Volume 7 Issue 5
July 2003
In this issue:
The Widening Gulf Between ICT Implementation in Primary/Elementary & Secondary/College Schools
Observation and anecdotal evidence is suggesting that the differences between the quality and objectives surrounding the application and implementation of Information and Communications Technologies in primary/elementary is not being kept up with or built on in high school/college situations. This is not just a trend in Asia, Australia the US and New Zealand but globally. Blame will not help this at all as I have no doubt that it is not the intent of high school/college school teachers to subvert the development of ICT and stunt the potential future prospects of students. But rather the problem is more systemic.
The main issues that I observe that are hindering secondary schools in continuing the skill development of primary and middle school students (not that they “have it altogether” themselves), are as follows:
There are undoubtedly other issues that could be attributed to this list.
Until all of these issues are addressed things are going to continue exactly as they are now. The culture that surrounds the secondary school, pay structures, professional development, resourcing, technical support, assessment, promotion pathways and effective “replicable” models, all need to be addressed; not individually, but as a single overarching school development pathway. If this does not happen our students are going to leave school entirely unfit for both the social and workplace environment that they are entering into. It requires a political will at the highest level (PM/Governor/State legislature/Minister of Ed), in order for this to take place so please do not berate your local advisor or representative and lay this at their feet; they are doing an admirable job in most cases but these issues are ones they have little control over.
If you wish to make a change in this regard then all of us must do so as a professional body and lobby the government/parliament urgently as unless we make this a political issue unfortunately nothing is going to change.
An Early Term Report Card on Virtual Schooling
Virtual Schooling or similar such technologically named equivalents are evolving quickly and one of the driving forces is a global shortage of teachers in the areas of Science(s), Indigenous Languages, Technology and Math(s) but the cost and the effectiveness of virtual schooling is now being more closely examined as the dust and some of the exuberance settles.
In the United States a major initiative from the government has been "No Child Left Behind". This act, passed by government, states that schools must hire only "highly qualified" teachers; meaning those who are certified in the subjects that they are going to teach. This has put an additional strain on the teachers supplying issue and the response from schools is to search for a technological solution. http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/Alertunreg.cfm?ArticleID=4455&ul=%2Fnews%2FshowStory%2Ecfm%3FArticleID%3D4455
Having worked with many schools that use technology in order to broaden the range of subjects offered I would make the statement “technology will not replace a good teacher . . . . . ever.” It can be used to augment the delivery of curriculum and where teachers are simply unavailable, and then it may be a "next best" option.
One of the problems with getting a realistic evaluation of the virtual classroom is that everybody in the "business" of virtual classrooms needs it to work to justify the purchases that being made and to sell additional technology. One of the most unfortunate conundrums of videoconferencing (as the focal point of virtual schooling), is that the very schools that possibly need it the most are probably in the least position to afford it. This is not always the case and some schools involved in virtual schooling using videoconferencing, have made it a priority and have made it work.
Having watched over several groups of schools involved in videoconferencing and developing virtual networks, it is hard to make any sweeping generalisations as they have been some very obvious successes, and some equally obvious failures which have led to modifications and new systems which are continually being revised. There certainly appears to be too great stresses in the setting up of videoconferencing centred virtual schooling.
1. The cost of setting up and running high-speed networks, wide area networks, virtual private networks, quality cameras and reception equipment is putting a very high stress on administrators and the teachers in charge of these groups, who are desperately trying to justify the cost that the school has invested.
2. The technological proficiency requirements of working in this environment are huge and unless the school can afford technically competent people to come in and set up the complete system these roles usually fall on the teaching faculty. Often teachers with little or no training are expected to come to grips with high level technical knowledge; including understanding the nature of virtual private networks, how to set IP numbers, how to operate camera equipment, setting network connections in the server and workstations, as well coming to grips with an entirely new teaching and learning pedagogy, which is required in order to teach effectively within this very different education environment.
I have no doubt that the cost of setting these systems up will decrease significantly and thus reduce the overall pressures on this type of teaching and learning environment but there are alternatives to using videoconferencing equipment. This does not demean the potential and applicability of videoconferencing, it simply makes the point that some significant successes can be gained without the expense of videoconferencing equipment, bandwidth allocation and specialised room development.
The Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) has a lot to offer to those schools who wish to experiment with virtual schooling without committing large sums of money in the initial phases. The Internet also has much to offer with the cost of intranets and extranets plummeting in the last six months (see http://www.knowledgenetworks.co.nz) . The third technology that is coming into play here are smart whiteboards (also known as e-boards), combined with multimedia projectors. A Smart Board coupled with a multimedia/data projector allows real-time communication over the Internet between schools that have these boards. Through the use of telephones, intranets and extranets and Smart Boards there exists a lower cost alternative to virtual schooling which has not been fully explored as yet on a wide scale.
Using conference calling facilities over the telephone and standard low-volume high-speed Internet connections, schools can drastically reduce the overall cost of virtual schooling and yes, there will be the sacrifice of not having a real-time video connection but at the same time there will be far less technical strain on both the teachers who are delivering these technologies and the very same teachers who are coming to grips with the required pedagogy for this type of teaching and learning environment, which is very different to the standard classroom teaching pedagogy which most teachers employ. It could also be seen as a staging post, allowing teachers to come to terms with the necessary technologies at a slower pace by spending more time on developing appropriate resources and revising teaching practices to suit the new environment before launching into videoconferencing. .
The future looks quite exciting in terms of the technologies that are evolving and the list below will provide some background into the emerging technologies of video over IP, telephony over IP, the use of VDSL, wireless networks, video on demand . . . . . .
