presentation.
What is Supercomputing... Teragrid, petascale computing, uses of supercomputing.

Jumpstart
http://www.psc.edu/eot/k12/jump.php

Demonstration of the Project
Two lessons, and explanation of howab to build the project, some uses.
Resource handout as well as the resource link for Jumpstart.
Computational Thinking
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~CompThink/

Computational Thinking ‐ A Problem Solving Tool for Every Classroom

Computational thinking is an analytical tool for problem solving with models and methods from computer science. It should be a subset of the analytical skills students have in math, science, social studies, the humanities and more.
Computational thinking is a fundamental skill for everyone, not just computer scientists. Learn how to include computational thinking strategies in your classes and how to encourage your colleagues to engage their students in meaningful computational strategies. (handout)
WORKSHOP 2: Computational modeling and curriculum

90 minutes

Demonstrations of curriculum (several K-12)
Shodor examples

Fire!, Probability, and Chaos

Utilizes and reinforces concepts of probability, mean, line plots, experimental data, and chaos in analyzing a forest fire simulation. (Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12)

https://www.shodor.org/interactivate/lessons/FireProbabilityChaos

Predator Prey

Rabbits & Wolves

Simulation (http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/rabbits/index.html, 04-25-2005)
Could do the predator prey relationship from Project Wild to show the efficacy of the computer model.
http://www.shodor.org
Skilled professional sharing and showing the Shodor.org programs suggest using the ones on the Moodle:
http://moodle.sc-education.orgUsers who have VenSim installed might enjoy trying out the ‘Princes and Princesses’ simulation available at:
http://shodor.org/talks/ncsi/vensim/
Resources Workshop One

The Exploring Computer Science Curriculum ACM
The Exploring Computer Science (ECS) materials provide daily lesson plans and resources which support the teaching of six instructional units:
1) Human Computer Interaction
2) Problem Solving
3) Web Design
4) Introduction to Programming
5) Robotics; and
6) Computing Applications.
The curriculum adopts an inquiry-based learning model and each unit concludes with an in-depth project. The instructional materials have been developed for high school classrooms in the Los Angeles Unified School Dsitrict as an instruction tool for introducing students to the ‘computational thinking’ of computer science.

Classroom Poster on IT
Poster IT is all about me
http://www.csta.acm.org/Resources/sub/CareersFile/connections_poster.pdf
to order Cstephenson@csta.acm.org

Visualizations
http://tango.csc.smith.edu/dftwiki/index.php/Visualizations

Panel Discussion on Digital Equity
Bonnie Bracey Sutton, Ruthe Farmer, Vic Sutton, Bob Plants

Or use local professionals.That works.

Or use the digital generation youth stories to generate discussion
Today's kids are born digital -- born into a media-rich, networked world of infinite possibilities. But their digital lifestyle is about more than just cool gadgets; it's about engagement, self-directed learning, creativity, and empowerment. The Digital Generation Project tells their stories so that educators and parents can understand how kids learn, communicate, and socialize in very different ways than any previous generation.
Youth Stories
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-youth-portraits
Video Source www.edutopia.org
http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation
Edutopia's success stories about what works in public education revolve around six Core Concepts.

Digital Equity Toolkit

What is Digital Equity?
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Publications/LL/LLIssues/Volume_35_2007_2008_/September_October_No_2_/35248d.pdf

Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing

Jane Margolis discussed their research on why so few African-American, Latino/a, and female
high school students are learning computer science. They will argue that their study of computer science education reveals how inequality is reproduced in this country, despite the national hope and wish for technology to be a great equalizer.

Resources Workshop 2
Gender Equity
Resource Box National Council of Women in Technology (NCWIT)
NCWIT Resources provide information and statistics on girls' and women's participation, as well as practices and tools for increasing their participation.
• The Multimedia page provides compelling audio and video examples of why women-in-technology matters.
• Our collection of Assessment resources can help you figure out whether your current efforts are succeeding, and how to make them more effective.
• Careers in IT offers a range of online options for those seeking a career in IT, from job boards to mentoring resources to women’s leadership training.

