December 2004 — Features
Print this article | Email this articleClick here to receive your FREE subscription to T.H.E. Journal
A Vision for a Summit
Keynote Speakers
In addition to the school district and vendor participation, prospective attendees indicated an interest in hearing what was happening at both the federal and state levels, as well as learning about some innovative approaches to using technology. To that end, CELT invited Timothy Magner, deputy director for the Office of Educational Technology at the U.S. Education Department, to give an overview of educational technology from the federal perspective, including the Education Secretary’s priorities for the department and an overview of the “National Education Technology Plan.”
Summit organizers also invited Jane Swift, the former governor of Massachusetts, to speak about the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act from a governor’s perspective. As Massachusetts’ governor from 2001-2003, Swift crafted a progressive public policy agenda that dramaticall improved public education, as well as enhanced economic opportunity for families and businesses. She was an advocate for educational reform, as well as for advancing accountability and high standards for schools, teachers and students, while increasing the state’s financial commitment to schools. In addition, Swift championed solutions for providing a guaranteed college education for foster children and authored a report on proposed improvements to Massachusetts’ early childhood education services.
Finally, to highlight an alternative approach to using technology in schools, Dr. Elliot Soloway, CEO and founder of GoKnow Inc., and Cathleen Norris, chief education officer of GoKnow, presented their research and demonstrated how handheld computers can transform K-12 classrooms by enabling one-to-one computing for every child.
Evaluation & Results
The summit format and the variety of interaction was the most important factor in allowing people to share district issues openly with their counterparts from different districts. Many participants emphasized the need to continue this kind of interaction among school districts so that people could see what works, what d'esn’t work, and how to take action. Some valued comparing their districts against others to see where they were ahead, where they were in step with the various districts, and where they were behind. A number of representatives from large urban school districts said that there was power in getting the districts together, and that by doing so they could drive the technology agenda with legislators as well as vendors. This idea was reinforced by a participant’s comment that the best thing about the summit was the opportunity to influence the development and direction of vendor products and services.
Some participants liked how summit discussions reinforced the idea that technology alone offers no instant solutions to district problems. Several people noted that the political forces which they thought existed only in their districts were common to many. One participant commented that “technology challenges are universal regardless of the size of the district or its geographic location.”
By clustering key areas of concern, one can see the common threads of thought that emerged from summit discussions.
