Project Based Learning a passport to STEM

The new budget by the President is not helpful for the infusion of technology. But intrepid teachers have help.

I go for the STEM , Broadeing Engagement in STEM in a flat work ( ICT)

Are you paying attention to the initiatives for teaching science, math, engineering and technology?
In a No Child Left Behind atmosphere it is hard to even think innovation, hands on science and constructivism, but American businesses and thought leaders are on alert.

Are you? Are members of your learning community, the school board and the administrations a part of thinking about how we change teaching and learning to create STEM initiatives?


The congress is aware and alert! A whole lot of new funding and initiatives have been passed in both houses of the government. It is true that we as teachers, professors and academicians have to enter our voices into the plan. Somehow we who teach are often the last to know. But since we do the work, it cannot be done without some partnerships in education , nationally and Internationally.

A new learning landscape will emerge.

Actually we in the world have to be on alert for many reasons. Think Climate Change for example, or a finite supply of water, or desertification, or the race to find a cure for major diseases... there is a world wide need for more STEM career pathways to knowledge.

So much of what we do is International. So many of our countries benefit from those who are involved in STEM careers. Many countries are just starting to be involved in technology in meaningful ways.


And what is STEM?

STEM has become a common acronym, particularly among policy advocates and government officials, for the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The term is commonly used in relation to the nation's economic competitiveness and the related need for education programs in support of future generations. Among the most recent relevant publications on STEM education and competitiveness is Rising Above the Gathering Storm from the National Academies Press.

But STEM initiatives are at Compete.org, at the National Society of Engineering, and in MIT-Pitac. The National Academy of Sciences

The largest meeting I ever went to was the PITAC meeting which had 800 to 900 people at the National Academy of Sciences. Their goals were to get the STEM bills to congress and to talk about competiveness .


There is Compete.org
They have a wonderful video that would start the awareness in your community about what can be done.

There is also the Innovate America Act.
www.innovateamerica.org/webscr/report.asp


The good news is that the level of the world's acting participants can be raised in STEM, from all places.. the world is flat.

With technology we can raise the level of STEM in the world. I hope we will have many
international project based learning activities in the future. There is the reportTechnically Speaking Why all Americans need to know about technology.



Groups involved in STEM Advocacy

o STEMEd Caucus: A Caucus of Members of Congress in support of STEM education issues, chaired by Congressman Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and Congressman Mark Udall (D-CO).

o STEM Education Coalition: The STEM Education Coalition is composed of advocates from over 40 diverse groups representing all sectors of the technological workforce - from knowledge workers, to educators, to scientists, engineers, and technicians. The participating organizations of the STEM Education Coalition are dedicated to ensuring quality STEM education at all levels. The Coalition is co-chaired by the American Chemical Society and the National Science Teachers Association.

There is also a K-12 STEM Committee.


Last year, Congress created the Academic Competitiveness Council (ACC) to "identify all federal education programs with a math or science focus, determine the effectiveness of each program, identify areas of overlap, and recommend ways to efficiently integrate and coordinate in the future." Commenting on the initial work of the ACC, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said that while there are "a thousand flowers blooming" throughout the federal government, there are also "a few weeds." Also testifying at the hearing were the directors of the NSF, the Office of Science at the Department of Energy, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Research Subcommittee of the House Science Committee also heard testimony this spring from witnesses who said that improving undergraduate STEM education is key to improving science and math education at the K-12 level. While most of their comments and recommendations were focused on how to better prepare K-12 teachers, the witnesses also discussed the importance of educating undergraduates in STEM fields for graduate education that leads to careers as researchers and for the increasing number of employment opportunities that require expertise in science, math, or technology. Carl Weiman, a Nobel laureate in physics and distinguished professor of Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, noted that "science majors are not being created in college through educating students to the utility and intellectual challenges and rewards of science. Instead, successful science majors are primarily those few students that . . . manage to survive their undergraduate science education."

In case you think I have forgotten technology.. not a chance.. We have documents and resources that tell us that what we are doing in the current learning environment is not working. We pioneered technology in the US and we are falling behind in many areas, but this area seems to be more possible to transform.

Cell phones . . . airbags . . . genetically modified food . . . the Internet. These are all emblems of modern life. You might ask what we would do without them. But an even more interesting question might be what would we do if we had to actually explain how they worked?

The United States is riding a whirlwind of technological change. To be sure, there have been periods, such as the late 1800s, when new inventions appeared in society at a comparable rate. But the pace of change today, and its social, economic, and other impacts, are as significant and far reaching as at any other time in history. And it seems that the faster we embrace new technologies, the less we re able to understand them. What is the long-term effect of this galloping technological revolution? In today s new world, it is nothing less than a matter of responsible citizenship to grasp the nature and implications of technology.

