EDUCATION WEEK · Educators seek to balance the benefits and drawbacks of online teaching and...

EDUCATION WEEKAmerican Education’s Newspaper of Record • Volume XXI, Number 35 • May 9, 2002 • © 2002 Editorial Projects in Education / $6.00

How Virtual Schools and OnlineInstruction AreTransformingTeaching andLearning

E-DefiningEducation

Technology Counts 2002

With Support From the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

ContentsContents

8 E-Defining EducationCyber schools, online teaching and testing, and other e-learning initiatives are changing the landscape of education.

• E-Learning Survey of the States / 10

13 E-Learning Goes to SchoolEducators seek to balance the benefits anddrawbacks of online teaching and learning. A special look at one high school’s experience.

19 Students Speak OutPupil course evaluations from one of the nation’smost prominent cyber schools show the strengthsand weaknesses of e-learning.

27 Higher Ed.’s Online Odyssey K-12 schools have much to learn from highereducation’s successes and failures in the world of online education.

31 The Virtual Teaching Life Full-time online educators say teaching in cyberspace is rewarding, but it’s not suited to everyone.

37 Sizing Up Online ContentSchools across the country are evaluating Web-based curriculum to see if it can deliver as much as it promises.

41 E-Training Offers OptionsEducators are turning to online courses to upgrade their professional skills in a variety of areas.

47 One State’s Digital QuestA host of new technologies are making SouthDakota a breeding ground for e-learning initiatives,such as a state-sponsored online testing program.

53 Tracking Tech TrendsStudent access to computers continues to improve, but serious concerns remain about how technology is used.

• Access to Technology / 58

• Capacity to Use Technology / 62

• Use of Technology / 64

• Sources and Notes / 96

68 State of the States

Snapshots of what each state is doing in thearea of e-learning and how the states areusing technology to improve schools.

98 Index to Advertisers

COVER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ALLISON SHELLEY

ON THE COVER: Students from George Mason Senior

High School in Falls Church, Va.

TECHNOLOGY COUNTS 2002: E-DEFINING EDUCATION

[ 4 ] T E C H N O L O G Y C O U N T S 2 0 0 2 : E - D E F I N I N G E D U C A T I O N

EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Virginia B. Edwards

MANAGING EDITOR

Gregory Chronister

PROJECT EDITOR

Kevin Bushweller

PROJECT DIRECTOR

Kathryn M. Doherty

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES

Greg F. Orlofsky

Ronald A. Skinner

Scott Spicer

SENIOR WRITERS

Julie Blair, Rhea R. Borja,

Michelle Galley, John Gehring,

Kathleen Kennedy Manzo,

Andrew Trotter

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Patrick Flanigan, Robin Flanigan,

Shari Metzger, Jo Anna Natale,

Myron Struck, Kathleen Vail

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Laura Baker

ASSISTANT DESIGN DIRECTOR

Gina Tomko

DESIGN ASSISTANT

Alyson Salon

PHOTO EDITOR

Allison Shelley

Technology Counts 2002 wasproduced with support from the

William and Flora HewlettFoundation.


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E-Defining EducationE-Defining Education

To appreciate how e-learning is changingthe landscape of education, you needonly look at the numbers.

Already, 12 states have establishedonline high school programs and five

others are developing them, 25 states allow for thecreation of so-called cyber charter schools, and 32states have e-learning initiatives under way,according to a new Education Week survey of statetechnology coordinators. Meanwhile, the surveyshows, 10 states are piloting or planning toadminister online testing. Oregon and SouthDakota are already using Web-based assessments.

All those programs and policy changes areopening the doors of online education to tens ofthousands more students. In fact, “Virtual Schools:Trends and Issues,” a report commissioned byWestEd—a research, development, and educationalservices organization—estimates that 40,000 to50,000 K-12 students will have enrolled in anonline course by the end of the 2001-02 school year.As it is, most of those youngsters are high schoolstudents. But the report points out that momentumis building to make online courses available toelementary and middle school pupils, too.

“The virtual school movement,” the WestEd reportsays, is “the ‘next wave’ in technology-based K-12education.”

Indeed, the e-learning bandwagon figures tobecome a crowded vehicle before long. After all, thisnew way of delivering education has the support ofnumerous state and local policymakers, educationresearchers, and business leaders.

Still, some educators, policymakers, andresearchers are skeptical of what they see asexaggerated claims for online learning. And theyworry about what is lost when students do not meetface to face with their classmates and teachers.

Alan Warhaftig, a Los Angeles high school Englishteacher who has earned certification from theNational Board for Professional Teaching Standards,says he sees an “overall weakness to that notion thatonline schools can replace the school environment.”

Others have similar concerns.For instance, “Guide to Online High School

Courses,” a draft report from a group of companiesand education organizations, including the NationalEducation Association and the National SchoolBoards Association, expresses particular unease withthe possibility that online education will filter downto the lower grades.

“Our current understandings of the characteristicsand needs of learners in earlier grades … would

suggest we exercise great caution in the use of theonline environment to deliver instruction to studentsprior to middle school,” the draft report says.

Beyond such concerns, the report includes adaunting list of other issues that must be resolved:Are online courses aligned with state academicstandards? Who is responsible for students’technological needs when they are taking an onlinecourse? Are online teachers trained effectively toteach via the Internet? Should parent approval berequired before a child enrolls in an online course?Will students receive the same amount of credit foran online course as they would for a face-to-faceclass? And how will states ensure the quality ofonline courses, especially when students are takingthem from teachers in other states or countries?

The questions go on and on. But because thephenomenon is largely a new one, educationpolicymakers are still struggling to find appropriateanswers.

To help educators better understand the benefitsand drawbacks of e-learning, Technology Counts2002—the fifth edition of Education Week’s annual50-state report on educational technology—examines

On sunny days in Palmer, Alaska,Becky Huggins, an onlineelementary schoolteacher, can doher teaching outin the fresh air.“[Online teaching]is too exciting toactually put intowords,” she says.“All you have to dois be around it ...and you’ll behooked, too.”

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CYBER SCHOOLS, ONLINE

TEACHING AND TESTING,AND OTHER E-LEARNING

INITIATIVES ARE CHANGING

HOW SCHOOLS OPERATE.

the trend from many different perspectives,beginning with a story that explores one regular highschool’s increasing use of online classes. The school,Hudson High in Hudson, Mass., receives its onlinecourses through the Virtual High School, acollaboration of high schools run by a Massachusettscompany with 200 member schools in 28 states andeight countries. Hudson was the first high school totake part in the program.

As another part of this year’s focus on e-learning,the Education Week research team was able to gainan insider’s view of online learning, particularlythrough the eyes of students. With the permission of the Florida Virtual School, or FLVS—the largestand most established state-financed online highschool in the nation—the research team analyzed thelatest and previously unpublished course-evaluationdata collected by the online school this school year.The data—and students’ accompanying comments—come from 2,387 evaluation surveys filled out bystudents between September and February of thisschool year.

Traditional colleges and full-fledged onlineuniversities have been educating students via theWeb far longer than K-12 schools have—hence, theyhave much to share with K-12 educators about theirsuccesses and failures along the way. So TechnologyCounts 2002 also sought advice from highereducation officials who have experienced the trials ofbuilding and maintaining online-learning programs.One higher education official, for instance, advisesprecollegiate educators to “look at what you canaccomplish with the least amount of technology.”

Undoubtedly, e-learning arrangements haveunlimited potential to transform the professionallives—and in some ways, the personal lives—ofteachers. A teacher working for a virtual school is notrequired to be in a specific classroom, at a specifictime. And that changes the possibilities not only forwhere they teach, but also how they teach. To betterunderstand online teaching from the front lines, thisyear’s report details the experiences of four teachers,all of whom teach online full time, but had taught inregular schools before becoming cyber educators. Theupshot: This type of teaching isn’t for everyone.

As it is, many online teachers are still struggling tofind high-quality online content, according to a storyin this year’s report about online curriculum. Expertssay the problem is that most online curricula aresimply traditional material copied to the Web. As aconsequence, such curricula typically don’t takeadvantage of the interactive or visual features theWeb offers.

Online professional development for teachers is adifferent story. Some technology experts have raisedconcerns about teacher training conducted online,pointing to inadequate access to technology and alack of face-to-face interaction. But the inherentflexibility the online medium provides to busyeducators has made it increasingly popular. Thisreport takes a look at some of the efforts to trainteachers through online programs.

This year, Technology Counts also turns thespotlight on a state that is pushing the uses ofeducational technology as far as it can. A rural state

known to outsiders mostly as the site of MountRushmore, South Dakota is one of the most wiredstates in the nation. And people far beyond the SouthDakota state line are starting to notice. For the pasttwo years, the Folsom, Calif.-based Center for DigitalGovernment, a research and technology advisoryinstitute, ranked the state first in a nationwide

evaluation of how states use technology to benefittheir citizens.

For the United States overall, the picture is a littledifferent. On the positive side, states have madegreat strides—despite fiscal belt-tightening—inhelping students get access to computers in schools.The national student-to-computer ratio is now about4-to-1. Still, spending on staff development andtraining decreased as a percentage of schooltechnology budgets from 2000 to 2001. This reportexamines some of those trends.

Snapshots of the steps each state has taken toestablish e-learning initiatives—or simply to useeducational technology more effectively—are alsoincluded in the report, as are data tables with state-by-state statistics on technology use in schools.

We hope you’ll find information here that will helpyou see through the hype swirling around e-learning,and better understand the pluses and downsides ofthis new way of providing education. —THE EDITORS

M A Y 9 , 2 0 0 2 E D U C A T I O N W E E K [ 11 ]

A DAUNTING LIST OF E-LEARNING ISSUES MUST BE RESOLVED:ARE THE COURSES LINKED TO STATE ACADEMIC STANDARDS?HOW ARE EDUCATORS TRAINED TO TEACH ONLINE CLASSES?

