Thursday - Jan 12, 2012
2011 has come and gone, and tied to it were numerous stories related to education technology. E-readers and tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire and the Apple iPad gained momentum, big-name universities offered even more free online classes, and the flipped classroom gained more attention. And while some ed tech predictions weren’t realized in 2011, this year shouldn’t be any less exciting.
I’ve talked a bit about education technology here, most recently on whether or not the rush to adopt it has moved too quickly. The reality, however, for Internet newbies and long-term users alike is that technology and learning are increasingly difficult to separate now. While schools like the Waldorf School of the Peninsula are still resistant to technology’s march, many more work to integrate it into curriculum. But education technology isn’t merely relegated to the school; even the simple act of going online to learn about new technologies highlights the role tech is playing in our learning.
That said, 2012 should continue to change how we use technology while learning, with experts already making bold predictions. Technology author Audrey Watters recently posted her list of 12 education tech trends to watch in the coming months, a list that includes important concepts like higher-quality interactive content and “social learning.”
“The ability for learners to connect with one another will be one of the most important trends of the coming year,” said Watters in her piece for MindShift. “This isn’t just a matter of connecting learners with online resources or with online instruction. Rather, one of the big opportunities will be to create a space in which learners can help and teach each other.”
With the recent news that students of online schools are lagging behind more traditional schools, it’s easy to wonder if the isolated, somewhat impersonal nature of an online course is at least partially to blame. While solid research into social learning over the Web is still needed, there are at least a few studies that indicate that learner-learner interaction is just as important as teacher-learner interaction in online programs.
At least one company is already betting on the importance of that interaction. Last week education start-up Piazza announced it had received a $6 million infusion to fund further research and development into its social learning platform. The start-up states that its service is “designed to connect students, TAs, and professors so every student can get help when she needs it — even at 2AM.” Similar efforts are sure to make headlines this year.
Another important area that Watters addresses is the consideration of high-speed Internet access to schools and how it may sadly get worse than better. She notes that while the U.S.’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recognizes the importance of high-speed Internet in schools and libraries, “even those schools with broadband access may find their resources strained in coming months.”
This topic was discussed here in September and again in November, addressing both the importance of broadband access to schools and the actions the FCC took last year to expand broadband access. The news also highlighted the Idaho Education Network and how despite its successes, funding cuts to the program have already forced some Idaho schools to reduce availability. This news highlights what is likely to be many more education cuts before 2012 ends, potentially leading to further reductions in tech investments at schools.
Despite the cutbacks, education technology will likely continue to be a hot topic this year as people from all walks of life take to the Internet and mobile devices to study, learn, and teach about our world. That very concept is what drives Learn the Net, a site utilizing technology to help you learn how to use it better. It’s also a reminder that education technology, while contentious, isn’t going anywhere. We may or may not see many changes this year, but ed tech’s importance will only grow.
Photo via Erin Lodes, Flickr Creative Commons
Thursday - Nov 10, 2011
Two stories have been playing out recently involving the expansion of broadband access and usage in the U.S. Let me touch on them both briefly and then discuss them together in further detail.
The potentially good:
On October 27 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to overhaul an antiquated telephone subsidy plan which first began in 1934. By spending the next six years transitioning the funds from the controversial Universal Service Fund, subsidies to telephone carriers will likely disappear in favor of a new Connect America Fund.
This new fund will go towards a vigorous expansion of “broadband build-out to the 18 million Americans living in rural areas who currently have no access to robust broadband infrastructure.” Though it’s incredibly early, cautious optimism is due, with an array of potential future benefits to some Americans.
The potentially not so good:
On November 9 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the expansion of a pre-existing Comcast program that provides low-cost broadband Internet service to qualifying low-income households. Comcast’s “Internet Essentials” program was introduced on September 20 as part of an agreement with the FCC concerning its merger with NBC Universal. The newly-proposed expansion would involve most of the country’s major cable providers. All would adopt similar aspects of Comcast’s program in their own tailored-made programs, which wouldn’t receive an investment of federal funds.
There’s a hitch, however. The qualifications for the program would likely be so archaic that few U.S. residents would be affected positively for the long-term.
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There’s no doubt that the U.S. needs greater broadband expansion. The common refrain for years has been that the U.S. lags far behind other countries in adoption and infrastructure, with an FCC report earlier this year stating that broadband access is only getting marginally better compared to previous years. Recent news out of Alaska and Idaho has further emphasized the need for rural broadband access across the United States. The FCC is betting that the recently announced Connect America Fund will help. And to be honest, it’s difficult to imagine broadband access not being positively affected with the transferal of funds allocated to now ubiquitous phone access subsidies to more sparse Internet access subsidies. The fund would essentially have to be mismanaged, though it wouldn’t be a first.
Conservatives are already deriding the new fund, however. “By subsidizing rural broadband, the FCC is attempting to offset the additional costs of deploying technology to communities with low population density,” said Diane Katz and Luke Welch in a recent article on conservative mouthpiece The Foundry. “But those costs reflect the realities of rural life, and it is simply wrong to force city dwellers to pay for the choices made by rural residents.”
Despite their argument, data by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that broadband adoption in rural areas* has more or less kept pace with suburban and urban adoption rates since 2006. This would seem to indicate that broadband saturation hasn’t occurred yet in rural communities. The same research also showed that of those who don’t go online, 21 percent don’t do it because the price is prohibitive.** This leads me to talk about the second bit of news from the FCC dealing with low-cost broadband Internet service.