Technically Speaking provides a blueprint for bringing us all up to speed on the role of technology in our society, including understanding such distinctions as technology versus science and technological literacy versus technical competence. It clearly and decisively explains what it means to be a technologically-literate citizen. The book goes on to explore the context of technological literacy the social, historical, political, and educational environments. Here is the free online book.
Technically Speaking:
Why All Americans Need to Know More About Technology

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10250#description


These are ideas that you should be discussing in your local, national and international communities.


STEM has become a common acronym, particularly among policy advocates and government officials, for the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The term is commonly used in relation to the nation's economic competitiveness and the related need for education programs in support of future generations. Among the most recent relevant publications on STEM education and competitiveness is Rising Above the Gathering Storm from the National Academies Press.
Participants will learn the basis of the initiative( reseach based), be given project based learning iniatives examples, and be
furnished with action items to change teaching and learning for broadening the base of science, math, technology and engineering.



STEM has become a common acronym, particularly among policy advocates and government officials, for the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The term is commonly used in relation to the nation's economic competitiveness and the related need for education programs in support of future generations. Among the most recent relevant publications on STEM education and competitiveness is Rising Above the Gathering Storm from the National Academies Press.
Participants will learn the basis of the initiatives ( reseach based), be given project based learning iniatives) examples, and be
furnished with action items to change teaching and learning for broadening the base of science, math, technology and engineering.

Participants will learn of professional development initiatives that can transform teaching practices.
Modules includes articles, video footage, PowerPoint® presentations, and class activities. They draw from the wealth of GLEF's archives of best practices and correlate with ISTE/NCATE NETS standards

Teachers and administrators will benefit from attending this presentation because they will have an awareness of and be presented with models of STEM resources, activities and project-based learning resources.


STEM has become a common acronym, particularly among policy advocates and government officials, for the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The term is commonly used in relation to the nation's economic competitiveness and the related need for education programs in support of future generations. Among the most recent relevant publications on STEM education and competitiveness is Rising Above the Gathering Storm from the National Academies Press.
Glef.org resources will give the basis of the initiatives ( reseach based), be given project based learning iniatives) examples, and be furnished with action items to change teaching and learning for broadening the base of science, math, technology and engineering.

Modules includes articles, video footage, PowerPoint® presentations, and class activities. They draw from the wealth of GLEF's archives of best practices and correlate with ISTE/NCATE NETS standards


Edutopia is for everyone with a stake in improving schools. from leading teachers and administrators to committed business leaders, policy makers, community members, researchers, and parents. I am one of those educational activists who uses the resources , their media as tools for change which is online, and in workshops, courses and community meetings.

I love the project learning initiatives and the download for teachers so that they can personalize the work for professional development

PROJECT LEARNING

While most of these are content from the Lucas Foundation one can learn to develop a personal learning landscape using a project of one's own.


WHY IS PROJECT LEARNING IMPORTANT?

In project learning, students work in teams to explore real-world problems and create presentations to share what they have learned. Compared with learning solely from textbooks, this approach has many benefits for students, including

*Deeper knowledge of subject matter.
* Increased self-direction and motivation.
* Improved research and problem-solving skills.
*Understanding how academics connect to jobs and careers.


NEW TO PROJECT LEARNING?

Essential reading: the why, what, and how of effective project learning:

*Start with the Pyramid: Real-World Issues Motivate Students
*PBL Research Summary: Studies Validate Project-Based Learning
*New Skills for a New Century: Students Thrive on Cooperation and Problem Solving

FEATURED CONTENT

*Project-Based Learning Instructional Module
http://www.edutopia.org/teaching-module-pbl
This free teaching module may be used by workshop presenters, college professors, or individuals interested in getting started with a project-based-learning approach.


*Voyages of Discovery: Five-Year-Olds Explore Through PBL
http://www.edutopia.org/beginning-journey
Student-driven projects, enhanced by technology, launch kindergartners on their way to lifelong learning.

*How To: Get Students to Use New Skills
Teachers use a practitioner model to move away from memorizing and encourage depth of learning.
http://www.edutopia.org/how-to-students-as-practitioners

*Geometry in the Real World: Students as Architect
Through project learning, geometry becomes relevant as well as rigorous.



* Biotech Academy: Challenging Assumptions and Changing Lives

This school-within-a-school puts the emphasis on project-focused academics and a future career.
*A New Way of Learning: Innovative School Models

Progressive secondary school programs focus on personalized education, development of self-esteem, and cultivation of \learning and life skills.
*
Check out the Edutopia web site.