• The Digital Library provides a portal to a broad range of resources, from K-12 through careers.
• Partner Resources link to other organizations that share NCWIT’s mission.

Here is an on-line Powerpoint on from CSTA that is very good:
http://www.csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/CSIT09Presentation/owens.GirlsTalks.pdf.

Young Women and Minority Student Outreach
What Research Tells Us
Time: 47:08

In this video, Lecia Barker (National Center for Women in Information Technology) discusses research on best practices for outreach to young women and minority students. Lecia looks at the research evidence underlying the choices you need to make when doing a roadshow presentation, specifically why you choose the messages and the activities that you choose.

Comment by bbracey

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:11:30 PDT

Old dogs and old cats can be professionally developed. It will be interesting when this generation of digital natives gets older. I am neither a digital native or an immigrant and I am a teacher. I am a digital pioneer , now working in new fields, but saddened at the idea that few people are really interested in teaching , making possible technical and academic fluency for teachers in classrooms. There has been a eight year gap while people scrambled to do
NCLB and that has been a problem for teachers in service. Time to do a nation sharing of best practice ideas but there are so many places calling for information and so little effective practice that teachers have been exposed to.

Some new ideas are T-Pack( Judi Harris_ and the digitalization of
Blooms taxonomy, and the ideas going toward the future... educators
teaching problem solving, collaboration and Super computing.

Young teachers, new teachers , collaborations, with learning places such as museums, and 4 H , we all need to teach for America , not the program but the idea of going forward into the future armed with the teaching skills that are needed. Ignore a teacher and reduce the effect the thing you teach can have as a multiplied effort. It is way over due that fluidity in technology is a skill that teachers need.

Bonnie Bracey Sutton

Comment by Michael Simkins

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:51:02 PDT

I'm intrigued by Frank's two primary missions for K-12: baby-sitting and learning. Often in discussions of "21st century learning" ignore the pragmatic issue of childcare. Schools are what they are partly because they are the place that takes care of the kids during the day. Perhaps we also need to give thought to "21st century childcare." While this may be beyond the scope of the National Broadband Plan, the nature of childcare arrangements will certainly effect and delimit what we can do in terms of learning programs, experiences, etc.

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:01:24 PDT

This is great - thanks for the reference. We will take a look. Exactly the stuff we're trying to find.

Comment by Jan Zanetis

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:09:09 PDT

Steve,

Here is an interesting study that was done on the Arkansas Distance Learning project in which students from any high school could attend classes via "online" virtual school or CIV (interactive video). The organization that conducted this in-depth survey, the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC.org) is one that should be brought to the table in Broadband applications in K12.
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:oGAmIscPia8J:ardl.k12.ar.us/Documents/Arkansas%2520DL%2520Initiative%2520Report%25202008.doc+ruth+blankenbaker+arkansas&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

JZ

Comment by Fleep Tuque

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:35:28 PDT

The Ohio Learning Network has done similar work for higher education in the state of Ohio, though with online resources more than video conferencing - see http://oln.org for more examples.

Connecting stakeholders in the state helps build capacity across many institutions to best leverage the network for our students.

Comment by Jan Zanetis

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:49:40 PDT

Along these lines, I am pasting an email I got today from GEC, a wonderful Global Education initiative. Jan

Greetings, GEC members!

I'm pleased to report that we now have over 2100 members in the Global Education Collaborative. Even more opportunities exist to connect with other educators around the world!

New members in the last month hail from South Africa, Qatar, Canada, Australia, the Phillipines, China, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Denmark, Mexico, Columbia, the U.K, Uganda, Ghana, Pakistan and El Salvador. As the US school year resumes, we also have a slew of new members from the U.S including Puerto Rico. I'm thrilled with our growth; please keep inviting your friends and colleagues to our community.