SOURCE: Education Week survey of state departments of education, 2002

E-Learning Initiatives Across the States

Currently, 32 states sponsor e-learning initiatives, and 13 regulate private e-learninginitiatives that are not operated by the state. State e-learning programs include onlineassessments, virtual schools, or training for online educators. State efforts to regulateindependently-provided e-learning efforts include requiring that programs meet statestandards, or that online teachers are certified.

State has an e-learning initiative (24)

State has an e-learning initiative,and regulates e-learning (8)

State does not have an e-learninginitiative, and does not regulate e-learning (14)

State regulates e-learning (5)

WA

OR

CA

AK

ID

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AZ

MT

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UT CO

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ND

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IL IN OHPA

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GAALMS

TN

LA

CTNJDE

MDDC

State has an e-learningintiative (2002)

State has established avirtual high school (2002)



E-Defining Education: A Survey of State Technology Coordinators

State allows cyber charterschools (2002)

State allows districts to sponsor e-learning

intiatives (2002)

State regulates non-state-sponsored e-learning intiatives

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Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.

State administers online assessments

(2002)

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22


Hudson, Mass.

The pastel fliers taped to the worn corridors of Hudson High add up

to a litany of local events: cheerleading tryouts Saturday in the

gym, fund raising for a homeless shelter in town, a reminder to buy

prom tickets by Friday.

The local nature of high school, American-style, is underscored as teenagers

flow through the 33-year-old passages here to the next class, jostling

companions and belongings, chattering about college-acceptance letters and

plans for a spring-break beach trip.

Just off the main hall, though, in a little room marked “VHS Lab,” Hudson

High School doesn’t seem so local anymore.

Beneath a wall clock that is about four hours off, 10 students peer at their

computer monitors. Each is involved—judging from the textbooks balanced on

their keyboards—in a different subject: fractals, genetics, music appreciation,

comparative philosophy, and so on.

Yet this is not study hall, or even independent study. Each student is,

essentially, attending a different online class, responding to a teacher and

classmates located, well, just about anywhere.

EDUCATORS

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Continued on Page 16

The computer labat Hudson High

School inMassachusetts

links students toonline courses

taught byteachers from all

over the nationand even some

other countries.Gabriel Cruz,

above,coordinates the

school’s efforts tooffer online

courses.

E-LearningGoes to School

E-LearningGoes to School

One student, for example, is taking a media studiescourse online from a teacher in Malaysia. Another isstudying technology and multimedia from a teacher inGeorgia. A third is taking honors American studies froma teacher in Clinton, Mass. Classmates enroll fromthroughout the nation, and some from as far away asAsia, Europe, and South America.

Hudson is part of a growing wave of high schools thatare using e-learning—as online education is oftencalled—to poke holes in traditional classroom and cur-riculum boxes and let new information, perspectives,and options pour in.

“It broadens the curriculum way beyond what we’dnormally be able to offer,” says John Stapelfeld, Hudson’sprincipal. Few of the 128 courses the school has access toonline would find their way into the curriculum other-wise, he says.

Forty Hudson students, nearly all of them 11th and12th graders, take online courses each semester. Theyreport to a converted storage room daily for a regular 90-minute block, sandwiched between their regular classes.The number will rise to 60 students in the fall, thoughadministrators at the 880-student school, which servesgrades 8-12, are worried about finding enough space andup-to-date computers.

Sixty students may not seem like many. But school of-ficials say they are slowly pursuing the goal of havingevery student take at least one online course before re-ceiving a Hudson diploma.

States Are Key Players

Hudson High receives its online courses through the Vir-tual High School, a collaborative of high schools that is runby the VHS Inc., a nonprofit foundation based in Maynard,Mass.The 2,752-student Hudson school district co-foundedthe program in 1995, along with the Concord, Mass.-basedConcord Consortium, a nonprofit R&D organization, undera five-year grant from the federal government.

The VHS has 200 member schools in 28 states and eightcountries. Members must contribute a teacher to lead atleast one online class of 20 students. For each course pro-vided, the school receives 20 places for its students in on-line courses. Hudson has contributed the services of twoteachers, for astronomy and Advanced Placement statis-tics; and a music teacher is going through the VirtualHigh’s online training program this year.

Though the VHS is one of the nation’s first two onlineprograms for high schools—the other is the E-School runby the Hawaii Department of Education—otherproviders of online courses have swarmed onto the scenesince 1995. They include Bellevue, Wash.-based ApexLearning, the Florida Virtual School, and colleges anduniversities that have opened some of their onlinecourses to high school students. And according to Edu-cation Week’s 2002 survey of state technology coordina-tors, 12 states have established their own virtual schoolsand five others are piloting cyber schools.

Experts say the demand for K-12 online courses con-tinues to grow.

For instance, the American Federation of Teachersfound in a survey of its local affiliates this year that highschool students in 23 states are taking online courses inpublic schools, according to Jamie Horowitz, aspokesman for the union.

Right now, it is the involvement of state governmentsthat is emerging as a pivotal factor supporting the trend.States have latched onto online schooling as an affordableway to bolster their efforts to raise academic performance.

The Education Week survey found that 32 states aresponsoring e-learning initiatives, including online test-ing programs, virtual schools, and Internet-based pro-fessional development.

Typically, states sign up vendors, such as Apex Learn-ing or Lincoln, Neb.-based class.com, to put together acafeteria-style offering of online courses. For states, thatapproach is cheaper and more flexible than creating on-

line courses themselves.Florida, on the other hand, has developed its own

courses for its online school. The Florida Virtual Schoolwas formed in 1997 from a pilot project run by Orangeand Alachua counties. The program enrolls more than5,000 students in 65 counties, almost double the 2,600students the school reported serving in 2001. Free to thestate’s public schools and home schoolers, it receives $6million annually in state money. The school also gener-ates revenue by selling its courses to schools in a fewother states.

As it is, 25 states have laws that allow online charterschools to be established, according to the Education Weeksurvey. And about 30 online charter schools have croppedup in a dozen of those states, according to the Center forEducation Reform, a Washington-based advocacy groupand information clearinghouse for school choice.

But cyber charters have also attracted controversy.The Ohio Federation of Teachers, which is suing to over-turn its state’s charter school law, has claimed that on-line charters there are nonprofit storefronts for profit-seeking management companies. And the PennsylvaniaSchool Boards Association is challenging the legality ofthat state’s support for online charter schools.

‘Set Free’

As an average-size school serving a town with blue-col-lar roots but an increasingly high-tech workforce, Hud-son High, located about 25 miles west of Boston, mustbalance its limited resources with the community’s in-creasing expectations for students.

The online courses add to the handful of honors andAP courses at the school. But school officials say thecyber classes also let students pursue narrower topics,such as the Vietnam War. “In regular U.S. history,you probably spend a week on the Vietnam conflict,”says David Champigny, a school guidance counselor.The Virtual High School, in contrast, has a full-semes-

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Continued from Page 13


Virtual Schools

Virtual schools are learning institutions that provide either some or all academicinstruction over the Internet. To date,12 states have established virtual schools that are fully operational for the 2001-02 school year. Five states—Idaho, Maryland,Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas—are developing or piloting virtual schools. Twenty-fiveof the 37 states and the District of Columbia that allow charter schools also permitcyber charter schools.

State has established a virtual school (6)

State has established a virtual school and permits cybercharter schools (6)

None (20)

State permits cyber charterschools (19)

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ter course on the war.And some online courses cover subjects that students

say are more practical than what the regular curriculumoffers, says Janet Sampson, Hudson’s school-to-career andinstructional-technology specialist. The engineering track,for example, includes the school’s regular math and sci-ence courses, plus a VHS course on bridge architecture,which requires that students build a model bridge.

“If kids are interested in a certain career, they can ex-plore it [through an online course], solidify their interest, orrealize it isn’t what they thought it was,” Sampson says.

Students see other benefits, too.Kimberly David, 16, a junior who describes herself as

shy, says she earns better marks for class participationgrades in her online music-appreciation and -compositioncourse “because you can post questions rather than em-barrass yourself.”

Mark Exarhopoulos, 18—a senior who plays on theschool’s football, hockey, and baseball teams—says the onlinecourses he has taken have helped him do a better job jug-gling classes and team practices.And only a few students heknows have taken online courses because they thought theywould be easier than traditional classes. “It’s not a walk-through,” Exarhopoulos says of the online approach.

Kathy Somerville, the Hudson High librarian, oftenhelps students do research for their online class projects.“Some students sign up [for the virtual classes] and theythink it’s going to be easy, and they fail miserably,” shesays. But “other students just love it—it feels like they’vebeen set free.”

One real benefit, students and teachers here say, is thechance to study with students who live far from Massa-chusetts—or even the United States.

Holly Hester, an 18-year-old senior, says her course inEastern and Western thought benefits from having sev-eral Buddhist students who live in Venezuela. “We canask them direct questions” about Buddhism, she says.

Peggy Collins, a Hudson High physics teacher whoteaches an online course in astronomy, says her class hasstudents from Brazil and at least seven U.S. states; somestudents are Afghans who recently emigrated to Califor-nia, and two students are from a school for the deaf nearWashington.

To prepare to teach the class, the physics teacher had toconsult an expert in the learning styles of deaf children.Andfor the Brazilian students, she had to research constellationsof the Southern Hemisphere before instructing them to gooutside to make observations of the night sky.

Beyond that additional preparation, online teachers—aware that most of the youngsters in their classes willnever meet each other face to face—devote extra time andeffort to building a community of learners. In fact, com-munity building is a prime topic in the 14-week onlinetraining course the VHS teachers are required to take.

Among the ways online teachers nurture a sense ofcommunity in their classes is by having “open thread” dis-cussions, basically e-mail chats that feature just aboutany topic. For example, Hudson’s Karen Deaver, whoteaches an AP statistics course online, assigns her cyberstudents a weekly magazine article—not necessarily onmath—to read and discuss.

Some Are Skeptical

But the rush to offer online courses troubles some edu-cators, even those who are comfortable using technology.They say the academic value of online courses is un-proven, the quality is uneven, and the motives of someproponents are suspect.

Alan Warhaftig, a Los Angeles high school Englishteacher who sports a credential from the National Boardfor Professional Teaching Standards, suggests schools arerelying too much on technology to improve learning.

