What's New at NETC?
Sir Winston Churchill once said, "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." At NETC we say that technology offers us the great potential to see the opportunity in every difficulty.
NWREL's The Indian Reading Series: Stories and Legends of the Northwest Now Available Online
Back in 1973 when Robey Clark first came to NWREL as an intern in curriculum development and evaluation, he joined the Indian Reading and Language Development Program. The program had been funded by the National Institute of Education to develop a collection of authentic materials cooperatively created for Indian children by Northwest Indian people as a community-based reading and language arts program.
During a period of 11 years, 12 Northwest Indian reservations actively participated in the creation of 140 culturally relevant stories written and illustrated by local Indian authors and artists. The materials were authenticated by the participating tribes and field tested with more than 1,200 Indian and non-Indian children in 93 classrooms throughout the Northwest. The stories, assessed at reading levels grades one through six, were accompanied by a teacher's manual that suggested many ways to recreate the benefits of an oral language tradition through cooperative learning projects and manipulatives.
Today, some 30 years later, Robey, a program advisor to NWREL's Comprehensive Center and NETC, considers the series a way to honor the early work of pioneers in the field and to respect their legacy. "Balancing authenticity and relevance with readability and comparability to existing grade level materials was something that had never been done before," he explains.
The Indian Reading Series: Stories and Legends of the Northwest, out of print for several years, has been made available electronically through the collaboration of NETC and the Comprehensive Center for Region X. The entire series as well as the teacher's manual may be downloaded from http://www.nwrel.org/indianed/ indianreading free of charge.
When asked about the popularity of the series, Robey posits, "For whatever the reasons, most kids really like these illustrated stories. Common sense tells me that using culturally relevant materials will not change the world but it is a practical way for educators to make school more interesting and relevant to children." Access and Opportunity: Policy Options for Interactive Video in K-12 Education by Donald C. Holznagel
Educators across the country are increasingly using interactive video conferencing (IVC) in their schools because it offers the opportunity for teachers, students, and remote experts to engage in a more lively give-and-take that captures the goals of current school reform efforts.
Three of the Regional Education Technology Consortia, in the Northwest (NETC), the Southwest (SCRTEC) and the Northeast (NEIRTEC) were beginning to see the development of statewide networks and support for IVC delivery of educational services, particularly to small schools in rural districts. Faced with far-reaching policy decisions, districts looked to the RTECs for assistance.
Through the collaborative efforts of NETC, SCRTEC, and NEIRTEC, the First Annual Interactive Video Conferencing Symposium was convened for experienced users of videoconferencing in K-12 education with the goal of documenting experience and producing useful policy advice.
Participants represented school districts, regional service centers, and state education agencies across the nation. The major issue areas addressed by five invited speakers included partnerships for content development, changing the teaching and learning paradigm, effective use of the IVC medium, implications of Internet 2 development for K-12 interests, federal roles, and research needs. According to Gary Graves, NETC program advisor, "the presenters stimulated our thinking about increasingly effective ways to use the technology."
Participants agreed that what IVC ultimately offers is access and opportunity. If educators choose to use the full capabilities, the technology can offer students face-to-face access to people, places, and real-time explorations all over the world. Teachers gain access to professional development resources. School and district staff members gain new avenues for increased interaction. Students gain opportunities for both courses and supplemental activities that would otherwise be unavailable in their local communities. What's needed, participants concurred, is the support of administrators, funding agencies, lawmakers, and policymakers to refine and expand access to IVC.
Most highly valued by the participants was "the coming together of colleagues of like-mind and experience to share and compare findings and perceptions and work toward common solutions." Working groups continue to collaborate on research-based practices, policy development, and information clearinghouses.
NETC's two publications derived from the proceedings of the Symposium: Access and Opportunity: Policy Options for Interactive Video in K-12 Education, a 52-page white paper based on the issues; and its abstract, Access and Opportunity. These documents are available to educators in the region either in print or online at http://www.netc.org/digitalbridges/resources/index.html at no cost. Supplemental Educational Services in the Northwest
No Child Left Behind legislation requires that supplemental educational services be provided to disadvantaged children attending schools that do not make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years. These students are eligible to receive federally funded, parent-chosen extra help with their core academic subjects. The formidable challenge to school districts, particularly in rural regions, is to identify appropriately qualified supplemental services providers whose services are accessible to qualifying students. A symposium was sponsored at NWREL by NETC and the Region X Comprehensive Center on November 4-5, 2003, to explore the implications of this provision of NCLB legislation for the Northwest region.
The primary goals for the symposium were to provide a platform for dialogue and exchange between state, regional, and federal decisionmakers, identify common issues and problems, and develop potential strategies, solutions, and collaborations. The primary outcomes would be to produce a paper that summarized the discussions, and to develop a plan to study the various implementations of supplemental services by the states in the region.
Participating were 10 Title I Directors/Supplemental Services Program Managers and Education Technology Program Managers from Alaska, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming; an Associate Deputy Under Secretary from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Innovation and Improvement; four Lab facilitators from the sponsoring programs; and four senior program managers from NWREL who shared information, resources, and strategies during the two days of discussions.
The symposium was highly interactive by design. Participants defined its focus by ranking in importance the dominant themes and topical issues of supplemental services from the perspective of what they wished to discuss or learn at the symposium. Each state was asked to prepare a 30-minute presentation describing the current state of its supplemental services implementation using a prescribed outline.
For two days participants generously shared their experience and expertise. By the end of the symposium many significant connections had been made. Plans were discussed for ongoing contact and regular work sessions two to three times a year. Participants agreed to exchange lists of approved supplemental services providers and to collaborate on the development of a regional distance education consortium.
All participants reviewed a draft of the NWREL document, Evaluating Supplemental Educational Services Providers: Issues and Challenges, written by Clayton Connor. Visit http://netc.org/sess/index.html for a narrative summary of the proceedings and an annotated bibliography of supporting material
Open Options Project Announces Online K-12 Open Source Software User Survey at http://www.netc.org/survey/oss. Open Options is an independent research project that provides pragmatic information and decisionmaking tools to K-12 educators who are considering adopting open source software. The results of this research form the foundation of our unique, research-based Web site, http://www.netc.org/openoptions that provides analysis of the issues faced when adopting open source in K-12 settings and offers suggestions about how to decide if it's right for you.
Current K-12 open source software users are asked to complete a 10-minute online survey at http://www.netc.org/surveys/oss. And educators who are evaluating their investment in open source are invited to share their insights into the true costs and outcomes of adoption and implementation in a phone interview. Please e-mail oss.survey@netc.org or call 1.800.547.6339 x643 to schedule an interview.
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