Important Announcements:
*Global Awareness Panel on the Future of Education webinar series is scheduled for September 10, 2009 at 7 PM CST. Several GEC members will be discussing their work and implications for 21st century skills. For more info, visit: http://www.futureofeducation.com/forum/topics/global-awareness-panel.
*There are about 15 new projects listed on the GEC spreadsheet: http://tinyurl.com/gecprojects . Please add your own projects or update your current listings.
*Don't forget to follow the GEC on Twitter. I tweet new discussion forum posts as they happen. http://twitter.com/globaledning *If you are interested in research in general and open education resources, please join another project with which I am involved: http://researcherswithoutborders.ning.com.
*I'm looking to organize a group of first grade teachers (student ages 5-6) interested in exchanging info with other classes. Leave a message in the GEC if interested.
*If you are looking to explore links related to global education, check out our Diigo group:
http://groups.diigo.com/groups/globaleducation

Thanks for your continued support and I hope many of you join us for the September 10th webinar!

Lucy Gray
GEC Founder
elemenous@gmail.com

Visit The Global Education Collaborative at: http://globaleducation.ning.com

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:36:26 PDT

Well said, cshively. I know a lot of older teachers who are totally committed to using new techniques that some younger teachers aren't yet exploring (sometimes the younger teachers are too busy trying to just get their lessons together, to be able to spend time with more advanced techniques).

Writing anyone off who wants to participate in new techniques for innovative teacher and learning is a big mistake. "In cyber space, no one can see your grey hair."

Comment by cshively

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:33:54 PDT

I do not believe we should ignore the "old dogs." Many veteran teachers seek out "new tricks" throughout their teaching careers and are regular explorers of newer opportunities to learn using broadband-facilitated web connections. Only a multi-pronged approach will draw in both experienced educators and more adventurous (but less experienced) teachers. Each brings an important perspective to any discussion. The enthusiastic comments of blogging novice/classroom experienced teachers on the "The Best Resource for Me Is Other Teachers" referenced below is very typical of may willing teachers who could be written off as "old dogs."

Comment by vcochran

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:03:16 PDT

A research offering posted by a building code specialist friend on twitter this morning:

Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies, published May of this year by US Dept of Ed:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18963103/Study-Finds-That-Online-Education-Beats-the-Classroom

The study is limited to web-based instruction, excluding video conferencing modes, however, there may be useful overlap. I haven't had time to read it in its entirety and won't till tomorrow, but the url summarizes their findings. And, the bibliography of published research is extensive (Jan, I thought of you when I saw it!)

Comment by groethem

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:10:58 PDT

Excellent comments!

Comment by Jan Zanetis

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:09:27 PDT

Moodle rocks! The thing I like about it, besides the cost, is that other great edu apps integrate with it and it is so user friendly. Even teachers with limited tech skills get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Jan Zanetis

Comment by Jan Zanetis

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 17:06:20 PDT

Steve,

I am glad you asked about this. I am attaching a couple of documents recently done by Wainhouse Research that will give you some idea of this technology's penetration and applications. While the original implementations were indeed very expensive, and used ISDN lines to work, today its much more reasonable and quite often funded through E-Rate and various Federal grants...and run on boradband networks. Up until recently the majority of applications were for connecting teachers to rural students to deliver courses, however in the last couple of years the number one use of the technology is to connect classes to content providers: museums, science centers, historical sites for live, interactive, standards-based lessons covering every subject in the curriculum. For more on this, visit the major clearinghouse in the world for this: http://cilc.org the Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration. To test drive what I'm talking about, do a subject search here: http://cilc.org/c/education/content_provider_programs.aspx
The most rapidly growing app is collaborative projects linking kids to kids. CILC also cover that here: http://cilc.org/c/community/collaboration_center.aspx

There's not a lot of research on this videoconferencing in education. Attached is a recent report conducted for the state of Arkansas, who from the legislation, funded a VC deployment into every high school in the state. Here is a page with some interesting articles that are related, however few with pure research: http://www.twice.cc/rvcbib.html I recommend the one by Cathy Cavanaugh, an oldie but goody. I would be glad to gather more information on this topic if you wish.

Jan Zanetis

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:24:45 PDT

Great - this is helpful and will be used.

Comment by vcochran

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:22:33 PDT

USDA Rural Development Awards to California educational bodies (and otherwise) for distance learning infrastructure improvements:

http://www.usda.gov/rus/telecom/dlt/dltaward-summaries/dltawards_ca.htm

Balancing travel expenses in a public school district:

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20081223005384&newsLang=en

Comment by vcochran

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:05:22 PDT

Locally, SCCCD (State Center Community College District, California)is using video conferencing. I believe it's a delivery solution for large rural counties with small outlying towns, solving distance and facilities logistics, making the cost very worthwhile.