Warhaftig scoffs at the e-mail chats and other “commu-nity building” exercises many online teachers use. “If youspend all this time … creating a simulacrum of commu-nity, that’s taking away from instructional time,” he says.“For me, everything is about instructional time.”

Indeed, he says it’s just such exercises that underscore



what he calls “the overall weakness to that notion thatonline schools can replace the school environment.”

From a teacher’s perspective, Warhaftig doubts thatonline classrooms can match the “looking in the eyes” fac-tor that teachers rely on so much to determine if theirstudents understand a lesson—or even if they’re havinga bad day.

Some Hudson students echo those concerns.Erik Reed, 17, a senior taking an online music course,

says of his classmates from Massachusetts, Arkansas, andCalifornia: “You’re not really bonding with these people.You’ll never see them again when the course is over.”

The problem is one that some education researchersare investigating.

Andrew Zucker, a Washington-based researcher at SRIInternational, a nonprofit research and technology-de-velopment organization, has studied the Virtual HighSchool since 1996. As part of his research, he has con-ducted surveys of participants in similar online and face-to-face classes. One of his primary findings: There is lessinteraction between students and teachers in onlinecourses.

But while he says that is a weakness, he does not be-lieve it is a fatal flaw.

Hudson High students are similarly divided on theissue, with several saying they think more carefullyabout the e-mails they write for online class discussionsthan they do when they simply raise their hands tospeak in regular classes.

Yet it seems telling that Hudson officials rarely allowstudents to take the VHS courses in core subjects, al-though the officials say that stance has nothing to dowith doubts about the courses’ effectiveness.

“We want them to take their core required subjectshere—our classrooms with our teachers and our cur-riculum,” says guidance counselor Champigny. He notesthat students have a lot at risk when they face theMassachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, thestate’s high-stakes tests.

Besides, Champigny says, the VHS is best used to pro-vide what the school doesn’t offer.

When pressed, though, the guidance counselor, a for-mer English teacher, says: “In my personal opinion, Idon’t think [an online course] can take the place of theclassroom experience. But it is a beautiful add-on.”

One longtime math teacher at Hudson High, J. BryanSullivan, who is now retired but who coaches the school’smath teams, says he’s skeptical of the effectiveness of on-line courses in providing instruction in his subject. “Fewstudents will dig out the mathematics” in an onlinecourse, says Sullivan, because learning online can get“lonely and boring.”

‘Real’ Courses

At the moment, teachers’ unions, state boards of educa-tion, and local policymakers are scrambling to get a handleon the growth in e-learning and what it means for them.

The nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, the NationalEducation Association and the American Federation ofTeachers, are surveying their members about what theythink of online schools, and are developing policies andreports on the subject.

Students and educators, in fact, still are often per-plexed about e-learning.

To counter the confusion among students applying forHawaii’s E-School, for instance, the application requiresthem to attest to the following: “I realize that this E-School course I am signing up for is a real course andthis grade will appear on my transcript. …”

Vicki Kajioka, the director of the online school, based inHonolulu, says: “Lots of times, with young people, theydon’t realize that when they’re signing up for somethingon the Web, it’s a real course and it’s going to appear ontheir grades. We do a lot of counseling, sending outprogress reports, but to some students it doesn’t register.”

Beyond that confusion, both providers and consumers ofonline courses say a serious problem is the lack of widelyrecognized standards of quality. In response, some efforts

are under way to devise methods of assuring quality.One is in the area of accreditation. The Commission

on International and Trans-Regional Accreditation, orCITA, a group formed by five of the nation’s six privateregional accrediting agencies, is working on definingquality, says Randy C. Sinisi, the associate executive di-rector of the organization.

She says CITA, formed originally to bring uniformity toaccreditation of overseas schools and television-baseddistance-learning programs, has had to adopt new meth-ods to evaluate online schools. Beyond examining thematerials that complement the online curriculum, theorganization conducts telephone and e-mail surveys ofstudents and arranges to conduct observations of stu-dents and teachers taking part in online classes.

But Sinisi acknowledges that accreditors are still try-ing to figure out how to deal with online schools. “Wehave to change our methods,” she says. “There is no stu-dent body there to look at.”

‘The Way It Should Be’

Proponents of online courses say technologies underdevelopment will give online courses richer means of in-teraction, although the limited bandwidth available tomany schools may delay the use of new tools.

Florence McGinn, a high school English teacher fromFlemington, N.J., who was a member of a 2000 panel au-thorized by Congress to investigate the potential of e-learning, argues that more radical steps are needed be-fore schools can enjoy the full benefits of onlineeducation. “I think there has to be an educational andsocial reorganization of the classroom,” she says.

McGinn now is the vice president of research at theGlobal Knowledge Exchange, a company based inWayne, N.J., that designs and brokers online trainingprograms. She believes a new format could include hav-ing students analyze their own learning styles and enterinto “learning contracts” with their schools that givethem considerable independence, including more oppor-tunities for “virtual” learning experiences.

But for now, schools like Hudson High are taking amore measured approach to online learning.

Hudson educators look forward to the completion of anew school building, now rising amid constructioncranes on the school’s old athletic fields and expected tobe completed sometime next year. The new building willhave a VHS lab that is triple the size of the current one,with 24 modern computers—up from the current 14.

School officials say the new building will give a shoveto Hudson’s creation of a careful hybrid of new and oldmodes of learning.

What it’s unlikely to do, cautions Somerville, theschool librarian, is make everyone an online student.

E-learning, she says, is “not for everyone, but that’sthe way it should be.” ■



Eva

n R

ichm

an f

or

Educa

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John Stapelfeld,the principal ofHudson High,stands in front ofthe constructionsite of the newHudson High,which will featurea computer labfor online coursesthat is triple thesize of thecurrent one.


Twelve states now have their own virtual education institutions—

state-sponsored schools that provide some or all of their

instruction over the Internet, according to Education Week’s 2002

survey of state technology coordinators. Much has been made of

the potential of these so-called cyber schools to redefine how we think about

teaching and learning in the digital age. At the same time, though, concerns

abound about the consequences of an educational style that forgoes face-to-

face contact and personal interaction in favor of the potentially isolating

world of cyberspace.

As part of its focus on e-learning, this year’s edition of Technology Counts

set out to get more of an insider’s view of cyber school, especially from the

perspective of students. With the permission of the Florida Virtual School, the

largest and most well-established state-financed virtual high school in the

nation, the Education Week research team analyzed the latest and previously

unpublished course-evaluation data collected from FLVS, as the school is

known. The survey data in this article, as well as the accompanying

comments of FLVS students, are gleaned from 2,387 course-evaluation surveys

filled out by the school’s students between Sept. 1, 2001 and Feb. 12, 2002.

But first, to put the survey data and student comments in their proper

context, it’s worth understanding how this school got started, how much it has

grown, and what types of students it attracts.

Founded in 1997, the Florida Virtual School grew out of two counties’ efforts

By Kathr yn M. Doher ty

COURSE

EVALUATIONS

FROM

FLORIDA’SONLINE SCHOOL

HIGHLIGHT

THE

STRENGTHS

AND

WEAKNESSES

OF E-LEARNING.

More than5,000 students

are takingonline courses

from FloridaVirtual School,

a state-sponsored

cyber school.

StudentsSpeak Out

StudentsSpeak Out

to create an online-learning project with “Break theMold” grants from the state. A year later, with a $1.3million appropriation from the state of Florida, the highschool opened its doors—or more appropriately, its Webportals—to the public.

In 2000, FLVS was established as an independent ed-ucation entity by the state, giving it a status compara-ble to that of any other Florida school district. Then, in2001, it became the first virtual school to be accreditedby the Commission on International and Trans-Re-gional Accreditation, or CITA. That organization of sixregional accreditation institutions in the United Stateshas developed standards for national, international,and distance education programs.

The Florida school has grown from a staff of fourteachers and three courses in 1997 to 44 teachers and60 courses this school year for students in grades 9-12.Courses range from art and business technology toLatin, algebra, and Advanced Placement calculus. Thevirtual high school also offers a preparation course forthe statewide standardized assessment. However, FLVSis not yet a diploma-granting institution.

As it is, the school enrolls about 5,000 students, whotake an average of 1.6 courses each. For the 2001-02school year, FLVS has more than 8,200 course enrollments. About half the students, 55 percent, alsoattend regular public high schools within the state,while 37 percent are drawn from the more than 41,000students on the statewide roster of home schoolers.A small percentage are from private schools or out-of-state schools. Fifty-seven percent of the students are girls.

Meanwhile, FLVS has experienced an increase in racialdiversity—with 21 percent minority enrollment (includ-ing 14 percent African-American or Hispanic) in 2001-02compared with 8 percent minority enrollment just a fewyears earlier.

‘Any Time … Any Pace’

Improvements in outreach efforts have helped reachmore minority youngsters and students from disadvan-taged backgrounds, says Sharon Johnston, the school’sdirector of curriculum and instruction. The Florida Vir-tual School offers a special preregistration period to en-courage the participation of minority students, ruralstudents, and students in schools identified as low-per-forming by the state.

Recently, too, the school has been more aggressive inpromoting e-learning opportunities through visits to schools and more communication with school coun-selors. Indeed, 44 percent of FLVS students say they found out about the online program from schoolcounselors.

But Johnston thinks regular schools also need to pickup more of the responsibility for telling students whatFLVS has to offer. “Some just haven’t done it,” she says. Forinstance, according to a 2001 survey of 28 of the 67Florida districts affiliated with the online school—includ-ing the high-minority Miami-Dade County and BrowardCounty school systems—none of the districts indicatedthat they had any strategies to encourage minority en-rollment in the virtual school.

But while equity concerns around access to e-learn-ing remain for some groups of students, survey resultsshow that online learning is not the exclusive domainof students who are already sophisticated technologyusers. While most students participating in onlinecourses through FLVS describe themselves as coming tothe school with a great deal of computer knowledge andproficiency with computers and the Internet, 31 per-cent report little or no previous experience with com-puters, and 27 percent report no previous experiencewith the Internet.