While it sounds like major cable providers offering $10 per month broadband service would go a long ways towards appeasing the previously mentioned 21 percent of non-users, the details reveal the stunt to add up to little more than a positive PR ploy, one that again fails to address what many view as the major problems with high prices: the lack of competition in the U.S. broadband industry. It’s likely the details of the participating providers’ low-cost service will be similar to Comcast’s requirements for eligibility, which are:
• must have at least one child receiving free school lunches through the National School Lunch Program
• must not be a current Comcast Internet subscriber and must not have been a subscriber within the last 90 days
• must not have an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment
Sadly these requirements likely mean few will actually be able to take advantage, as Karl Bode notes for DSLReports.com:
“Once you’ve eliminated those who don’t qualify for the school lunch program, eliminated those who already have service (not uncommon even in poor homes), and eliminate those who also owe Comcast money (also obviously not uncommon in poor homes), how many customers will Comcast actually wind up having to serve at the $10 price point?”
Brian Stelter of The New York Times rightfully points out another aspect of the program that fails to address the long-term goals of the FCC. Stelter notes that for those who do qualify, the $10 price point will only be good for two years, leaving low-income customers to either discontinue their service or pay beyond their means to continue with the service.
“The price is akin to an on-ramp for new customers,” said Stetler, “with the hope being that they will decide to pay more for access once they have had it for a while.”
What seems strange here is the assumption that low-income households will suddenly have additional money to cover the price increase two years later. If the FCC is counting on wider broadband adoption to last beyond the two-year period in low-income households, I believe they’re being entirely overconfident.
These recent and any future tactics by the FCC to expand broadband service, if anything, will likely continue to draw ire from some Americans. Additional research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (published in August 2010) has shown that 53% of Americans don’t think the government should meddle with the expansion of affordable broadband. Yet without government intervention, it’s difficult to imagine the problem of stifled broadband competition fixing itself. Rather, the FCC likely will need to gain a better understanding of the rural broadband picture and spend more time focusing on methods to encourage lower pricing. Such action won’t fully solve the complex issues surrounding the opposition to who foots the bill for broadband in areas of low population density, but it will at least bring greater legitimacy to its fervent push to catch up.
* See slide six of the hyperlinked slide show for the relevant information.
** See slide 21 of the hyperlinked slide show for the relevant information.
Photo via Gavin St. Ours, Flickr Creative Commons
Thursday - Sep 15, 2011
Distance and online education isn’t a novel idea in the United States. In fact, some may be surprised to discover e-learning began as early as the 1960s. Since then schools, universities, academies, and nonprofit organizations have taken to the Internet to disseminate and teach knowledge to people around the world. While this type of education must often still be purchased, some public schools and universities are expanding their online offerings.
Take Stanford University for example, which plans on offering three free introductory online courses this fall on weighty topics like artificial intelligence, databases, and machine learning. The online classes won’t consist of a boring lecture, but rather they will contain interactive multimedia presentations broken up into digestible 15-minute chunks.
Cambridge University’s Lynne Harrison likes the idea, telling The Independent: “A good lecturer will change the tempo after 15 minutes, and the Internet allows that to happen more naturally. The technology that Stanford has put in place makes lectures more watchable, and we’re looking at doing a similar thing for our free online courses launching next spring.”
Stanford isn’t the first U.S. university to offer free online material, however. Open Yale Courses has been offered by Yale University since December 2007, spanning 20 different departments. MIT recently celebrated ten years of offering its OpenCourseWare, which covers a broad range of departments and topics.
However, online schooling (free or not) has had its fair share of challenges in the U.S., ranging from the stigma placed on it to the relatively slow placement of necessary Internet infrastructure. Two stories from earlier this week highlight the problems rural and remote areas of the country are dealing with in expanding online education.
The Houston Chronicle posted a story on Sunday about Alaska’s Learning Network and the challenges the school consortium faces in providing students in remote areas with online classes. The network includes about 140 students spread across 20 different schools in two school districts, all receiving vital online courses. Many of those courses are required to qualify for the heavily-pushed Alaska Performance Scholarship (APS), which provides an important source of funds to high school students intending to go to university.
Federal Recovery Act money has gone towards establishing the network, also covering the cost of helping school districts add classes required for the APS. Yet funding concerns continue to threaten the program, which is currently running on a one-year startup grant. Ensuring those in even the more remote parts of Alaska can access the network is another vital issue, as many portions of rural Alaska still grapple with reliable Internet connectivity.
Another part of the U.S. struggling with high-speed Internet access — necessary for streaming multimedia and digital downloads associated with most online courses — is Idaho. In a New York Times story published on Tuesday, a somewhat bleak picture of Idaho’s rural Internet speeds was painted.
“Without broadband, especially in rural areas, kids might not reach their full potential,” Jonathan Adelstein, administrator of the fed’s Rural Utilities Service, told the Times. “And we can’t expect to be competitive in a global economy.”
Rural Utilities Service is apparently one of many entities involved in a $25 million project to establish high-speed broadband to rural Idaho. But simply adding more broadband service may not be enough. The cost of broadband service is often prohibitive to rural citizens, making it more difficult to access online education. The Idaho Education Network attempts to offset this problem by offering high-speed Internet to all the state’s public schools, also allowing businesses and residents to access that service at the schools. Yet cuts in education funding have forced the program to cut back this service at some schools.
While many questions loom concerning online education (who pays for unprofitable broadband infrastructure to rural areas? what are the consequences of removing the social experience?) there is no doubt that it’s increasing in popularity and necessity. With the current U.S. education crisis being hotly debated, it’s not difficult to imagine that popularity and necessity growing even further. And so will the growing pains, especially for rural America.
Photo via D’Arcy Norman, Flickr Creative Commons