I'm not sure which specifics would be most valuable to you: a yahoo search of "SCCCD videoconferencing classes" should bring up enough relevant links.

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:36:34 PDT

Hi,

Isn't videoconferencing a very expensive infrastructure investment? I haven't seen many schools myself with the capability to do this. Perhaps it's a network effect problem where if we provide it widely then it will be more useful and have a bigger impact?

Do you know of any studies or evidence to support remote teaching/learning via videocon type solutions? Any research evidence can help me a lot in making the case here. - Steve

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:33:00 PDT

Mary - thanks. This is very helpful and timely. Protecting kids without punishing them, as you describe, is critical to any sustainable education broadband policy. I'm going to give the Chairman's office your orgs information and hopefully they'll follow up, as they are doing research in this area right now. - Steve

Comment by vcochran

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:50:07 PDT

I agree: "No One Technology"

Yes, our circumstances are extremely diverse, and blended usage allows for the most flexibility.

Yes, lets' not jump ahead to any kind of vetting. Not vetting will allow more resources to appear here. Steps preparatory to any meaningful vetting also include having a community of educators that represent the breadth of needs/usages, as well as a central collection point for information about what's available and how it's being used. We don't have a centralized collection point and we don't have broad enough involvement, at this point.

Yes, lets also use the internet in two ways it's proven its worth: 1) let's also consider tools/practices valued within the educational communities of other nations; 2) let's allow natural vetting, through community valuing/usage and lack of usage, occur.

Comment by George Phillips

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:15:09 PDT

If we build it, will they come?

Development of high-quality multimedia broadband online educational resources requires considerable investment. Will that investment pay off educationally if not financially? Our experience with U.S.A. Learns says it will. U.S.A. Learns is an innovative project that creates an online pathway to literacy, language proficiency, economic opportunity, citizenship, civil participation, and civic integration for those who have been unable to benefit from traditional classroom programs due to problems with childcare, transportation, work schedules or other issues. It was conceived in 2005 when the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) recognized the seriousness of the language and literacy problem and contracted with the Project IDEAL Support Center at the University of Michigan and the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) to find out if the Web could use broadband technology to deliver instruction directly to adults who could not attend school due to personal circumstances or a lack of available programs. As a test-of-concept, SCOE and the University of Michigan designed and built U.S.A. Learns (www.usalearns.org) - a Web site to teach English to immigrants, an audience considered least likely to be able to use the Internet for self-study. If we built it, would they come?

The site was launched November 7, 2008, with more than 400 hours of free instruction. Since then, with little or no promotion, the site has had 2,005,890 visits. With more than 7,000 visits per day, each lasting nearly 30 minutes, usalearn.org’s popularity exceeded everyone’s expectations. However, after 9 months of operation with no promotional efforts whatsoever, usage had begun to level off. With some 21.7 million adults in the U.S. who are limited English proficient, and another 1.8 million new immigrants arriving annually (according to the Migration Policy Institute), we were certain there were many more who would use and benefit from the site if they only knew about it. As an experiment to see if we could increase awareness and usage, we recently sent out a simple press release, fact sheet and public service announcement to media with Hispanic and other immigrant audiences in ten U.S. cities. The number of daily visits immediately tripled!

We think that this tremendous response is one more indicator of both the need and the potential for not just enhanced adult language learning and literacy programs online, but for a truly comprehensive adult learning portal on the Web that both takes advantage of broadband's capabilities and promotes its use among market segments not usually reached. Moreover, in today’s challenging economic environment, the dramatically lower cost of broadband delivery makes the case for an online learning portal especially compelling. (The Migration Policy Institute estimates costs for classroom ESL programs at $10 per learner hour; U.S.A. Learns is operated for less than seven cents per learner hour!)

If we build a comprehensive learning portal, will they come? Based on a typical learner's appreciation for U.S.A. Learns, they will: “Just I want to say thanks for this program. Is very important for me to learn English, but for my job, I can’t to go to school. Thanks again and God bless all of you.”