Why Content Isn't King

posted by D. Thornburg

Years ago, someone told me that content was no longer king; that context had taken its place. This statement was made during the early days of the Internet boom, when it was already clear that we were drowning in content. Content was ubiquitous, free, disconnected, constantly growing, and even changing.

Now that broadband has moved into 50% of US homes (according to recent Pew studies), the argument that content is no longer king has taken heightened meaning. But, if this is true, what (from an educational perspective) has taken its place?

In my view, too many folks define their web experience by what they are able to browse or download. As hunter/gatherers in the telematic age, they forage for factoids in a growing sea of drivel populated with occasional gems. To assist in navigating this vast world of content, tools like Nettrekker have emerged to help those who are looking for content germane to a subject area that is also vetted for accuracy. Without such tools, the rest of us are consigned to entering our requests to Google with crossed fingers. The skills of evaluating relevance and accuracy are left up to us. For those areas where we come equipped with prior knowledge, this approach can be quite successful. For the neophyte, however, the results can be tragic.

Worse is the implication that the postings of others should form the basis for our knowledge base; that education is limited to the impartation of content provided by others. What is missing from this picture, quite simply, is the reality that students who conduct research on their own, and who create artifacts representing their learning (along the lines of Papert's constructionism) have the ability to post their findings online for the world to see. The notion of student-created content for the web is often missing from school technology plans. While there is plenty of text devoted to the sites that students can (and can not) visit to gather information, many plans remain remarkably silent on the topic of student posted material. And by student-posted, I'm not talking about assignments placed by students on school servers behind firewalls, but inventions, poems, programs, and other original works posted by students for the world at large to see.

It may be that the popularity of MySpace lies, in part, because it allows young people to create and post content in their own voice.

Broadband can be a powerful force in education as long as the flow of information is bi-directional. One-way receipt of broadband data has been with us for many years. It is called television.

Our students deserve more.

The More Things Change

posted by David Thornburg


Tomorrow we head off to FETC in Orlando, then to Ohio, and then to Texas and TCEA. Winter conference time is here! As I was going over my presentations for the next few weeks, I noticed that every one of them had been changed since I last gave them. The titles stayed the same; the overall message may have stayed the same, and some of my slides were the same, but there we still plenty of changes, many having to do with the continued rapid pace of technological change.

If you look at science fiction from an historical perspective, you'll see that virtually every author overestimated the rate of social change, and underestimated the rate of technological change. Anyone working in the field of educational technology can attest to this continuing trend. Each day we awaken to a new world of powerful tools, some of which may be of great utility to students and educators. As a society, however, we seem locked in a pattern of educational practice that can be argued to have been out of date since the time of Dewey.

Many have railed against the "system," especially against the draconian aspects of NCLB that imply that we can somehow let multiple choice tests provide the kinds of snapshots needed to point the way to improved pedagogical practice.

I've been spending some time thinking about the consequences of technology in which bandwidth is as important as processor speed. On the surface, such developments lead to an increased interest in social constructivism, based on the work of Lev Vygotsky, who died long before any of our modern technologies were invented. Now Vygotsky's work is no more or less relevant today than it was when he shared his ideas with Piaget. Most educators can tell you about the "zone of proximal development," but this does not mean that educational environments are built around the kind of interpersonal communication that brings life to this theory.

And now that social networks have proliferated (thanks to some decent broadband penetration into many homes), we still find many schools that operate using pedagogical models that treat modern computers as attachments to a paper/lecture-based curriculum, rather than seeing these new tools as keys to unlocking ideas from the past that deserve to be brought to our children across the board.

Societal change is so slow, it is sometimes hard to detect. Technology, as I said, is racing away at light-speed.

So, as I go over my presentations for the next few weeks, I ask myself, what can I do to help promote the kind of changes we know are possible.

We'll see. We'll see...

Life is Easier with Shorter URLs

I want to share an article from Businessweek that describes the best releases from the recent Consumer Electronics Show.

This is easy, right?

Just find the article on the web and then copy the URL to an email or blog post for you to use.

Here's one we can use . . .
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/01/0111_ces/source/1.htm?technology+slideshows&technology+slideshows

HUH? What is this address? It's as long as my arm and twice as hairy. It's running off the page. How many times have you pasted a long URL into an email to send to your friend and the end was cut off? Lots, eh

What's a guy to do?

