The
Distance in Distance Learning
by
John Slatin
The
University of Texas at Austin
Currents
in Electronic Literacy Spring 2000(3),
<http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/currents/spr00/slatin.html>
Introduction:
K-12 Education in Transition
At
a press conference in January, 1999, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard
W. Riley cited what he called the greatest challenges facing teachers in
the public schools: raising standards of achievement; accommodating learners
with special needs; adapting to the changing racial, ethnic, and cultural
diversity of the student population; and using technology effectively (http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/01-1999/990128.html).
In Texas, as in the nation generally, education systems face massive, simultaneous
change on three fronts. The first is demographic, the second is technological,
and the third is curricular.
Demographic
The
school-age population of Texas is growing rapidly and its composition is
changing. In 1999-2000 there were more than 3.9 million students in Texas
public schools. The majority of these students were non-white.
Approximately 11.6 per cent were classified as ìdisabledî
in some wayóa figure not far below the number of African-American
students in the school population (see the Texas Education Agency's "Snapshot
'99," http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/snapshot/99/index.html).
The new minority status of the Anglo population will become even more pronounced
over the next 10 to 20 years. As time goes on, therefore, the existing
gap between the ethnic and racial makeup of the public schools and the
ethnic and racial makeup of UT Austin's student body (which is currently
more than 60 percent white) will widen further without effective and systemic
intervention. The University's response must go far beyond the well-intentioned
"10 per cent solution" instituted by the 1997 session of the Texas Legislature,
which automatically grants admission to any student who graduates in the
top 10 per cent of his or her high school class but does nothing to prepare
those students for success once they reach the University. The most
rapid population growth is occurring in the most economically distressed
regions of the state, where the lack of qualified teachers is most acute.
Technology
Short
of thermonuclear war, there is no conceivable scenario for the future in
which information technology does not play a more important role in education
than it does today. The Federal Communications Commission's E-rate
program makes Internet service available to public schools at a steep discount;
the nationwide value of these E-Rate discounts is estimated at approximately
$1.43 billion. The U.S. Department of Education has issued a number
of technology-related grants, including challenge grants to be administered
by state education agencies. Here in Texas, the Telecommunications
Infrastructure Fund Board (TIFB) and other state and local programs and
private-sector initiatives are directed at providing Internet connections
for Texas schools, public libraries, not-for-profit healthcare facilities,
two- and four-year colleges, and universities. The TIFB is expected
to distribute approximately $1.5 billion by 2005. (For more information,
see the TIF Board Web site at http://www.tifb.state.tx.us.
For information on the E-rate, see http://www.fcc.gov/learnnet/.)
Using
these federal and state monies to supplement their own initiatives, Texas'
1,044 independent school districts are investing several hundred million
dollars per year in information technology. Most are concentrating on acquiring
equipment and establishing Internet connectivity, and on providing very
narrowly focused skill-training for teachers. This pattern is typical
of the very early stages of technology integration. But the narrow
focus actually increases the burden on teachers, who will be expected to
integrate this expensive technology into the curriculum despite a lack
of appropriate trainingóand despite an acute shortage of qualified
support personnel.
Teacher
training has repeatedly been identified as a critical factor in successful
technology integration and curriculum reform, and the problems resulting
from the lack of appropriate training have been widely discussed.
On the national level, said Secretary of Education Richard Riley in introducing
a report on teacher quality prepared by the National Center for Education
Statistics (1999),
New
and veteran teachers alike say they do not feel very well prepared to teach
effectively to the four fastest changing aspects of the nation's schools
- raising standards in the classroom, students with special needs, students
from diverse cultural backgrounds, and use of technology. The fact that
newer teachers report as much unease as their veteran colleagues indicates
that teacher education and professional development programs are not addressing
the realities found in today's classroom. (Richard W. Riley, ìRemarks.î
Washington, D.C., January 28, 1999. http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/01-1999/990128.html
)
A
report by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to the state Legislature in
1999 indicates that the situation is very similar at state level.
Although roughly 90 per cent of Texas schools had at least one Internet-connected
computer in every classroom, theTEA found that in 1997-98 only six per
cent of Texas school districts reported that teachers used technology for
instruction on a daily basis. The report cited an ìacute needî
for additional technology training. (Kathy Walt, ìLack of training
wasting schools' computer outlays: Teachers' ëfear of technology'
becomes statewide problem.î Houston Chronicle, 11/29/99, p. A21)
Curriculum
The
challenges presented by demographic and technological change are compounded
by the fact that the curriculum itself is changing. The new Texas
Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) frameworks, which went into force
in September 1998, represent significant changes in every area of the curriculum,
including technology. The TEKS frameworks (available at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/)
call for a learner-centered, inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning
that differs sharply from familiar ìstand-and-deliverî teaching
practices. Implementation of the TEKS frameworks will therefore demand
significant changes in the way teachers are trained and in the kind of
work they and their students do in (or out of) the classroom.
The
new curriculum will also require a massive investment in new textbooks
and other materials. This in turn puts additional pressure on schools
to make good on their investments in technology. In 1997, the Texas Legislature
authorized a Computer Network Study Project to investigate the challenges
involved in making K-12 curriculum materials available online on a statewide
basis. In May 1998, Dr. Jack Christie, then the Chairman of the Texas
Board of Education, organized a one-day conference to dramatize the significance
of his call to lease a laptop computer for every student in Texas at a
cost of about $1.8 billion, the amount earmarked for textbooks. As
I argued at a meeting of the Computer Network Study Project Advisory Committee
in August 1998, the proposal to replace textbooks with computers would,
if interpreted literally, mean a tragic waste of money. Transferring
textbook content from the printed page to the LCD screen would only make
the material harder to read while highlighting its essentially static,
presentational character. It would not address the need to transform
pedagogical practice and learning behavior-- the need to reinvent the function
of the textbook in the context of new environments for teaching and learning.
Next:
The
Appeal of Distance Education
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Creada: 15/09/2000
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