George Phillips
Sacramento County Office of Education

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 10:46:04 PDT

I love it. I wonder if anyone has information on examples of schools and teachers doing this sort of long distance collaboration and instruction? I know that INACOL and CA K-12 HSN are both working on things like this.. Any other examples of this kind of work would be very welcome.

Comment by dennis

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 15:19:23 PDT

D:\drice\articles\The Technology Source Archives - Carving a New Path for Distance Education Research.htm

Steve,
This may be a helpful resource.
Carving a New Path for Distance Education Research
by David P. Diaz
Note: This article was originally published in The Technology Source (http://ts.mivu.org/) as: David P. Diaz "Carving a New Path for Distance Education Research" The Technology Source, March/April 2000.

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:57:06 PDT

Great references. Thanks - we will follow up. This article on ASCD speaks well to the Web2 side of all this:

http://ascd.typepad.com/blog/2009/07/the-best-resource-for-me-is-other-teachers.html

Comment by dennis

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:51:48 PDT

http://www.techlearning.com/
http://www.usdla.org/
http://www.ascd.org/ ASCD would have members who would love to be in on this, Steve.If you let them know what you are doing, they may refer you to people.

Comment by Bob Calder

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:06:07 PDT

I have used Moodle for ages. It would be the obvious choice for deploying LMS in this situation.

Comment by danmcguir

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 08:47:39 PDT

The only difference between online only and in-person as far as Moodle is concerned is that you wouldn't be able to do any explaining or instructing in-person. The software is identical either way. Moodle actually started as an online only tool and then was adopted by in-person instructors because it works so well either way. There's more than enough info about Moodle available at http://moodle.org/. Go there and search on Moodle history and you'll get a better version than I can write here.

Comment by Bob Calder

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:35:25 PDT

The hardware and software represent the same kind of connection your cell phone gives you to your friends and family. The telco promises you will have instant contact and more shared family goodness. Look at the features you have on your cell phone. They are designed to allow you to share with the people you are closest to. This represents an intimate level of communication. But there are other levels of non-public or semi-public friendship and association represented by things like Twitter and FaceBook that facilitate that. Remember, privacy/security is a social compact, not a bit of code.

Now think of that sort of pipeline to the community at school.

Personally I think the problem with getting this done is that most people dont' see a school as a social network. They see a school as a dysfunctional bunch of burnt-out losers and thugs in a jail-like building who at the end of the day, just want to get away from one another.

Putting *this* kind of group in 24/7 contact won't do a thing. The key is fostering community with technology.

The U.S. is particularly bad at this but we won't admit it. The fight by the director of the FCC for Internet access for schools against the chairman of the Dept of Ed William Bennett during the Reagan administration is instructive.

The reliance on legislation to improve education is subject to inherent limitations. Laws can only do so much to try to foster social change. As Dick Schultz said, "research based" doesn't mean "research proven" either, so political capital is currently being wasted to some extent on a single-minded conservative agenda that doesn't accept deviation from issues like faith in standardized testing.

That's where the real problem for this initiative will lie. Access for homeschoolers and religious institutions.

If we look at as an opportunity to provide universal open access curriculum to every person in the U.S., it will meet with some measure of approval on the far right.

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:02:11 PDT

Could you describe a little bit about how Moodle works as an online-only tool? I'm reasonably familiar with its capability to organize learning practice as it relates to in-person instruction. But how is it used in on-line only environments? As detailed as you can be would be appreciated, though I realize that there's always search engines to figure this out too! Thanks Steve

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:24:23 PDT

Can you provide some real world examples of where people are doing new things online in Professional Development?

What kind of thesis and dissertation research and application should be supported? What specifically should those projects be working on?

Any additional detail on your idea would be very helpful for the FCC! (I'm the education director there, and we are trying to listen closely to this website and the public!).

Comment by Steve Midgley, Director Education FCC

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 06:21:51 PDT

What should students be doing with the hardware once they acquire it? If we had ubiquitous access to hardware and bandwidth in the US for all students, how should they be making use of it to further their learning and development? What should educators and government be doing to support those uses?