Enter the URL ECONOMIZERS!!!!! Imagine a magical website that will take that mammoth URL and chop it down to a URL Mini-me . These websites are actually huge databases that generate a string of characters that they connect with your inserted URL.


http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/01/0111_ces/source/1.htm?technology+slideshows&technology+slideshows

Turns into

http://tinyurl.com/ypva6q

I would imagine that if that address is already in their database, that it will economize their work by just providing you with the link they created earlier.

Who are the URL Economizers?

TinyURL is the first one I ever found. It is easy to use. You can simply copy the URL, go to TinyURL.com and paste the link into the URL box on their page. It will create a TinyURL that you can use. BUT the REAL benefit of TinyURL.com is when you place the TinyURL link in your browser's tool bar. THEN, all that you have to do is go to your desired website and then click on the new link in your toolbar. It will immediately take you to their website with the TinyURL link already waiting for you to use.

SnipURL (or SNURL) is another one that I have found. It does the economizes URLs BUT it also copies the new address directly to your clipboard. This cuts out the copy and paste process that you need with TinyURL. It means that you just copy the huge URL into the URL box, snipit, and then paste it directly into your email or blog or ?? where you need it. The best part is that if you place a SNURL link in your browser's tool bar, it will automatically create the URL and place it into your clipboard without you even going to the SnipURL website. I love the feature but I don't understand the business model because these companies make their money on the Google Ads they have on their websites. The more times you visit the website, the more money they make.

I would assume that there are a number of other URL economizers on the web. If you know of one, leave a comment so that I can share it with our readers.

VERY INTERESTING NOTE!!!!!! I just realized something about URL economizers and Twittering. I just sent out a long URL on Twitterrific (the interface software for Twitter that I use on my Mac) and it came back as a TinyURL address. That means that the software is smart enough to run long URLs through the economizer to save on space. SOO SMART!!!!

Have a great day and remember - Economize!

Dr Z.
Read more by Dr. Z at Dr. Z Reflects

A Quiet Set of Anniversaries to Think About

 by Bonnie Bracey Sutton

Two observances come to mind.

The Birth of the Internet

and the goal of having Broadband national wide.

Many of us have benefitted from the use of technology in learning landscapes, but a lot of the United States does not have broadband. All of the wonderful resources on the Internet? Imagine only being able to use dial-up. For many Americans that is all there is. The great case studies on Edutopia, the resources of NASA, UCAR, Math Forum are too difficult or too long on a download. 

What's to be done?

Here is where we started in leadership!!NSF and the Birth of the Internet

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/nsf-net/textonly/index.jsp ( in case you dial-up)

There was a time in the not-so-distant past when the world was not connected.
But then a small group of visionaries created the Internet.
And changed the world. The ones I know personally are Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf, and Bob Metcalfe.
Now are we falling off of the flat earth?

It is my observation that the businessmen of America take their gifts for granted and that the market has abandoned rural and distant and poor customers. Congress must act!! The FCC must serve ordinary citizens as well as big media.

As I work spreading the information about STEM, science, technology , engineering and math, I find that many teachers really , need broadband and it is not there for them. It is true that lately, there has been a wake up call regarding broadening engagement and STEM. But the message is slow to get to the congress. We need your help, to remind congress.

Please copy any mail to congress to these two people who are working tirelessly to make Broadband happen.

This is their story.

It is a beautiful movie in flash. 

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/nsf-net/index.jsp

I got to work with some of those visionaries on the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council when America was first in the world in the use of technology. As reflected in 

Norman Augustine's work. 

Today we have challenges. In a Flat World, America has diminished leadership. The reason I linked for those who have dial up is because of the anniversary of another event that was supposed to happen. 

Broadband for All

Quietly the time in which we thought Broadband for All in the US has passed. The press has not said much about it. The Benton Foundation released this press release which you should consider. 

Getting to Universal, Affordable Broadband

Background:
“This country needs a national goal for broadband technology, for the spread of broadband technology. We ought to have a universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007, and then we ought to make sure as soon as possible thereafter, consumers have got plenty of choices when it comes to purchasing the broadband carrier. See, the more choices there are, the more the price will go down. And the more the price goes down, the more users there will be. And the more users there will be, the more likely it is America will stay on the competitive edge of world trade.”
-- President George W. Bush, March 26, 2004[1]

“I think we've met the goal.”
-- Acting NTIA Administrator Meredith Baker, November 2007[2]

On the eve of a missed national broadband goal,  the Benton Foundation releases Universal Affordable Broadband for All Americans, a report and roadmap for making broadband access as universal as telephones are today. The report calls for an aggressive new approach, a national broadband strategy, and efforts to modernize federal universal telephone service policies to help meet the challenges of connecting all Americans to broadband.