Video over LAN: What are the requirements of video over LAN? See a live demonstration of video conferencing on a simulated network with congestion. Different QoS mechanisms are applied to illustrate the degree of traffic control for IT Managers. http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/connectorsystems/seminar_june03/Video over IP.pdf (3mb)
Telephony over IP:
What is the difference between Telephony over IP and VoIP? This presentation
will uncover the advantages of using intelligent IP solutions for voice. How to
migrate to a converged network, maintain control and retain functionality.
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/connectorsystems/seminar_june03/Telephony over
IP.pdf
(2mb)
VDSL vs Wireless :Does VDSL out perform point to point wireless
with greater security? How does it work and what are the
advantages/disadvantages of both? Can you use this technology over the PSTN?
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/connectorsystems/seminar_june03/VDSL
vs Wireless.pdf
(1.1mb)
Solutions for SMEs:
Do you understand the needs of your network? What common applications create
network congestion with Broadcasts storms and how can this be controlled?
Planning your network for growth, where do managed switches fit and what do they
provide?
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/connectorsystems/seminar_june03/Lan
solutions for SMEs.pdf (2.5mb)
Video On Demand: Is this the ultimate in a converged network? IP
video applications not only combine voice and video, but data as well. What is
on the horizon? And can you get there?
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/connectorsystems/seminar_june03/Video on Demand.pdf
(1.6mb)
Security the final Frontier – Key Note Speaker – Ray Hunt: What
can firewalls do and what can’t they do for your business? Are Wireless LANs
really vulnerable? – Or is it hype? Loss of access, corruption of data or
denial-of-service to an organisation's information resources can spell disaster
and possibly total business failure. Business success has less to do with the
sophistication of the computer-communications equipment and more to do with how
well managed and protected the systems are. Most organisations know little about
the cost of security breaches and how to best avoid them.
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/connectorsystems/seminar_june03/Security_Ray_Hunt_1.pdf
(1mb)
http://home.xtra.co.nz/hosts/connectorsystems/seminar_june03/Security_Ray_Hunt_2.pdf
(4.7mb)
There seems to be some areas that just keep on keeping ahead with the quality and number of resources for teachers that are available at no cost. Science is anecdotally right out front here and this example show why. http://www.physlink.com/ If you are teaching physics and not using this web site then both you and your students are really missing out.
Digital
Science Library
The National Science Digital Library (NSDL), a National Science Foundation (NSF) website, offers free science-related resources to the public, including text, graphics, interactive video, links, and other resources pertinent to computing, engineering, global mapping, physics, mathematics, earth science, palaeontology, and more. By 2007, the site will house the largest collection of science-related material available on the Internet, and it will include three portals—mega-websites that can personalize a broad array of Internet functions. The portals will be titled Using Data in the Classroom, NSDL Educators Portal, and Science Pictures.
The digital library opened to the public in December 2002, and NSF continues to accept proposals for projects that enhance the quality and widen the scope of the site. Currently, 119 projects have received NSF funding for inclusion on the site. These projects consist of smaller-scope digital libraries (such as the Digital Library for Earth System Education), message boards that link visitors with experts, collections of news articles, and more.
For more information, visit the NSDL at http://nsdl.org.
Looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction?
This is a humorous and somewhat ingenious Web Site. Go to www.google.com/ and type in "weapons of mass destruction" (including speech marks) and rather than clicking enter click on the "I am feeling lucky" button. The apparent error page that comes up is quite humorous.
Schools are struggling with the amount of “SPAM” and unsolicited mail that is arriving at school each day. Most schools have deployed software that makes an attempt to filter this out but these tools are far from 100 percent effective, which is what schools actually need (zero tolerance policy). In a recent development, using a branch of mathematics known as Bayesian algebra mathematicians may be coming to the rescue. An excellent article in the Melbourne newspaper "The Age" http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/23/1056220528960.html (July 10) provides a great starting point:
“Bayesian filtering owes its rise largely to Paul Graham, a polymathic Harvard computer science PhD. Late last year he wrote "A Plan For Spam" (www.paulgraham.com/spam.html), setting out with extraordinary clarity why well-implemented Bayesian filtering should work better than other methods. After Graham pointed the way, new Bayesian filtering implementations appeared within a few weeks and dozens are now available
The whole point of Bayesian filtering is that it analyses your email, not everyone's. So while you can implement it at the server level, a client-side Bayesian filter makes sense. Enter Melbourne-based Mark Hammond, one of the world's leading Python programming experts, with a Bayesian filter that installs right into your copy of Outlook 2000 or Outlook XP. You can download it from starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/spambayes/ and start training it to recognise your spam and ham straight away.”
Unless products such as this are implemented and work effectively in the school environment we can expect to see one of two options developing: 1. Schools do not allow e-mail distribution on the school network as it is simply too difficult to monitor and filter effectively. This would be somewhat drastic but may well be deemed necessary if we do not find a solution to filtering spam effectively. 2. Schools adopt a policy of “all care but no responsibility” and offer Web based external e-mail products such as Hotmail etc. Neither of these two options are actually solutions and so it is important that schools who offer e-mail access to students use the best possible filters and firewalls available.
For additional information on keeping the Internet environment safe for students within schools you can check out the web sites:
http://www.netsafe.org.nz/schools/schools_default.asp
http://www.ema.gov.au/ema/emaSchools.nsf/HeadingPagesDisplay/OnLine+Safety?OpenDocument