Online Services
WP: America Online Tops 10 Million Subscribers
InfoTech
NYT: Information Technology Field Is Rated Largest U.S. Industry
Arts
NYT: Cities Are Fostering the Arts As a Way to Save Downtown
EdTech
(from 11/17/97 WSJ)
WSJ: Hard Lessons
WSJ: Class Wars
WSJ: Those Who Can't...
WSJ: Creating A Community
WSJ: A New Way
WSJ: The Model
WSJ: Dewey Wins!
WSJ: Remember Homework?
WSJ: Cyberdegrees
WSJ: Dash To The Degree
WSJ: The Home Advantage
** Online Services **
Title: America Online Tops 10 Million Subscribers
Source: Washington Post (D3)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Chris Allbritton
Issue: Online Services
Description: America Online announced yesterday that it had topped the 10
million subsciber mark. Steve Case founded the company as a small bulletin
board service in 1985. By 1994, the service has 1 million subscribers. Two
years later, AOL had 5 million members. Researchers estimate that there are
40 to 50 million people online around the world: about 20% use America
Online; half of the US households online connect through AOL. See AOL's
press release http://www-db.aol.com/corp/news/press/view?release=255.
** InfoTech **
Title: Information Technology Field Is Rated Largest U.S. Industry
Source: New York Times (D12)
http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Steve Lohr
Issue: Information Technology
Description: A study sponsored by the American Electronics Association,
finds that computing and telecommunication sales have grown by 57
percent during the 1990's making the industry an increasingly important
force in the nation's economy. The study, to be released today, concludes
that the field of information technology is the largest U.S. industry,
ahead of construction, food products and automotive manufacturing.
** Arts **
Title: Cities Are Fostering the Arts As a Way to Save Downtown
Source: New York Times (A1, A24)
http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Bruce Weber
Issue: Arts
Description: Cities across the nation are taking a much different view
towards the arts than that of many politicians in our country's capitol.
Instead of debating whether to withdraw further from the already modest
support the nation's artists receive, cities have decided to use the arts to
help fuel their growth. For example, in San Jose, CA, the city government
has built or added on to several art facilities located downtown in an
effort to attract more people to this area. "We want our downtown to have
the support of future generations," said Frank Taylor, the executive
director of the redevelopment agency since 1979. "We lost as entire
generation of children, who grew up ashamed of their downtown. There is no
better way to get children acquainted with a city than through cultural
facilities, through art, through music, those experiences they can share.
So that's been our approach." With other cities from Anchorage to Fort
Lauderdale also working to replace their city centers, the idea that art is
good for everybody seems to be "carrying the day."
** Education Technology **
(from 11/17/97 WSJ)
Title: Hard Lessons
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R1, Nov. 17)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: William M. Bulkeley
Issue: Education Technology
Description: The great promise of high-tech learning too often seems
unfulfilled, but amid all the dissatisfaction educators have picked up some
concrete lessons: Computers can improve education, but not without serious
planning from schools and teachers. Martha Stone Wiske, co-director of the
Educational Technology Ctr. at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, said,
"The backlash is coming from people who thought simplistically about how
technology could revamp schools and are disappointed." Here are the
10 hard lessons learned from educators in the trenches: 1-computer labs are
a lousy location for computers. 2-Struggling students often get more out of
computers than average or above-average performers. 3-Most teachers still
don't know how to use computers in class. 4-School systems must plan their
computer use carefully. 5-Computers are a tool, not a subject. 6-Kids
flourish when everyone has a computer -- but schools aren't spending enough
to guarantee that. 7-Schools can't handle hand-me-downs. 8-Computers don't
diminish traditional skills. 9-The Internet and email excite kids by giving
them an audience. 10-Kids love computers.
Title: Class Wars
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R32, Nov. 17)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Robert Cwiklik
Issue: Ed Tech
Description: Computers in the classroom, it seems, have broad support
from the political and educational establishments. Proponents say the
machines will empower students as never before, yet skeptics argue that many
of the technology's promised benefits for schools are yet to be realized and
rely mainly on the hype attendant on computers in general and on the
Internet in particular. The question was posed in a discussion with
Professor Seymour Papert, creator of Logo -- a computer language for children,
and Professor Theodore Roszak from Calif. State Univ. at Hayward. Under
headings like "What the Computers Don't Teach", Prof. Roszak said, "Speaking
as a historian, I find that the entire discussion of Logo and of computers
generally is historically illiterate. It seems to assume that education -- and
maybe childhood -- began with the invention of the computer..." In response
under the heading, "Blame Schools, Not Technology", Prof. Papert said,
"Thinking about the educational value of computation requires the same leap
of imagination beyond its early forms as was needed to see the tiny hop of
the Wright Brothers Flyer as the start of a revolution in transportation and
indeed of the world economy."