It’s now becoming abundantly clear that President Bush has yet to achieve his 2004 campaign promise for universal, affordable high-speed Internet connections by the year 2007. Nonetheless, as 2007 comes to a close, acting National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) head Meredith Baker has indicated the White House will soon release a report claiming broadband deployment is on track thanks to Bush administration policies.

The following can be attributed to Benton Chairman and CEO Charles Benton:

“It's time we put aside rhetoric, embrace reality, and embark on a concerted new effort to bring the benefits of broadband to all Americans. Claiming that our nation’s broadband deployment is on track when millions are disconnected and America is falling further behind is a little like standing on a flight deck and claiming mission accomplished. The facts just don’t support it:

According to a September 2007 Pew Internet & American Life Project phone survey, roughly half of all Americans don’t have broadband at home. Half is far from universal. Other reports suggest America has slipped from 1st to 4th to 15th among industrialized nations in broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants.

While it is clear the President’s goal hasn’t been met, America lacks the detailed data and strategy necessary to ensure American can retake our lead in the vital communication technology of our time. Broadband is now, undeniably, the essential communications medium of the 21st Century. Experts agree that universal broadband availability would not only unleash an estimated $500 billion in economic growth and more than 1.2 million high-wage jobs, but it could help bridge the digital divide and unleash a new wave of innovations, transforming almost every aspect of our lives.

In 2004, President Bush said, “It's important that we stay on the cutting edge of technological change, and one way to do so is to have a bold plan for broadband.” Today, the Benton Foundation is releasing a landmark report, calling for a bold new strategy for broadband, and helping to advance a vision and pragmatic policies that can catapult America forward. It's not just about restoring America’s Internet leadership, it's about putting America on a forward-looking trajectory to help more Americans take advantage of the power and potential that broadband can deliver. To restore the country’s Internet competitiveness and truly achieve a universal broadband goal, we must:

1) create a national broadband strategy with set benchmarks, deployment timetables, a commitment to demand drivers, and measurable thresholds;
2) develop federal policies to transition us from analog to fully digital communication technologies – making broadband based communication as universal as telephones are today; and
3) extend broadband's reach to those who can benefit most and harness its potential in order to boost education, reduce health care costs, encourage telecommuting, reduce greenhouse emissions, transform our emergency communication infrastructure, improve homeland security, and raise standards of living.

To do anything less leaves us ill-prepared to tackle the grand challenges that America faces over the horizon.

Universal Affordable Broadband for All Americans available at http://www.benton.org/node/8537
Press Release 

http://www.benton.org/node/8538

We can be leaders again, in the field of technology but our national leaders must be reminded that we want to meet this national goal. Many of our students are not only burdened bu a digital divide, but also a technical divide, and a knowledge divide.
Let's really broaden engagement by involving all of our citizens in the use of broadband technologies.

Please copy your letters to your congressman to these people. Or have you say on the blog.

Charles Benton
Chairman
Benton Foundation
1560 Sherman Ave
Evanston, IL 60201
847.328.3040

Jim Kohlenberger
Senior Fellow
Benton Foundation
1625 K Street, NW 11th Floor
Washington DC 20006
703.237.2357

I Got My XO computer from OLPC

I GOT MY XO!!!!!

Well, actually, I got it about a couple of weeks before Christmas, but with all the preparations I didn't get a chance to blog about it. Also, I showed incredible restraint by telling myself that I would not seriously play with it until I got my grades submitted. What self control!!!!

You can see that it's a little smaller than the average laptop computer. Actually it is a lot smaller than my MacBook. The XO screen (and usable space) measures 9" x 6". My MacBook is 13" x 9". That's OK. It's designed for children.
I was amazed by the sophistication of this computer.

• It has a 7.5" screen (diagonal).
  
• It sports a microphone and camera.
• No moving parts but it has a 1 GB flash drive. (This memory can be augmented with an SD card slot in the lower right corner of the screen below the power switch - don't know the capacity.)
• Ready with 802.11 b/g wireless.
• Comes with 19 programs including a browser, word processor, recorder (audio, still and video), draw, musicmaker, TurtleArt (Logo), eToys (multimedia authoring tool - looks comprehensive), Pippy (programming language), calculator, news reader, and a variety of other programs that I don't understand yet. Here is a site that explains them all http://tinyurl.com/246ay2
• Runs on Linux so I can download programs for free. I have already downloaded SimCity and a variety of games. Only problem is that I have problems reading some of them on the 7.5" screen.
• When I go to the Community-mode, I can see the various wi-fi access points in my immediate area. I can't wait until I find someone else with an XO so we can peer-to-peer file share. I haven't figured out how to go peer-to-peer with my MacBook.
• My MacBook's screen runs on 40 watts of power. The XO screen takes 2 watts.
  
