Under P.L. 103-382, the Improving America's Schools Act, the Secretary of Education is charged with the development of a "long-range national plan for technology in education," with substantial input from stakeholders at the national, state, and local levels. The plan is intended to describe how the U.S. Department of Education, in concert with other Federal agencies, will encourage the effective use of technology to achieve educational goals; how Federal agencies will support technology for learning, and how they will collaborate to this end; and how the Department will work with educators and state and local educational authorities to facilitate the effective use of technology in education. In short, it will be a Federal blueprint for supporting the infusion of technology into education.

As part of the process of preparing the plan, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology is holding a series of regional forums around the country to solicit input from educators and other practitioners, school administrators, representatives of higher education, researchers, state and local policymakers, parents, business and community leaders, and others. The fourth of these meetings was held in Kansas City, Missouri on May 3, 1995, and was hosted by the Mid-Central Regional Educational Laboratory and by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of the Secretary's Regional Representative (Region VII).

The half-day forum was attended by over 150 persons from the Midwest region of the United States (including residents of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska), and was organized around two topical sessions relevant to the infusion of technology into education. The sessions included:

• The Human Side of Technology, including issues related to the training and support needs of educators and other practitioners seeking to use technology effectively; and

• Building the Educational Infrastructure, including issues related to the deployment and acquisition of technology for use by education.

The meeting was opened by Dr. Linda Roberts, Director of the Office of Educational Technology. She acknowledged that since "one size doesn't fit all" when it comes to the use of technology in education, it was all the more important for her office to reach out to people from across the nation. Moreover, she emphasized the Secretary's need to understand the essential issues in insuring that our nation's students have equitable, full, and appropriate access to powerful technological tools.

Panel presentations began each session, followed by brief question and answer periods. Participants were also given the opportunity to make statements. Videotaped testimony of Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska was viewed at the close of the forum. Participants were clearly eager to share their ideas about the effective use of technology in education with representatives of the Department, as well as with each other.

What follows is a summary of participant insights and opinions, as those insights and opinions relate to the substance of a national plan for technology.1 The summary is divided into three main sections:

• The vision for technology from the Midwest, which relates the varying perspectives that students, parents, teachers, and state and local policymakers and administrators have on the potential impact that the use of technology in schools can have;

• Barriers to the effective use of technology in education, which describes some of the problems that participants have experienced in their uses of technology, and some of the problems they expect to experience, as the nation moves to ensure that educational technology becomes more widespread; and

• Implications for a national plan, which offers suggestions for the Federal role in the national plan.

The list of participants is attached.

It makes each of our schools larger. It makes each of our schools more effective. It lets us offer students things they wouldn't have otherwise.
- Don Davis, Teacher, Broken Bow Middle School, Nebraska

As Don Davis testified about how technological tools have allowed high school students in his district to take part in classes at the nearest university over 70 miles away, so participants echoed that technology -- particularly technology that facilitates distance learning -- can increase access to educational programs, libraries, and other information sources that are otherwise unavailable in less populated communities. What follows is a discussion of the visions for and perspectives on the use of technology in schools, from the varying perspectives of students, parents, teachers, and state and local policymakers and administrators.

Students

Kyle Schumaker, although the only student to speak at the forum, powerfully expressed students' desires for and facility with the use of technology in education. Students are intrinsically interested in technology, he related. They want to and can be involved in all aspects of the planning, acquisition, deployment, use, and maintenance of technological tools in their schools, and they want to be involved in the decisions that will affect their education. Students know that they know more about technology than their teachers, and they know that they can learn how to use new technology more easily and faster than their teachers. Naturally than, Kyle argued, students should be the ones instructing teachers on the use of technology just as he has at Central High School:

I was wondering if teachers would mind learning from students. After they realized that the students knew what they were doing and talking about, the teachers were responsive to students teaching them. Teachers really do not mind and they learn.

In essence, Kyle argued that technology can empower students to become active partners in their and their peers' educations, if only given the tools and opportunity.