Title: Those Who Can't...
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R8, Nov. 17)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Robert Cwiklik
Issue: Ed Tech
Description: Teachers, long the neglected stepchildren of the movement to
computerize the nation's schools, are beginning to get invited to the party.
Many experts say that a lot of training for teachers to date has been
ineffective. Often, schools collect teachers in large groups representing
varying levels of computer skills for one-size-fits-all lessons that tend to
focus on the basics [wow, sounds like a classroom]. Some experts advocate
more individualized approaches, while one program enlists children, with
their demonstrated enthusiasm for
using computers, not only to train teachers, but to also build and maintain
an entire school-district technology infrastructure.
Title: Creating A Community
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R10)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Lisa Bannon
Issue: EdTech
Description: "Pueblo", a joint venture between Xerox Corp.'s Palo Alto
Research Ctr., Phoenix College, and Longview Elementary, is an
Internet-accessible virtual world with its own geography, characters, and
objects. Pueblo's main aim is to jump start educations often stalled by high
dropout rates, lack of guidance, violent neighborhoods, and poor role
models. The project uses text-only software and is designed to give users a
sense of being present with others in a physical space where they can talk,
manipulate objects, or move around the "community" to see what others have
created. Jim Walters, Pueblo's director, says the original idea behind the
project was to boost literacy, but now it provides badly needed mentors from
around the city and country for children who don't have a strong support
system at home. Mr. Walter said, "What we're really doing is building a
community that exists not just in the virtual world but in the real world,
too."
Title: A New Way
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Lisa Bransten
Issue: Education Technology
Description: Doug Kirkpatrick, a middle school science teacher in Walnut
Creek, CA, has been collaborating with researchers in the Knowledge
Integration Environment (KIE) project at the University of California at
Berkeley's Graduate School of Education for the past 12 years to use
computer technology in his classroom. His students use donated computers
to take guided tours of the World Wide Web and specialized software to
conduct lab experiments. Mr. Kirkpatrick says that it isn't the computers
themselves that excite him as much as the freedom they allow him in his
teaching methods. He now can spend more time with small groups of
students, as opposed to acting as a "sage on stage", and has been able to
dispense with techniques used to assist students in the memorization of
facts in favor of using a more exploratory approach to learning.
It is not only the students that are benefitting from this most important
experiment, through their classroom observations, KIE researchers have been
able to refine the teaching software and offer advice to Mr. Kirkpatrick.
The software allows students to build upon ideas that they already have and
connect them to new ideas to help them better retain information. As
Marcia Linn, head of the KIE project, puts it, with Doug Kirkpatrick's
teaching abilities and the use of computers, "Every child in the classroom
feels very much like their ideas count."
Title: The Model
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Robin Frost
Issue: Education Technology
Description: Christopher Columbus middle school, in Union City, NJ, is
being hailed as "a standard for the successful integration of high
technology and education." In 1992, the Bell Atlantic Corp. brought
computers into the schools classrooms and homes of all seventh graders and
their teachers as part of Project Explore. But it wasn't just the
computers that made the difference, it was their integration into
Christopher Columbus's new curriculum, known as whole language learning.
In the classroom a new emphasis was placed on research, textbooks were
replaced with actual novels and the essays they originated from, and
traditional student/teacher roles were exchanged for cooperative student
groups. Classes are now longer and more interdisciplinary and the standard
classroom desk design has been replaced with group tables. Combining the
whole language learning approach with technology allowed the computer
network to become an integral part of the education process, not something
that was just thrown on top of an established curriculum. "You can't just
put computers in the classroom," says Time Ireland, a Bell Atlantic
spokesperson. "We knew that the computers by themselves couldn't do
anything without the teachers." And not just any teachers, he says: You
have to have teachers "who are trained to integrate technology into
classroom instruction." "I think a lot of schools think they can do a
quick fix," says Gary Ramella, the district's supervisor of technology.