“It’s refreshing that these students are coming totechnology because of their needs,” says Johnston,“even though they may not have the technical skillsgoing in.”

Indeed, students flock to the school for a variety of

S T U D E N T S S P E A K O U T


Course Enrollments

SOURCE: Florida VirtualSchool, unpublishedtabulations fromstudent midpoint survey,2001-02

77227

1,113

2,796

5,900

8,200 +

The Florida Virtual School is affiliated with all school districts in Florida as wellas numerous charter and nonpublic schools. The online school is alsoavailable to students from out of state and from other countries. The schoolnow serves more than 5,000 students, and its course enrollments havegrown from 77 to more than 8,200 since 1996.

E-Student Demographics

A majority of students enrolledin FLVS classes also attendtraditional public schools, buthome-schooled students makeup a sigificant portion of thecourse-takers. Targeting FLVSservices to economicallydisadvantaged and minoritystudents is still a challenge forthe virtual school.

Hispanic7%

African-American7%

White/Non-Hispanic79%

Home-schooled

37%

Private8%

Public55%

Multiethnic3%

SOURCE: Florida Virtual School, unpublished tabulations from student midpoint survey, 2001-02

1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-2000 2000-01 2001-02

School Year

0

2,500

5,000

7,500

10,000

Cou

rse

Enro

llmen

ts

Asian4%

Native American<1%

reasons that reflect their individual needs.According to the course-evaluation data, the largest

percentage of students, 42 percent, report in 2001-02that they enrolled in FLVS to take an extra course or a course not offered by their regular high schools. At the same time, 21 percent say onlinecourses help them balance academic and extracurricu-lar activities.

As one student puts it, “I travel all over all the timefor tournaments, and I’m glad I can do my work fromany computer at any time.”

This is what Johnston calls the “families in motion”phenomenon, in which students involved in athletics, thearts, and other activities are attracted to learning “anytime, any place, any path, any pace”—the FLVS motto.

As one student explains, “I am dual-enrolled in a com-munity college where this [FLVS] class is not available.FLVS beats the alternative of commuting to my homehigh school every day.”

Says another student: “I wouldn’t be able to do FLVS ifthere was a schedule, because I have 7th period, plus re-hearsals after school.”

But there have been challenges, too. The school en-countered trouble when it noticed that large numbersof students who were in “any pace” courses were notcompleting them. To address that problem, the schoolmodified its “any pace” pledge by adopting three timeframes—accelerated, standard, and extended time—forstudents to complete courses.

Students in standard-paced courses are on a nine-month schedule; however, students can take advantageof an accelerated, six-month schedule if they feel com-fortable with the course material or can opt for an ex-tended, yearlong schedule if they think they need moretime. As it is, each course has a trial period of 28 days,during which time students can commit to or dropcourses. Some youngsters understand that the virtualschool isn’t a shortcut, but others do not, Johnstonsays.

One online student acknowledges that “although thematerial covered is the same, because you aren’t in aclassroom there is more work that is done in the onlineclasses.”

Another student adds that since e-classes don’t hap-pen in a traditional school setting, “some people think Imust sleep all day.”

Comparing Courses, Addressing Problems

In their course evaluations for 2001-02, studentswere asked to compare their online-course experienceagainst that of courses they’ve taken in their regularbrick-and-mortar high schools. Thirty-nine percent re-port that their virtual courses are harder or muchharder than regular high school courses. One studentexplains that not having “a teacher right there helpingyou” sometimes makes it harder, but the courses them-selves, “even if they weren’t online, would be hard be-cause of the difficult content.”

Still, 23 percent of students describe the onlinecourses as easier or much easier than courses at regu-lar schools. One student says, “It’s easy—everything is open book.” Another student notes: “I know all the information. Here I am required to do mindlesswork in addition to knowing content to get my A. So I can basically do the work at the pace I want and in the end get credit for stuff I already know.” Another29 percent say both kinds of classes have about the same level of difficulty. For instance, one studentsays, “the difficulty level of the courses is equal,but you have more time [online] to think about what you are doing.” Another comments, “If someonethought they would take a course so they could dowhat they wanted to and because it was easier thanregular school, they would definitely fail.”

Although most Florida Virtual School students at-tend public high schools in the state, just 3 percent ofstudents report that they depend entirely on schoolcomputers for access to e-learning. Most of their study



Note: Percentages may not add up to 100 because of rounding.

SOURCE: Florida Virtual School, unpublished tabulations from studentmidpoint survey, 2001-02

Technical Difficulties

According to students taking FLVS courses, access is not difficult. But a large majoritydo experience the occasional technical problem that interferes with learning. Moststudents report that problems are resolved within 24 hours.

Note: Percentages may not add up to 100 because of rounding.

SOURCE: Florida Virtual School, unpublished tabulations fromstudent midpoint survey, 2001-02

Virtual vs. Face-to-Face

When it comes to e-learning, students taking classes from the Florida Virtual Schoolfavorably rate their online experiences compared to traditional high school classes.

Accessing this Florida Virtual School course is . . .

My experience with this Florida Virtual School course

(with regard to technical problems) . . .

Compared to a traditional high school class, the difficulty level of this FLVS course is . . .

Compared to a traditional high school class, the quality

of this FLVS course is . . .

Very easy43%

I never have a technical problem thatinterferes with work

14%

I have a great deal of technical

problems3%Difficult

5%

Very difficult< 1%

Easy52%

Easier16%

Harder30%

Better33%

Much better25%

The same27%

Much worse1%

Not sure9%Not sure

10%

Much harder9%

I often have a technical problem that interferes with work

12%

Worse5%

I sometimes have atechnical problem

that interferes with work

72%

SOURCE: Florida Virtual School, unpublished tabulationsfrom student midpoint survey,2001-02

Communication

A major criticism of e-learningis the lack of face-to-facecommunication andinteraction. While 85 percentof the FLVS students ratecommunication with theirteachers as “great” or “good,”fewer than half ratecommunication andinteraction with their fellowstudents as highly.

Poor Fair Good Great0

10

20

30

40

50

Perc

ent

Communicationwith my onlineteacher is . . .

Communication with otherstudents enrolled in thiscourse is . . .

3

35

12

27

41

27

44

12

The same level of difficulty

29%

Much easier7%

time occurs on home computers.Hence, it’s probably not surprising that most students

access their courses after school, in the evenings, late atnight, or on the weekends. As one student points out, “Ican sit in my pajamas and do my work.” Or, as anothersays, “The annoying kids that disrupt class are not both-ering me online.”

Still, students see drawbacks, too. “There are distrac-tions at home,” says one student. Some students describetelevision as something that can take their attentionaway from schoolwork when they access courses athome. That’s one reason why school officials say parentalsupervision of e-learning is important.

As is the case with courses in regular schools, the FLVSstudents report quite a range for the hours they spendon their online classes. Forty percent report spendingtwo to four hours a week on each online course; 49 per-cent spend five to 10 or more than 10 hours per week.Just 11 percent of students report spending two hours orless on their online courses each week. In their courseevaluations for 2001-02, almost all the school’s students,95 percent, say it is relatively easy to access the mater-ial for their classes.

That’s not to say problems don’t crop up. For in-stance, 72 percent of the students report that theysometimes have technical difficulties that interferewith their ability to complete work for their onlinecourses. Fifty-seven percent say technical problems areresolved within 24 hours, and 63 percent report that questions related to course content or assignmentsare usually resolved within 24 hours. FLVS officials say the technical problems students encounter are usu-ally related to causes such as forgetting computer pass-words or having problems accessing their e-mail accounts.

‘You Can Move On’

Many FLVS students note the importance of self-moti-vation, responsibility, and time-management skills tosucceed in online courses. “You have to be independentto learn like this,” says one teenager.

Another points out that taking the online courses“will be good preparation for college, since I must workindependently.” Another student says: “I like it. It’s allup to me. I don’t always have to have an authority bug-ging me.”

But as many students make clear, online learning isnot suited to everyone. Some students acknowledge theyneed more structure. A world history course-taker ad-mits, “I like it, but it’s not my way of learning; becauseI’m lazy, I get disoriented.”

Asked to compare online learning with the regularclassroom, another student observes, “Sometimes it’sharder because I can’t raise my hand and ask for a bet-ter explanation.”

A 9th grade math student points out that “this is agood program, but I think it should only be offered toolder people, because when you are a first-year algebra[student and] … you don’t have a teacher on your back and helping you out, it is extremely hard.” Indeed,the views of one student highlight why this type of learning could be a medium better suited for highly motivated youngsters than for average students.That student says: “I like being able to work ahead and finish early because in a traditional high school,you have to wait until everyone understands the material before you are allowed to move on, whereas inonline classes, you can move on whenever you feel like it.”

In their evaluations, students were asked to rate thequality of their online courses by comparing them withthose offered in regular high schools. Fifty-eight per-cent rate the quality of online courses better or muchbetter than regular high school courses, while 27 per-cent say the quality of a FLVS course is about the sameas a traditional high school class.

The school’s executive director, Julie Young, considersthose findings heartening. “At first,” she says, “our



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QUALITY COUNTS 2002QUALITY COUNTS 2002

biggest challenge was getting people to take [e-learning]seriously” and recognize that it could be a rigorouslearning environment. “Now,” she says, “we find somesaying it is too hard.”

Other aspects of online learning continue to raise con-cern, however.

Although 85 percent of the students describe com-munication with their online teachers as great orgood, only 39 percent describe communication withother students as great or good. In fact, most describestudent-to-student communication as only fair or poor.As one student notes: “I have never talked to otherstudents in the class. I’m not even sure how to dothat!”

‘We Will Overcome These Challenges’

Young says school officials were initially very con-cerned about the lack of face-to-face communicationthat is an inherent drawback of online learning.

But she believes there are advantages as well as dis-advantages to the medium, just as with regular class-rooms. For example, some students report that they aretoo afraid of embarrassing themselves to participate inregular classroom discussions. In an online school, thatface-to-face fear doesn’t exist.