• IT'S AMAZING!!!!!

Problems or Things I Haven't Figured Out Yet:

• The keyboard is too small for me to touch type. You can see this in the photo. I have to remember that this computer is designed for kids. They have smaller hands. The kids of Asian countries have MUCH smaller hands than I do.
• Don't know how to access my flash drive when I insert it into one of the 3 USB ports. Nor do I know how to access the SD cards when I put them in the slot.
• I still haven't figured out how to use Sugar (the Linux-based interface designed especially for kids to use on this computer.)
• The documentation is all supposed to be online at http://www.laptop.org/en/laptop/start/ but it isn't in-depth enough for me. You know that we Digital Immigrants (gotta love that Dave) sometimes need a little help to get over our lack of intuitive insight. =-)

I truly believe that the XO is the beginning of a new revolution in computing. It isn't that this computer is the greatest computer on the planet, but it is a fully-functional wireless multimedia laptop that has broken the $200 price barrier. Granted that this is not a machine for MMORPG online gaming. It does not sport the multimedia recording equipment needed for making YouTube videos, but it has shown that a laptop doesn't have to be a $2,000 investment.

I thank Dr. Negroponte for developing a dream and allowing us to begin on the journey to affordable, accessible computing in education so that computers aren't devices that we visit every Friday to learn about keyboarding. They can become integral learning machines that will provide the palettes and canvases needed to release creativity in children ALL OVER THE WORLD.

Dr. Z
Read more by Dr. Z at Dr. Z's Blog

The Biggest Loser: America in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math..America, We Have a Problem!!

A discussion of emerging technologies created quite a stir among the members of the center.


My ideas of emerging technologies have always been put down. But I have important businessmen and civic people who have the same concerns that I have. Social networking is one thing but ongoing innovation, imagination, insight, constructivism, ingenuity, impact and invention are important too. Look at http://www.compete.org. The business people say it better than I can.

Because of our ongoing discussions, I examined the ideas of 2.0 and thought of 1.0 where lots of people are in technology in education, and got excited about the work in Super Computing which I have been priviledged to participate in as a learner, a teacher and a person with a project.


SuperComputing?

Henry Neeman says,

What is Supercomputing?
"Supercomputing is the biggest, fastest computing right this minute.
Likewise, a supercomputer is one of the biggest, fastest computers right this minute.
So, the definition of supercomputing is constantly changing.
Rule of Thumb: a supercomputer is typically at least 100 times as powerful as a PC.
Jargon: supercomputing is also called High Performance Computing (HPC)."


Computational Science also has my attention and you can find that at Shodor.org just a lot of great information and student, parent, and community ways to learn. It is my sad duty to report to you that rural and distant folks can't access most of what we take for granted every day on the web. There are countries where broadband for all is a priorty. Pathways to understanding math and science, real math and science are there.

Look folks, the kids have to develop "habits of mind" and ways to have" hard fun "collaborative ways of working, and develop problem solving skills.It must start early. It must start in the early grades for all. Some of us who have been using technology a long time can testify as to the advantage it has given students who are still in touch with us because of the use of technology.


You already know that the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has a report on the Achievement Trap, in the press release they say,the needs of high potential and high-achieving students should not be pitted against the educational needs of underachievers."

We Need to Broaden Engagement

Overlooked under the No Child Left Behind law, these 3.4 million extraordinary students are larger than the populations of 21 individual states and largely representative of the race, ethnicity, gender and geography of America as a whole. The report's authors say the faulty assumption that these students don't need help to achieve at high levels is causing an enormous, but preventable talent drain in our nation's schools. As a result, the top 25 percent of students are disproportionately higher-income. Translated? There is one heck of a digital divide.

K-12 findings:

Even before they enter first grade, lower-income high achievers are off to a bad start - only 28 percent of students in the top quarter of their first grade class are from lower-income families, while 72 percent come from higher-income families.
From first to fifth grade nearly half of the lower-income students in the top 25 percent of their class in reading fell out of this rank.

In high school, one quarter of the lower-income students who ranked in the top 25 percent of their class in eighth grade math fell out of this top ranking by twelfth grade.

In both cases, upper-income students maintain their places in the top quartile of achievement at significantly higher rates than lower-income students. The report..Achievement Trap: How America Is Failing Millions of High-Achieving Students From Lower-Income Families.