Parents

Parents want their children to be able to access educational courses, information resources, and cultural experiences that their local schools and communities are not currently able to provide. They believe that technological tools in the hands of their children and children's teachers offer the key to these opportunities. Simply stated,

Parents want what's best for their children, and I think that parents now realize that that has to be different than the education that was provided for them.
- Mary Jane Murchison, President, Iowa Parent Teacher Association

In fact, parent participants expressed a real sense of urgency with regard to the use of technology in education. While parents who are involved in their local schools know that teachers are burdened already with a heavy work load and that money for education is scarce, their children's education is happening now -- largely without access to technological tools. It for this reason, perhaps, that the public of Missouri supported the passage of taxes on video rentals to help fund distance learning opportunities across that state.

Teachers

Teacher participants argued that the adoption and use of technology among teachers will only take place if they are convinced that it will help their students. Above all else, teachers are advocates for their students. If they believe that using technological tools in the classroom will help them help their students, then -- and only then -- will they embrace it fully:

Give us credit to be able to shape and implement...ideas for our own students and staff. We are...[at school] daily working with students; we know their needs and will do our best to see that we prepare our students for their place in the world.
- Libby Adams, Computer Resource Teacher, Troost Communications Academy

Indeed, teacher participants related stories of teachers who were at first quite resistant to the use of computers in education. Once they were able to see how they and their teacher peers were able to reach low-achieving learners through its use, however, they became convinced of its value.

State and Local Policymakers and Administrators

Representatives of state and local policymakers and administrators, as is befitting their leadership roles, clearly and simply articulated a vision for the use of technology in education at the forum. For example, Reverend Earl Nance of the St. Louis Board of Education testified that:

The use of technology and the development of our children in the use of the information highway is essential for their continued growth in society and their future effectiveness in the workforce.

While many state and local policymakers and administrators recognize that the effective use of technology is necessary to insure that their students are not at a competitive disadvantage as compared to other students in other states in this country and abroad, many state and local policymakers and administrators were uncertain as to how to manage the change that comes with the commitment to using technology in education. They expressed that they need a better understanding of a whole host of issues, including issues related to how to:

• Identify and secure funding for the acquisition of technology (typically over and above what is currently available);

• Set acquisition priorities once funding has been secured, and how those acquisition priorities optimally should relate to spending on training and support needs; and

• Effectively deploy, use, maintain, and upgrade the technology acquired.

Despite these information needs, state and local policymakers and administrators are looked to for leadership in the effective use of technology in education. During the forum representatives of many other participant groups identified the commitment and support of state and local policymakers and administrators as the key factor responsible for the successful acquisition and deployment of technological tools in schools in their local communities.

The biggest single obstacle to the acquisition and use of technology in local districts remains the reality of insufficient funds.
- Robert Coleville, National School Boards Association

In the main, participants of the Midwest Regional Forum were in agreement as to the key barriers to the effective and expanded use of technology in education. While residents of Region VII pursued a number of creative and innovative strategies to overcome the "reality of insufficient funds," the lack of funds to update technological tools in schools that are old and to purchase and deploy the infrastructure to support connections within and among schools was raised over and over again as the largest single barrier. Two additional barriers above and beyond the difficulty of securing funding were raised by participants, including issues related to:

• Unsupportive policies and regulations governing the acquisition, deployment, and use of technology in education; and

• The difficulty of effectively supporting and training users of technological tools.

Both of these issues -- as assessed by participants -- is elaborated below.

Unsupportive Regulations and Policies Governing the
Acquisition, Deployment, and Use of Technology in Education

Participants identified several regulatory and policy barriers at the Federal, state, district, and building levels to maximizing the use of available funds for the acquisition of technology in education, to schools collaborating with other organizations, and to the effective deployment and use of technology in schools. For example, state governments and other entities in Region VII who have attempted to purchase and deploy the infrastructure to support connections within and among schools throughout an entire state have been stymied for a number of reasons. One reason for this is that schools must negotiate for affordable access with every telephone company providing connections. According to Pam Johnson of Iowa Public Television, there are 152 local exchange carriers in Iowa alone. Another reason for difficulties in purchasing and deploying the infrastructure to support connections within and among schools throughout an entire state include the fact that the Federal government reserves certain responsibilities for itself. For example, states are not allowed, by Federal law, to work with manufacturers of telecommunications equipment to insure affordable access for schools.