Yet, at the same time, critics of online learning say itis just those face-to-face interactions that help studentsovercome their fears and mature into adults.

E-learning initiatives, Young says, need to stay fo-cused on “finding the balance” between the virtual andphysical world.

In fact, FLVS officials say they expect communicationto improve.

Johnston, the director of curriculum and instruc-tion, believes it is mostly a technology issue, ratherthan a fundamental weakness of the virtual school ap-proach. “I think as affordable technology options are catching up,” she says, “we will overcome thesechallenges.”

For example, the virtual school is designing a “syn-chronous chat” feature that will allow students enrolledin courses to have more direct contact with one another.What’s more, a few school clubs have been started, in-cluding a FLVS student newspaper, and the school spon-sors some field trips each year.

As it is, though, school officials identify keeping upwith the growing demand for online courses as per-haps the greatest challenge for the school. Enrollmentin the school doubles almost every year. And “everyyear we have students on waiting lists,” says Johnston.

Plus, demand is growing from outside Florida’s bor-ders. For example, the school has a partnership with thestate of Maryland to develop English-as-a-second-lan-guage courses, as well as a partnership with West Vir-ginia, a state that has mandated that students have ac-cess to foreign-language courses.

High school senior Jenni Haygood thinks e-learningis transforming the future of education. A full-time vir-tual schooler, Haygood says she left her public highschool two years ago because the large class sizes andlack of motivation among her peers were “a realshocker.”

Even though critics of e-learning extol the virtues offace-to-face learning, Haygood says of her regular highschool experience, “I was just a number.”

On the other hand, she says online learning “is a verypersonal form of education. The teachers are really mo-tivated, they e-mail you and call you, they pursue youand encourage contact. It may seem like you are an-other name on a page because they don’t see your face,but that’s not the way it is.”

After Haygood finishes high school in May she plansto go to Valencia Community College in Orlando, andthen transfer to one of Florida’s universities. In themeantime, she is helping FLVS start a student govern-ment. One of the first issues on the agenda: improvingsocialization among students. ■



Note: Percentages may not add up to100 because of rounding.

SOURCE: Florida Virtual School,unpublished tabulations from studentmidpoint survey, 2001-02



Why Students Choose E-Learning

The main reason I enrolled inthe Florida Virtual School . . .

To take anextra course

26%

To balance academicand extracurricular

activities21%

Other26%

Hospital/Homebound3%

To raise a course grade8%

To take a course notoffered at my school

16%

Taking Class From Home

I access my online courseprimarily from .. .

Only at home64%

Other2%

Only at school3%

Both school and home

31%



Time on Task

The hours per week I spenddoing this online course . . .

2 to 4 hours40%

5 to 10 hours36%

1 to 2 hours9%

More than 10 hours

13%

0 to 1 hour2%


Higher Ed.’sOnline Odyssey

There’s not much time to hit the books after work, PTA meetings, and

rushing your 9-year-old son to karate lessons. So when Adrienne

Carrington, a soft-spoken, 45-year-old single mother from Baltimore,

decided to go back and take some more college classes, she needed a

university that could accommodate her harried lifestyle.

When she came across Capella University—whose online campus offers

courses, certificates, and degree programs—you could say it was a virtual godsend.

“Going to a traditional school where you must attend class several nights a week

was out of the question,” Carrington says one afternoon, sitting in her office cubicle

surrounded by pictures of her son and one of Prince, her favorite entertainer.

She logs on to the university’s Web site and in moments is reading a question

posted by the professor in her online instructional-design course. Often, she does

classwork late at night after her son falls asleep. But she does her course

assignments right on the job, too. Her bosses at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield,

where one of her responsibilities is to give Internet-based training to employees,

don’t mind: They’re paying for her classes.

“Just give me my materials and let me do my thing,” she says. “I’m an

introvert, and being able to work at my own pace, make my own mistakes, and

learn on my own fits my personality perfectly.”

While virtual colleges like Capella University, based in Minneapolis, have for

Higher Ed.’sOnline Odyssey

K-12SCHOOLS

HAVE MUCH

TO LEARN

FROM HIGHER

EDUCATION’SEXPERIENCES

WITH ONLINE

LEARNING.

By John Gehr ing

Jam

es

W.

Pri

chard

/Educa

tion W

eek

AdrienneCarrington, a 45-

year-old singlemother fromBaltimore, istaking online

courses fromCapella

University, aMinneapolis-based virtual

university. Heremployer allowsher to work on

schoolassignments in

her office, above.

some years now appealed to working professionals likeCarrington, a growing number of secondary schools alsohave been eager to jump into online education. Manyprecollegiate schools have already made the leap andoffer students online classes, or use some distance edu-cation as part of more traditional courses.

For the most part, though, traditional colleges and full-fledged online universities like Capella and the Univer-sity of Phoenix have been educating students via the Webfar longer than K-12 schools have. That experience putsthem in a unique position to share with precollegiate ed-ucators their successes and failures along the way.

University professors and administrators, like manyof their precollegiate counterparts, speak with enthusi-asm about the enormous potential of online classes. Butthey also offer a sober perspective about the challengesin creating online programs that survive after the surgeof initial excitement fades and the hard work of keepinga program afloat begins.

Above all, these experienced educators stress the needfor setting clear goals for online programs, providingteachers with appropriate training, crafting originallessons that take advantage of the online medium, andblending online classes with some traditional classroommeeting time.

Indeed, many online higher education ventures havefailed, for reasons that range from poor financial plan-ning to a simple lack of student interest.

The State University of New York at Buffalo, for one,found out how ambitious plans for online education cango wrong. In February, the university’s school of man-agement realized it couldn’t support its Web-basedM.B.A. program after fewer students than expected en-rolled in two pilot courses and an outside partner failedto provide the school with all of the funding it hadpromised for the venture.

“We weren’t as knowledgeable and sophisticated goinginto this as we should have been,” says Howard G. Foster,the associate dean for academic programs at SUNY-Buf-falo’s school of management. “It’s very labor-intensive,” hesays. “Students are demanding a high level of services.”

‘Right Conditions for Success’

Online classes and programs are the latest incarna-tion of an old idea: trying better to meet students’ needsby offering coursework outside a traditional classroom,whether by mail, over television, or by other means.

In the online world, the delivery methods includebasic e-mail communication, real-time chat rooms, and“threaded discussions” on message boards that let stu-dents post work or take part in class conversations attheir convenience. Some programs, like the online cam-pus of the University of Phoenix, the nation’s largest pri-vate university, require that students be online at leastfive days a week. Others leave it up to students to decidehow often they log on.

Gary Miller, an associate vice president for distanceeducation and the executive director of the World Cam-pus at Pennsylvania State University, says distance ed-ucation began at his university more than 100 years ago,with farmers using rural free delivery of mail. Today, amore sophisticated system allows some students aroundthe globe to take Penn State courses through the uni-versity’s World Campus, which opened four years agoand provides online distance education programs.

A hybrid of online and traditional in-class instructionhas become the norm for many college online classes.With younger, precollegiate students, Miller says, that ap-proach is even more important because they need moreguidance and help in staying focused. He also emphasizesthe importance of not simply recycling traditional class-room lessons: “Understand the unique pedagogical oppor-tunities online classes offer. Don’t try and use the onlineenvironment to do teaching the old-fashioned way.”

“Teachers have to realize that they don’t have to worryif they can’t do everything their students can do with thetechnology,” Miller says. “It’s not about the technology.It’s about the learning environment. You’re teaching stu-

dents to be more self-directed.”While critics of online learning often contend that not

having face-to-face learning diminishes the quality of vir-tual classes, Miller sees advantages to the more anony-mous environment. “What you see are the students’ ideas,not their skin color, or whether they’re a boy or a girl,” hesays. “It’s a purifying process because everyone is equal.”

But most people who have experience with online ed-ucation stress that teachers must work much harder tonurture a sense of community with Web-based coursesthan they would in brick-and-mortar environments.

“Online learning environments are often socially im-poverished compared to regular classrooms, but thatdoesn’t mean they can’t be effective,” says Brian Reilly,an assistant professor of education at the University ofCalifornia, Riverside, who has taught online courses.“There can be more interaction with online coursesthan regular classes, because you have tools that allowyou to do this.”

Reilly, who worked for the Apples in the Classroomproject that researched the impact of technology in edu-cation under the sponsorship of Apple Computer Inc.,says teachers progress through stages when it comes tohow they use technology. They generally start withlearning how to “troubleshoot” or fix problems, he says,and ultimately figure out how to use the technology inmore sophisticated ways to improve instruction.

“Typically, it takes three to five years,” Reilly says. “It’sa slow process, but people are often looking for quick re-sults. Being an online teacher does demand a higherlevel of technical skill if you want to make the class moreinteresting.”

While most studies of online learning find little differ-ence between the quality of online and traditionalclasses, a recent study published in the journal Ameri-can Economic Review found that students in college-level virtual economics courses did not perform nearly aswell on exams as students in regular classes did.

The economics professors at Michigan State Univer-sity who conducted the study suggested that, in part,that finding could be explained by the tendency of onlinecourses to do a better job teaching basic skills than moreanalytical reasoning.

Steve Shank, the founder and current chancellor ofCapella University, which serves some 4,000 students on-line in the United States and some 40 other countries, be-lieves that online courses must be carefully tailored, andthat they work best with mature, independent learners.

“Our experience is you do need a student who is verymotivated and self-directed,” Shank says. “That’s not tosay in high school you don’t have those students, but it’sa subset of the population. You must think about theright student population and focus your attention on cre-ating the right conditions for success.”

‘Comfortable in This World’

The content of online courses must be held to thesame rigorous standards as traditional course offerings,says Mitch Vogel, the president of University Profes-sionals of Illinois, a union that represents professors ateight public universities in Illinois, all of which are of-fering some form of online learning.

Vogel joined with a number of higher education offi-cials, and staff members from the American Federationof Teachers, to issue a report two years ago proposingguidelines for “good practice” for online education.Among other recommendations, the report called forhaving professors deeply involved with course develop-ment, rather than relying on prepackaged curricula.