"They say to themselves, 'OK, let's spend $5 million on technology.'" "But
that isn't what reform is about," he argues, pointing instead to the
educator's efforts to use that technology toward a larger goal. The
progress Union City has made towards this goal is apparent. Now,
Christopher Columbus middle school, once in danger of a state takeover due
to poor test scores and attendance, among other problems, has seen a
dramatic reversal with test scores that are almost twice that of other
inner-city school districts and is being looked at for recruitment by top
colleges.
Title: Dewey Wins!
Source: Wall Street Journal
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Robert Cwiklik
Issue: Education Technology
Description: As many schools look to change their teaching style to work
with computer technology, the methods that John Dewey developed almost 100
years ago are being integrated into high-tech, cutting edge, reforms.
Dewey's method, described in "School and Society" in 1899, was based on the
theory that instructional styles were in direct opposition to students'
natural ways of learning. Instead of attempting to hammer facts into
student's brains, Dewey wanted schools to set up curriculums that presented
students with a series of problems that called upon children to come up
with solutions using their innate methods of the scientist, historian and
artist. Through this process, students would develop a greater
understanding of the subjects they studied. While classrooms have changed
since Dewey's time their essence has remained the same in many ways.
Reformers now hope that with the introduction of technology into the school
system, curriculums will be able to adjust to more integrative styles of
learning. "Progressive education ideas that didn't work particularly well
prior to the technology may prove very effective in an educational
environment well-equipped with good technological resources," says Robert
McClintock, co-director of the Institute for Learning Technologies at
Columbia University's Teachers College, New York. And in a report
presented from a panel of President Clinton's top private-sector advisers
on education and technology in March, they said that while much research on
the question is still called for, "the student-centered constructivist
paradigm may ultimately offer the most fertile ground for the application
of technology to education."
Title: Remember Homework?
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R16)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Terzah Ewing
Issue: Education Technology
Description: For teachers, parents, and students, the Internet's wealth
of unregulated, unfiltered information raises issues from efficient time
management to plagiarism to sites that might be unreliable, unsafe, or
unsuitable for children. Also, the information available on the 'Net is
simply too much to got through, says Connie Stout of the Texas Education
Network. They have created a search engine to help students and teachers
narrow their Web searches. Easily copied reports and essays on all sorts of
topics can be found on the 'Net, too, even services that offer a cache of
free, downloadable term papers.
Title: Cyberdegrees
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R26)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Paul Cox
Issue: Education Technology
Description: Though "distance-learning" isn't new, the advent of the
Internet has given earning a degree a whole new direction. Students can
discuss topics in real time with professors or fellow students over the
World Wide Web, download a digitized seminar or click on a link to get
reading assignments. According to Mike Lambert, executive director of the
Distance Education and Training Council, more than 400 colleges and
universities in the U.S. offer accredited distance-learning programs.
Title: Dash To The Degree
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R28, Nov. 17)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Ralph King
Issue: Ed Tech
Description: The biology-research laboratories at top graduate schools,
like their governmental and corporate counterparts, are going digital.
Today, universities are churning out research -- and doctorates -- faster than
ever. New technology compresses the amount of time needed for
experimentation -- replacing some time-consuming biological processes with
computer simulations. And computers' ability to assemble and analyze
billions of bits of information stored in vast gene databases is opening
broad avenues of inquiry and shaving years off the discovery process. The
whole metabolism of a graduate education in biology has speeded up.
Title: The Home Advantage
Source: Wall Street Journal (Technology, R22, Nov. 17)
http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Evan Ramstad
Issue: Ed Tech
Description: Early exposure to computers is a big help for children.
Hundreds of research studies have found that computers improve student
performance, particularly when teachers are trained well in the technology.
Marylyn Rosenblum, president of Sanctuary Woods Multimedia Corp., said, "For
better or worse, parents understand that computers are tools of business.
Forget whether they're useful for education. Parents perceive kids need to
know about computers if they are going to be successful later in life." Many
parents buy computers based on the assumption that the more opportunity a
child has to work on a computer, the more comfortable he or she will be with
one in the future. Some experts say children can learn important computer
skills from video games or even the electronic "pets" that became popular
earlier this year. Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children's Software Revue,
said, "Most of that is incredibly intuitive, so they pick it up anyway."
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