Back to the Concern

I suppose since I worked as a member of the NIIAC, I see lots of the descriptions of emerging technologies in 2.0 as having reached the stage where they have become disruptive in education and therefore are accepted and learned. I will come back to this in a few paragraphs.

You know that we had the digital divide to try to help solve and that we needed to broaden participation so that most of the schools in America had access. We had willing partners to help us do the research and get the initiatives going. 

Perhaps in education when a large mass of people are interested, then the technology is adapted. We have been blogging some of us before it had a name, but that doesn't mean anything in technology. What seems to be important is how one invites, educates and brings others to the technology so that there are many instead of one.

At this time , based on the Convocation on the Gathering Storm, and the work of many committees and groups that have gone to Washington, we have a need for bipartisanship investment of time, effort and initiatives to solve that problem again. Many groups have gone to Washington to share their concern about our status in technology in the world. You can find the information on that one at http://www.benton.org/publibrary/kickstart/home.html.

HISTORY

When Al Gore, pushed us to create a presence for academics, that included people in the classroom on the Information Highway... we worked hard to make that happen. We started that work in 2003, and created a lot of documents that have actually no author, since they were a combination of what we on the committee thought. In fact, often the information ended up at the Department of Education in outreach to teachers , and other professionals. Our work
was not under copyright.  You can still find some of it carefully saved at the Benton site. 

While teaching a class of teachers in preparation at American University. I realized that many of the students were in First Grade when we were doing this work. I suppose in 8 years or more of a great difference in education the paving of the way to utilize technology in America has been forgotten. In an era of No Child Left Behind, technology has been used to deliver testing and testing components, more and more and more. The actual use of technology in meaningful ways seems to have ceased except for many casebook studies that you can find on various websites. The George Lucas Educational Foundation continued to push the use of innovation in education and there have been university initiatives here and there.

Our idea was to connect America much in the same way as Gore's father helped to create the infrastructure of highways that link America. We were an interesting bunch of people and I was probably the only one who was essentially powerless. Teachers don't get much play in Washington unless they are called on to testify. With the help of people on the council, I was able to get a project started, and done that was essentially the only project that was done, called KickStart , for education. We worked in several ways to inform, bring technology to education in the nation by doing outreach, creating the E-rate, demonstrating the technology in CyberEd , which was a traveling van with computers, phones, fax machines and a station that allowed us to use the infrastructure in the communities we traveled into demonstrate the possibilities of the use of technology. It was a combination of resources from the major technology providers in the interest of sharing technology with Americans. We created the E-rate I am proud to say.

Behind the scenes, the Vice President helped with a number of initiatives, Globe and with creating the buzz in education , attending conferences and actually putting hands on the computer at several educational conferences. At the time President Clinton also joined him for a few of the conferences. They wanted to show the nation the uses of technology. Ecology and the environment  have always been an agenda item for Al Gore, but for some time students in America also were called to think about the earth. There were also some specialized projects called KidsNetwork that created a project between scientists, geographers, teachers and students on specialized projects that helped them to learn, technology served the projects, but the actual project based learning was a way to implement technology in meaningful ways into the schools.

The IITF group, Information Infrastructure Task Force, paved the way to domesticate, technology and demonstrate it for various reasons, that would be a governmental initiative.

The Department of Education and other groups created what I call greenhouses , to help move the use of technology along, you may remember the RTECs the regional technology centers for education.

Here are two wake up calls.

The Large Hadron Collider

I am a CERN Fellow from WSIS, and I applaud this work  Cern, near Switzerland is developing LHC.. it may be our Sputnik moment, but few people probably know what it is. The Large Hadron Collider is the worlds biggest science experiment , which starts in May this year. When subatomic particles such as protons and neutrons are smashed together in the LHC, they will break apart and give scientists a peek into how these building blocks of matter are made.

So why is this not being done in the US?

This may not be interesting to you, but I think DNA was probably not all that interesting at first as well. I think it took us time to understand the ramifications , of DNA. We could also think about STEM cell research as a interesting way to get the attention of many.

To learn more about the LHC I have a few footnotes from the Guardian and many photographs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/gallery/0007/nov/20/cern?picture 330365575.

The real wake up call has been issued to America in an essay by Norman Augustine, who helped to place Americans on the moon. His essay is entitled " Is America Falling Off of the Flat Earth can be found here , http://www.books.nap.edu.openbook.php.record_id=12021&page=2

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND IS NOT WORKING!