“If it’s being done for reasons that end up weakeningstandards, it really defeats the purpose,” Vogel says ofonline education.

But while attending to the big issues of high stan-dards, he says, administrators also can’t forget the seem-ingly more mundane aspects of supporting Web-basedcourses, such as making sure teachers have technicalsupport when the inevitable computer glitches occur.

In one survey of 200 professors from schools in Vogel’s

H I G H E R E D . ’ S O N L I N E O D Y S S E Y


union, a third of the instructors reported having had seri-ous technical problems.

Such experience proves that if you’re trying to createonline programs on the cheap, you’re making a big mis-take, warns Brian Mueller, the chief executive officer ofthe University of Phoenix Online. “Some people looked atthis as an opportunity to create a cash cow,” Mueller says.“Programs that fail don’t make the necessary investmentsin faculty training, technical support, and student-sup-port systems. They think about it as a way to get incheaply, and it just doesn’t work.”

At the same time, many online programs have madethe mistake of overinvesting in what is seen as the latesttechnology. The online program of Syracuse University’sschool of management, called the iMBA, is one of the old-est and the largest accredited distance-learning programsin the country leading to a Master of Business Adminis-tration. Paula O’Callaghan, the director of the program,says the online model did not require an enormous in-vestment in new technology.

“The best place to start is to leverage what you are al-ready doing well,” she says. “Look at what you can accom-plish with the least amount of technology first. You shouldlearn how to crawl before you walk.”

The Syracuse program, whose students are usually intheir mid-30s and earn an average of $70,000 a year, re-quires that its students meet three times a year for aweek of traditional on-campus classes at the Syracuse,N.Y.-based university.

“It is very tempting to go whole hog and put everycourse online, but that is the most expensive way to do it,”O’Callaghan says.

While her students are successful business profession-als—a world apart from teenagers who may not knowwhat they want to do this weekend, never mind as a ca-reer—O’Callaghan believes precollegiate students are anatural audience for online learning if given the propersupport.

“Generation Y has grown up with this technology, butat the same time they expect to be entertained by it, soyou need a lot more interactivity than you would with aboomer audience,” she says.

David Szatmary, the vice provost of educational out-reach at the University of Washington in Seattle, agreesthat teachers need help developing virtual classes.

“Online learning is still in a lot of ways mimickingwhat is going on in the classroom,” he says.

To take advantage of the medium’s potential, Szatmaryrecommends forming a development team to help in-structors design the framework for an online program.For example, his university, which offers 300 onlinecourses and 25 online certificate programs, partneredwith Microsoft Corp. for that purpose.

In addition, the university has a partnership withBellevue, Wash.-based Apex Learning, a leading providerof virtual education to K-12 schools, to develop ten onlinecourses for high schools. Apex Learning had already of-fered online Advanced Placement and foreign-languagecourses to high schools around the country.

Beginning in the fall, with support from the Universityof Washington, Apex Learning will offer classes such aschemistry, intermediate algebra, precalculus, Americanliterature, U.S. history, and earth sciences to high schools.

Sue Collins, the chief education officer for Apex, be-lieves one of the greatest strengths of online learning forsecondary schools is its ability to fill the gaps often left bytraditional education. A remote rural school, for example,that would not otherwise offer an AP course or strugglesto offer hard-to-staff courses like physics or advanced for-eign-language classes, can provide such classes onlinewith help from outside businesses.

Others tout online education’s potential to provideadaptive technology for students with disabilities.

Online learning will catch on at most secondaryschools, Collins believes, as teachers and administratorsbecome more comfortable with a medium that their stu-dents have long been using.

“These kids are so used to working with computers andthings like instant messaging, that this is not strange tothem,” she says. “They are comfortable in this world.” ■


H I G H E R E D . ’ S O N L I N E O D Y S S E Y


The VirtualTeaching Life

Becky Huggins sometimes goes undercover in the online classes she

teaches for elementary school youngsters. When discussions among

her students go stale, she logs on under a pseudonym—taking on

the identity of a student—and fires off a provocative question or

comment to jump-start the dialogue.

“I shouldn’t tell you all my tricks,” confides Huggins, the lead teacher for

seeUonline, a public online school program based in Palmer, Alaska, and

sponsored by the Matanuska-Susitna school district, “but it works.”

Students react differently, she says, when information comes from their

peers rather than a teacher. Yet without the anonymity of the online forum,

Huggins would never be able to employ such a teaching strategy. And that’s just

one of the unusual benefits of cyberspace, she says.

To better understand those benefits as well as the inevitable drawbacks of online

teaching, Technology Counts interviewed several teachers—all of whom teach online

full time, but had taught in regular schools before becoming cyber educators.

Undoubtedly, their perspectives vary. Some say that they are able to form stronger

relationships with students and parents than they could in brick-and-mortar

environments. Others, though, say they miss the face-to-face interaction with

students and wonder if online teaching can ever overcome that inherent weakness.

More than anything else, those who work for online schools warn that such jobs

The VirtualTeaching Life

FULL-TIME

ONLINE

EDUCATORS

SAY TEACHING

IN CYBERSPACE

IS REWARDING,BUT IT’SNOT FOR

EVERYONE.

By Ju l ie B la i r

Cla

rk J

am

es

Mis

hle

r fo

r Educa

tion W

eek

To betterunderstand the

benefits anddrawbacks of

online teaching,Technology

Countsinterviewed

several teachers,all of whom teach

online full time.Becky Huggins ofAlaska, above, is

one of them.

aren’t for all educators.“It’s just a different method of teaching,” says Kitty

Stephens, who teaches Advanced Placement history andgovernment at the 500-student Kentucky Virtual HighSchool, a state-sponsored public school based in Frank-fort. “There are advantages and disadvantages.”

Of course, online educators have challenges unlikeany faced by their colleagues who work in traditionalschools. They can’t rely on classroom theatrics to relayconcepts, nor is the necessary curriculum always avail-able. In many cases, no online courses exist that meetthe needs of students in a particular area or level ofstudy. Moreover, the very technology that gives life to on-line schools often hinders it: Frequent computer crashescan disrupt lessons or prevent teachers from having ac-cess to students’ online work.

Nonetheless, some online educators say the benefitsfar outweigh the drawbacks.

“[Online teaching] is too exciting to actually put it intowords,” says Huggins, who worked in a traditional schoolfor two years before moving to seeUonline to teachgrades K-2. “All you have to do is be around it and seethe sparks fly … and you’ll be hooked, too.”

Teaching and Learning

About 1,600 K-12 educators nationwide are teachingonline classes this school year, a number that is expectedto grow by about a third by 2004-05, according to thePeak Group, a Los Altos, Calif.-based market researchgroup that is tracking the trend.

The numbers represent both part-time and full-timeteachers of for-credit courses for 90 online education pro-grams, says John Politoski, the group’s managing partner.

Educators’ reasons for taking such jobs are varied.Some say they changed over because they love workingwith computers; others want to participate in educa-tional innovations or are seeking a new challenge.

“I have always used computers in my classroom,” saysStephens of the Kentucky online school, who spent 31years teaching in regular school buildings. “Once [theschool] started offering Advanced Placement courses, Ireally saw a lot of opportunities.”

Like many of her online colleagues, Stephens beginseach school day at home by logging on to her computer.There, she has access to the curriculum, her students,and their assignments.

Most online schools buy their course content from one ofa handful of online-curriculum providers, and rely on in-structors to modify the content for their classes, she says.

At the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow, a public on-line charter school based in Columbus, Ohio, educatorsdesign their own Web pages, complete with photographsof themselves, says Anna M. Trachsel, an ECOT 3rd gradeteacher who lives in Cincinnati and taught in a tradi-tional school for 11 years.

The moment a student clicks on a teacher’s Web page,he or she enters the computerized “classroom.” Listedthere is the curriculum, broken down by weeks, with as-signment due dates.

As expected, communication between teacher and stu-dent occurs primarily through e-mail, with supplementalfaxes and telephone calls, Trachsel says. “During the day,”she adds, “I might receive anywhere from three to 50 e-mails. Towards the end of the week, things slow down.”

Many online educators also use so-called threaded dis-cussions held in virtual classrooms to communicate. Suchmessaging systems allow students to have dialogues withone another in “real time.” Text appears almost instantlyon the computer screens of all discussion participants as itis typed, permitting quick back-and-forth exchanges.

Perhaps surprisingly, some online educators say theyhave forged stronger relationships with students andtheir families than they did when they taught in regularschool buildings. They attribute that mostly to the fre-quent e-mail communications.

“It is a much closer relationship than in the class-room,” Stephens says. “In [a regular] public school, I

taught AP classes that were 32 to 35 in a class, and I wasteaching five classes, so it was really hard to talk to stu-dents a great deal one-on-one.”

Indeed, the online forum forces students to make aneffort to communicate frequently with teachers,Stephens adds. Hence, she says, students have to do a lotmore writing—or reflecting before they write—than theywould in traditional classrooms. And that, she believes,has resulted in her seeing more thoughtful questionsabout assignments.

“Initially, the biggest challenge is making that con-nection with your students and figuring out what makesthem tick, because you don’t see them,” Huggins says.“Now, I have a better picture of my students than mostclassroom teachers.”

And because online teachers aren’t expected to be inactual classrooms during the school day, some say theyhave more time to communicate with parents.

“The only time I could call parents [when I worked ina traditional classroom] was at 5:30 p.m., in the middleof their dinner,” says Kristin Fife Johnson, a historyteacher at Christa McAuliffe Academy, a private onlinehigh school based in Yakima, Wash., that caters to morethan 400 students. “It was not very realistic for us tohave a meaningful conversation.”

The teacher, who worked in a regular school buildingfor four years, says she now has the flexibility to contactparents when it is most convenient for them. “I ask themto let me know if they’d rather get a call at home or an e-mail,” she says.

‘A Different Mentality’

Meanwhile, without face-to-face interaction with stu-dents, online educators find they must overhaul theirteaching strategies.