Participants offered another example. Funding at the district- and school-levels for technology acquisition often comes from a variety of Federal, state, and local sources each with their own incentives, requirements, and restrictions. Since that funding is irregular, the task of attempting to plan combining funds is even more difficult. Consequently, district- and school-level personnel are left with a very real need for help in understanding how they can combine the resources available to them:

Those of you who serve in Departments of Education or are practitioners in local schools can easily see that receiving money from several sources and attempting to merge those funds with local dollars can be a logistics problem if schools are to make the most of every dollar.
- Susan Cole, Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education

All in all, participants expressed that the process of successfully negotiating all of the relevant regulations and policies to acquire, deploy, and use technology in schools is extremely complicated and, therefore, a major barrier.

The Difficulty of Effectively Supporting and Training
Users of Technological Tools

[Purchasing and deploying the technological infrastructure]...is quite frankly the easiest part. It drives us crazy, but it is the easiest part of this. The user support and training services is the most difficult.
- Bill Mitchell, MORENET

Several participants echoed Bill Mitchell's sentiments that it is extremely difficulty to effectively support and train people to use technological tools in ways that take advantage of the power of those tools. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that technology is changing faster than people can learn how to use it, and to the fact that training alone cannot anticipate or answer all the questions that may arise among users of technological tools. For example, participants noted that most professional development activities for teachers focus on the basics of how to operate the technological tool and not on higher-orders of usage, such as how to integrate the technological tool into the classroom in ways that impact learning.

For these reasons, participants argued that professional development can never be successful if delivered in "one-time shots" after an eight-hour workday. Teachers need time to learn, and the way to insure effective use of technological tools among teachers is to provide continuous professional development, as well as technical support.

In a rural state....technology has an even greater potential to bring new resources to people and businesses that do not otherwise have access to information resources.
- Tammy Barry, Education Committee Legal Counsel, Nebraska State Legislature

Participants expressed a vision for the use of technology in education that is beyond simply improving the schools of yesterday. They recognize that fundamental change in the way schools do business needs to occur if the wide array of services that could be made accessible through state-of-the-art technological tools are to be available to today's students. These services include access to information on the global market, to education and training experiences, and to government and cultural events in communities across the nation -- if not the world.

Participants hoped that the national plan would be flexible and fair enough to accommodate variations from state to state, such as how to accomodate those states that had the insight and initiative to invest in purchasing and deploying technological tools for use by schools prior to any scaling up at a national level. Furthermore, they asserted that the Federal government could play a key role in the implementation of the national plan to encourage the effective use of technology in education by:

• Communicating "lessons learned" by state and local staff and communities from efforts to acquire, deploy, use, and maintain technological tools in the schools of their states and communities;

• Providing incentives for the development of new models of professional development and technical support that insure the integration of technological tools into classrooms in ways that impact learning;

• Insuring that issues of equity of access to technological tools for students, teachers, parents, and members of local communities are addressed from the initial stages of planning to acquire and use those tools;

• Continuing to provide grants for the expanded use of technology in education that require collaboration among multiple organizations and institutions;

• Identifying and employing additional incentives for collaboration and linkages among non-profits, governments of all levels, education institutions and systems, and private companies; and

• Identifying and amending existing Federal regulations that are inhibiting the expanded use of technology in education at the state and local levels.

In sum, participants urged the Secretary of Education to seize the opportunity to redefine the traditional role of elementary and secondary schools. Participants went so far as to argue that in the movement to expand the use of technology in schools there is an unprecedented opportunity to empower schools to become agents of change for increased learning and productivity within their local communities across the nation. If the Secretary can engage the nation's communities, support for the national plan will be forthcoming.

A point of gratitude and appreciation is in order to all of the classroom teachers and educators who have laid a common foundation for pursuers of all careers and walks of life. We in technology want to thank you for what you've done, and to support you in your challenges ahead.
- Francis S. Mack, Group Manager - Logistics, McDonnell Douglas Aerospace

List of Participants | Other Forum Reports