America must repair its failing K-12 educational system, particularly in mathematics and science, in part by providing more teachers qualified to teach those subjects, and the federal government must markedly increase its investment in basic research, that is, in the creation of new knowledge. We must think of the role of science in the information society.

I was one of hundred of teachers who heard Margaret Spellings deny that we have a problem in science. Reading and skill drill math will not keep us as leaders of the world in technology and innovation. See Compete.org, and the Innovation Proclamation.

Quotes from the book. "The World Economic Forum dropped America from first to seventh place in its ranking of nations’ preparedness to benefit from advances in information technology; the number of US citizens entering engineering school declined still further; the remnants of the legendary Bell Labs, the birthplace of the laser and the transistor and the home of many Nobel laureates, were sold to a French firm; a new generation of semiconductor integrated circuits—the mortar of the modern electronics revolution—was introduced; the largest initial public offering in history was conducted by a Chinese bank; another $650 billion has been spent on US public schools while the performance of its students on standardized science tests of those about to graduate declined further; American companies once again spent three times more on litigation than on research; and in July, for the first time in history, foreign automakers sold more cars in the United States than American manufacturers."


"Former President Bill Clinton observed that “where once nations measured their strength by the size of their armies and arsenals, in the world of the future knowledge will matter most.”

The leaders of other nations are unlikely to overlook the ubiquitous impact of investment in science and technology. For example, of China’s top nine leaders, eight are engineers, the other a geologist. In contrast, in the United States, the number of members of the most recent 435-member House of Representatives who listed their field as “engineering” was three, the same number who categorized themselves as “actors or artists.” As for scientists, none was to be found in the Senate, but representation in the House recently ballooned to five."

I am all for blogging, Facebook, Myspace , and YouTube and Second Life. But I am more interested in STEM, the pursuit of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Having been a teacher, a real teacher in elementary, junior high and high school I know the lay of the educational landscape.

I have taught these subjects and the resources are available. I want students, teachers and professors, and researchers to be involved in projects on line, similar to the kind of project that CILT was. I want more than social engineering for goodness sakes. Will we be the biggest loser as we let the media divert us from educational pursuits and research?

But first, we have to wake up. Social is great. STEM , Science, Technology, Engineering and Math are a dire necessity. As Henry Jenkins stated collaborative communications can help,

but America, we have a big problem !!


One group of people sees the problem up close and personal.
The Businessmen Get it.. IT and STEM...




Henry Neeman is my mentor from a course,, along with the people in education from SCO8 especially those who disseminate Little FE.

http://sc08.supercomputing.org/ and Scott Lathrop of the Teragrid.


Little-Fe: A Portable, Educational PC Cluster
Tom Murphy, Charlie Peck, Paul Gray

Transferring educational aspects of "big iron" to the undergraduate curriculum is a noble goal discussed in recent HPCWire articles:

"New Directions for Computational Science Education"
(http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mid=461139&xsl=story.xsl)
"Talk Xanga: Capturing Gen-Z's Computational Imagination"
(http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mid=471717&xsl=story.xsl)
"Getting an HPC Education"
(http://news.taborcommunications.com/msgget.jsp?mid=472396&xsl=story.xsl).

This article continues these themes by focusing on our "little iron" piece of the computational science infrastructure.

One of the principle challenges to computational science and high performance computing education is that many institutions do not have access to HPC platforms for demonstrations and laboratories. Paul Gray's Bootable Cluster CD (BCCD) project (http://bccd.cs.uni.edu) has made great strides in this area by making it possible to non-destructively, and with little effort, convert a computer lab of Windows or Macintosh computers into an ad-hoc cluster for educational use. Little-Fe takes that concept one step further by merging the BCCD with an inexpensive design for an 8 node portable computational cluster. The result is a machine that weighs less than 50 pounds, easily and safely travels via checked baggage on the airlines, and sets-up in 10 minutes wherever there is a 110V outlet and a wall to project an image on. The BCCD's list-packages feature supports curriculum modules in a variety of natural science disciplines, making the combination of Little-Fe and the BCCD a ready- to-run solution for computational science and HPC education.

Ok, that's for undergraduates you think. Think so, I have been with the team in high schools and I know that they have installed Little FE in a Navajo community. The promise of the Internet to the Hogan is that it is the first IP network The entire IP network of 660 phones will eventually serve all 110 chapter houses of this 27,000 square mile, three-state nation, much of which is still not served by electricity or paved roads.

And elementary schools. Well ,first we have to teach science and real math. The team at SuperComputing taught teachers mostly high school, but we do outreach to middle and elementary. I am sure that teachers need content upgrading and time to learn to use and integrate the technology.



Bonnie Bracey Sutton