“Online teaching is a different mentality,” says Hug-gins, the Alaska teacher. “There are lots of teachers thatare fabulous face to face, and until they get online, theydon’t even realize how much they do theatrically [in reg-ular classrooms].”

What’s more, because so much work is done by e-mail,a teacher’s ability to write clearly and concisely is at

T H E V I R T U A L T E A C H I N G L I F E



Technology Requirements for Teacher Licensure

State requires technology training (23)

State requires training and demonstration oftechnology proficiency for initial licensure (4)

State does not require training or demonstration oftechnology competence for initial licensure (21)

State requires demonstration of technologyproficiency for initial licensure (3)

In 2002, 26 states, plus the District of Columbia, require technology training or courseworkfor students at all in-state teacher-preparation institutions.

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least as important as his or her verbal communicationskills, according to some online educators.

“A lot of times, something might have a double meaningor can be misinterpreted,” Huggins says, referring to thewritten instructions online teachers send to their students.

Writing curricula for younger students is especiallytricky, she says.

At first, Huggins offered the elementary school chil-dren a Web page outlining assignments in various sub-jects. That tactic became a problem, though, because stu-dents would become so absorbed in one subject, theywould forget to return to the main page to complete theassigned work in other subjects.

“It was just too much for them to schedule a plan forthemselves,” says Huggins, who has since revised theWeb page.

Online educators say they make use of threaded dis-cussions to prompt critical thinking, especially whenthey include students from around the country or theworld, which happens often at online schools. In one ofJohnson’s classes at Yakima’s Christa McAuliffe Acad-emy, such a dialogue between students living in theUnited States and Japan about the validity of the 2000presidential election quickly turned to a talk about theimportance of safeguarding democracy.

“The American kids were pretty flippant,” Johnson says.“But the kids from Japan said, ‘Wait a minute, the mediaaround here is making it sound like the American experi-ment in democracy is falling apart. Aren’t you rioting?’ ”

The students from Japan sent links to a Japanesenewspaper for the students in America to read, Johnsonsays.

“That conversation would be very hard to duplicate ina traditional public school,” she points out. “There wasno other way to get that viewpoint into the system.”

Still, online educators must be careful lest a handful ofstudents dominate such threaded discussions, Johnson

says, because fast typists get more words onto the screen.“There are definitely kids who are shy [even when theyare online],” she says. “They don’t speak without invita-tion, so I have to remember to invite them frequently.”

Some software packages include polling mechanismsdeployed by cyber teachers who want to gauge studentunderstanding or opinions on a particular question ortopic, Johnson says. Students can check “yes” or “no”when asked a question.

Johnson also has the ability to pull together popquizzes and administer them online. But just as it is inregular classrooms, cheating can be a problem, especiallybecause teachers are not in the rooms of the studentsthey are supervising. Usually, Johnson says, cheating isdetected when online and old-fashioned written workdoesn’t match up. That’s one of the reasons her onlineschool purposely requires that only 50 percent of assign-ments be turned in on the computer, she says. The otherassignments are given to her in hard copy.

‘Our Biggest Hurdles’

While technology is pushing the boundaries of precol-legiate education, it can also prove frustrating at times.

It seems every online teacher has at least one goodhorror story about a computer crash.

“One of our biggest hurdles are these online [curric-ula], because they have to update them from time totime,” Johnson says. “The kids will be working on some-thing, then boom—they can’t get online.”

Each month, five or 10 students find themselves un-able to use the technology on which they’re so depen-dent, she says.

In those cases when online connections are down, sherelies on fax machines and telephone calls.

The current systems also require tremendous effort to



navigate on the part of the instructor, Stephens of theKentucky Virtual High School says. She must load the as-signment, save it, place it into a file, write comments, lo-cate rubrics in the system to grade the work, save the as-signment for a second time, grade it, write additionalcomments, then save it again, all before sending it back toa student.

But while some online teachers say they don’t mindthat extra workload, they do complain of feeling isolated.Though connections between educators and studentscan run deep even when they don’t actually see eachother, some teachers say they miss the up-close inter-change with students and fellow teachers and the colle-giality of the teachers’ lounge.

Some admit, too, that they’re losing out on the energyand sights and sounds of a real classroom. “I really domiss that,” says Trachsel, the Cincinnati-based onlineteacher. Still others say they don’t feel as if they get therespect they once had from friends who continue to workin traditional classrooms.

In response to those frustrations, Johnson is mobilizinggroups of online teachers for what she calls “jam sessions.”

And to compensate in part for what they miss aboutteaching in regular school buildings, they sometimessupplement their online efforts with student field tripsto regional museums or art galleries.

Huggins took a group of her elementary-age online stu-dents on a visit to a Challenger Learning Center inKenai, Wash., to learn about the space shuttle program.

“I was really nervous to take 25 students I’d nevermet,” she says. “I had no idea how these kids would getalong … though we had all talked online.”

In the end, though, she says the bonds built in cyber-space held up: “There has never been another trip asgood as that in my memory.”

The trip was chronicled, of course, in an online scrap-book. ■




Incentives for Using Technology

State provides incentives for teachersto use technology (5)

State provides incentives for both teachersand administrators to use technology (8)

State does not provide any incentives for teachersor administrators to use technology (24)

State provides incentives for administrators touse technology (14)

Currently, 13 states provide incentives to teachers, and 22 states provide incentives toadministrators to use technology in schools. These states typically provide laptopcomputers, continuing education units, or stipends to educators who participate intechnology training.

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Sizing UpOnline Content

In landlocked Kansas, a student who dreamed of studying life under the sea

enrolled in oceanography—a course not offered by her high school—through

the state’s online education program. Schools in the most isolated corners of

Kentucky provide a range of foreign-language classes, from Spanish to

German to Latin, via the Web. And in Florida, regular public school students

and home schoolers can take about as many honors and Advanced Placement

courses as they want from the comfort of their homes.

Throughout the country, online courses are extending the reach of the

classroom to a growing number of students in need of educational flexibility,

accessibility, and variety. Now, many educators are hoping virtual classrooms

will live up to their potential to greatly improve curriculum and instruction as

well. They envision lessons that take students with the click of a mouse to

faraway lands, through real-world activities and experiments, into the minds of

historical figures, and behind the scenes of key events of the past and present.

As it is, 12 percent of the nation’s schools are subscribing to receive some

form of online curriculum, according to Shelton, Conn.-based Market Data

Retrieval, a market research firm that tracks such numbers.

“We’re still learning a lot about what works and what doesn’t work” in

“Essay Eddie,” atright, is a creationof class.com, one

of a growingnumber of online

curriculumproviders.

Currently, 12percent of the

nation’s schoolsare subscribing to

some form ofonline curriculum.

Sizing UpOnline Content

SCHOOLS

ACROSS

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ARE

EVALUATING

WEB-BASED

CURRICULUM

TO SEE IF IT

CAN DELIVER

AS MUCH AS

IT PROMISES.

By Kath leen Kennedy Manzo

online curriculum, says Leslie Conery, the interim chiefexecutive officer for the International Society for Tech-nology in Education. “We know that if you want interac-tive, engaged learning, that an online course has thegreatest potential for that.”

That promise, however, has gone largely unfulfilled,experts say. Many courses have yet to move beyond theformats of traditional classrooms or textbooks, saysGeorge E. Blakeslee, a professor of technology in educa-tion at Lesley University in Cambridge, Mass.

Mostly, Blakeslee says, online material is simply tra-ditional curriculum copied to the Web. While the meansof delivering the curriculum can be dynamic, Blakesleesays, the content itself is generally not very innovative.“The courses look like just an online version of the text-and-talk format you find in most classrooms,” he says.

What’s more, online curriculum is limited by the factthat it has to be designed to meet the technological ca-pabilities of the typical household, which usually is con-nected to the Internet through a 56k dial-up modem, arelatively slow route to the Web that cannot handle richgraphics, large data files, or high-quality audio andvideo. As a consequence, Blakeslee says, most online cur-riculum developers cannot stretch the creative limits oftheir material.

Some companies and public school providers of onlinecurriculum are trying to make better material available.

“The concepts we want people to learn are visual con-cepts, dynamic concepts,” says Art Bardige, the presidentof Enablearning Inc., a Cambridge, Mass.-based companythat is developing online curricula in mathematics andother subjects that use animation and simulations to helpstudents visualize concepts and build on their knowledge.“What if we had a medium that actually allowed you tovisualize dynamic images and interact with them?”

Other companies also are working to make onlinecoursework more interactive, and to better adapt contentto capitalize on the visual capabilities of the Internet.

But whether those companies can provide the qualityof content or instructional design to prepare students forthe demands of state standards and standardized testsis another question, experts warn.

‘Buyer Beware’

Indeed, with an increasing number of products on themarket, it’s “buyer beware,” says Elizabeth Pape, thechief executive officer of the Virtual High School, a non-profit provider of online courses that was created by theConcord Consortium, a research organization in Con-cord, Mass. “Unfortunately, there is no Good Housekeep-ing seal of approval for online courses,” says Pape.

But she says administrators, teachers, parents, andstudents can be discriminating consumers by consider-ing a number of factors before buying or enrolling in acourse. Among other recommendations, Pape says acourse should be age-appropriate for the students ittargets; it should offer opportunities for various kindsof learning, such as group work, projects, and activeguidance from the teacher; it should allow students towork asynchronously—or at any time and at their ownpace; and it should offer sufficient support services tohelp students master both the technology and the sub-ject matter.

After evaluating a number of commercial online-cur-riculum products, officials charged with creating theFlorida Virtual School—which serves more than 5,000students throughout the Sunshine State—concludedthat few of the products lived up to their potential.

“We began developing courses by default,” becausenothing on the market matched the rigorous, standards-based curricula school officials sought, says Julie Young,the executive director of the Florida Virtual School.

Over the years, leaders of the Florida Virtual Schoolhave developed a complex process for bringing theircourses to the Web. Teams of teachers create a templatefor a specific course that outlines the content and how italigns to state academic standards. Instructional de-signers and Internet experts set about adapting the con-

tent to the online environment. Then curriculum devel-opers identify instructional materials and resources.

The draft of the course is then reviewed by experts forthe quality of content and presentation. Students areasked to test-drive the curriculum and critique it.

The teenagers are then encouraged to try the coursewithout risk and are given a 28-day grace period fordropping out if the subject or the medium is not to theirliking.

Meanwhile, the Concord Consortium’s Virtual HighSchool program has developed a nine-point model for aneffective curriculum design, says Sarah Haavind, an on-line instructional designer for the Concord Consortium.The model breaks with what has been typically offeredsince the introduction of Internet learning: the lectureonline, the Internet as supplement to face-to-face in-struction, or the self-paced, correspondence course. In-stead, it emphasizes collaborative, project-based, self-paced learning.

“Just because it’s accessible over the Web, people wantto jump there for a quicker or cheaper way to deliver in-struction,” says Haavind. “[But] they find that they dohave to spend the time to look at quality just like anyother curriculum.”

Examining the Content

Some 7,700 public secondary schools, or nearly 41percent, offer online courses, according to a survey re-leased earlier this year by Interactive Educational Sys-tems Design Inc., a New York City-based consultingfirm. Another 17 percent of high schools hope to offersuch courses in the future.

Many have turned to commercial publishers for Inter-net-based courses because they simply do not have theresources to design the courses themselves.

But selecting courses and full high school programs tooffer online can be far more challenging than selectingtextbooks and instructional materials for the typical class-room. The problem is not just the content, but how wellthe products are adapted to the online world.

“We spent about six months not only examining thecontent ... [but also] making sure [the publisher] reallytook the time to bring it into alignment with standards,”says Nancy M. Davis, the executive director of theMichigan Virtual High School, which was set up withfunding from the state legislature in 2000 and currentlyserves about 125 students. “We were very cautious look-ing at the content, but what was just as important wasthe delivery.”

Davis says the instructional design, the primary andsupplemental materials used in the course, the guidancegiven to help students pace themselves and keep upwith the work, and the strategies for developing rela-tionships among students and between them and theteachers are all critical to students’ success.

The Michigan e-school offers Advanced Placementprograms, using courses developed by Bellevue, Wash.-based Apex Learning, one of the biggest providers ofonline courses.

Last fall, students were also offered the option of tak-ing traditional courses in core subjects that are adaptedfrom curricula developed by class.com, a Lincoln, Neb.-based provider. The problem was the class.com courseswere designed to allow students to complete them within12 months, far too long a period of time for high schoolstudents, Michigan officials decided. To better fit theschool year schedule and the needs of the typical highschool student, Michigan requires students to completethe classes within 90 days.

As the industry evolves, time-strapped administratorsare beginning to put their trust in vendors with a repu-tation for quality, some educators say.

The Michigan school, as well as others that offer digi-tal courses, are turning to their more seasoned counter-parts in the fledgling industry. The Florida VirtualSchool and the Virtual High School, having gone throughthe lengthy development process themselves, are sellingtheir courses around the country. ■

S I Z I N G U P O N L I N E C O N T E N T



E-TrainingOffers Options

In the spring of 2000, Carol Scott Whelan and four of her colleagues at

the state department of education in Louisiana decided to take a course

called Introduction to Online Technology from the University of California,

Los Angeles.

The six-week course was not only an induction into the online world, it was

also the first course the group from the state’s technology department had ever

taken that was administered solely through the Internet, not in a traditional

brick-and-mortar building.

After seeing the benefits of online learning, that initial group and others in

Louisiana now have designed and put in place a set of online professional-

development courses for teachers, administrators, and policymakers.

“Teachers were having a hard time getting out of classes during the school

year” to attend traditional seminars, says Whelan, the assistant state

superintendent who directs Louisiana’s office of quality educators. “We wanted

to give them an alternative.”

Though some technology experts have raised concerns about online

professional development—such as inadequate access to technology and a lack of

face-to-face interaction—the inherent benefits of online training have made it

increasingly popular. In addition to the technology-related courses, there are

online professional-development classes covering academic subjects such as

E-TrainingOffers Options

EDUCATORS

ARE TURNING

TO ONLINE

COURSES TO

UPGRADE

THEIR

PROFESSIONAL

SKILLS.

By Miche l le Ga l ley

Professional-development

programs are nolonger limited by

time andgeography.

Educators cannow log on to a

host of differentWeb sites—such

as New York City-based

teachscape,above—to learn

more aboutteaching,

administration ortechnology.

English, math, science, and social studies.“In the last year or two, there has been a real tidal

wave of companies, both for-profit and nonprofit, that areconcentrating on online professional development,” saysAgnes R. Crawford, the assistant executive director forprogram development at the Association for Supervisionand Curriculum Development, based in Alexandria, Va.

And the reasons are clear. Teachers must complete acertain number of professional-development courses tomeet both state recertification criteria and requirementstied to federal funding, so the need for such courses is

high. Using the Internet to fulfill those requirements,proponents of online learning say, provides teachers withbenefits that classroom-based courses can’t offer.

Traditional models of professional development oftenlack follow-through, says Timothy Stroud, the assistantdirector for education issues at the American Federationof Teachers. “Teachers come into a classroom after a longday and listen to someone speak at them for a couple ofhours,” he says. If the learning stops there, he adds,teachers may have a hard time carrying out the strate-gies in their classrooms.

But online professional-development courses help pro-long the amount of education teachers are getting, andshow them how to apply the lessons in their classrooms,Stroud says.

Many providers of online professional developmentuse learning “communities” that include features such aschat rooms and “threaded” discussions. Such discussionsconsist of a series of linked messages on similar topics.Those features enable teachers to gather in the sameplace, though not necessarily at the same time, to dis-cuss a certain lesson or strategy.

Because online courses are spread out over time, theygive teachers the opportunity to try out different tech-niques in their classrooms, then come back to an onlinediscussion board and share their experiences with othereducators, says Glenn Kleiman, the director of the Cen-ter for Online Professional Education, or COPE. Based atthe Education Development Center, a nonprofit researchand development center in Newton, Mass., COPE workswith state and local agencies to help them prepare theirown online professional-development courses.

“Teachers learn from other teachers,” and integratingclassroom practices into courses is crucial to makingthem effective, Kleiman says.

Plus, he says, the flexibility that comes with takingcourses online is also a great benefit for teachers, whoare able to access their courses, e-mail, and online dis-cussions at any time of the day.

Monica Ballay, a 28-year old physics teacher in Liv-ingston Parish, La., began taking online courses last fallwhen she enrolled in one class offered by the state educa-tion department and another from Louisiana State Uni-versity. She spent from eight to 10 hours a week on thecourses, usually on Saturday mornings and Sundayevenings.

“It’s so hard to juggle everything,” Ballay says, whichis why the flexibility of online training is a real benefitfor her. “Having to travel 30 minutes to an hour to thenearest university to take a class keeps a lot of educa-tors from going back to school.”

What’s more, the virtual chat rooms and discussionboards allowed her to bounce ideas off educators from allover Louisiana, and as far away as Connecticut and NewHampshire.

The class she is taking through LSU, Advanced

Telecommunication and Electronic Learning, is called ahybrid course because one week the class members meetsolely online, and the next they meet in person on cam-pus. Ballay says that she and the group also hold an in-formal cyber-meeting at 9 p.m. on Sundays to work on aclass assignment in which they are developing their ownonline professional-development course.

Ballay says the members of her study group each down-loaded a free Microsoft program called NetMeeting fromthe Internet. With the aid of that software, the membersare able to use a virtual whiteboard—a sort of high-tech

blackboard—on which each participant can draw or typeto communicate their ideas to one another. They also areable to open a Word document that each one of them cansee simultaneously on their computer monitors at home.

Beyond Teachers

Teachers are not the only school personnel using theInternet to take professional-development courses.

The South Florida Annenberg Challenge—a $33.4million initiative to improve the achievement of the680,000 students in Florida’s Broward, Dade, and PalmBeach counties—operates an online principals’ academy.The Principal Portal is a Web portal that offers adminis-trators resources in such areas as technology acquisi-tion, teacher improvement, and student achievement.

Meanwhile, Western Michigan University in Kalama-zoo offers a certificate program online for district-leveltechnology coordinators. The program consists of sixcourses that cover the use of advanced technologies ineducation. The classes are asynchronous, meaning tech-nology coordinators can log in at any time to participate.

That format fits well amid the daily pressures of tech-nology coordinators’ lives, says Jim Bosco, a professor ofeducation studies at the university who teaches some ofthe online courses. “Their lives are always so busy,” hesays. “They are always running.”

State departments of education, like the one inLouisiana, are also becoming more involved in onlineprofessional development, in part because large num-bers of people can take the same course and have thesame understanding of a subject, says Crawford of theASCD. She adds that several states have purchasedcourses for every teacher in the state.

For example, an education department may wantevery educator to take the same course on the state’s ac-countability system so that they all have a similarknowledge base on that topic.

The Internet’s ability to bring together a group of peo-ple with shared interests and expertise is also a majorbenefit, says Mark Schlager, the associate director of learn-ing communities at the Center for Technology in Learning.The center is an arm of SRI International, an independentresearch and technology-development organization.

Schlager says teachers report they feel less isolatedprofessionally when they spend time online communi-cating with other educators.

SRI International, based in Menlo Park, Calif., oper-ates Tapped In, an online resource for educational pro-fessional development sponsored by the National Sci-ence Foundation. The site—www.tappedin.org—acts asa meeting place for educators and offers a variety of dif-ferent educational classes.

For example, California State University-San Marcoshas offered sessions on how handheld computers can be

E - T R A I N I N G O F F E R S O P T I O N S


“Having to travel ... to the nearest university to take a class keeps a lot of educators from going back to school.”

MONICA BALLAY, Physics Teacher

used in classrooms, and each week Michael Hutchison, asocial studies teacher from Indiana, holds a seminarthat addresses issues related to social studies instruc-tion. When a participant logs on to the site, a map of avirtual building appears on the top of the screen, show-ing the viewer that he or she has “walked” through thedoor and is standing near the help desk. There, a moder-ator greets the participant and offers to answer ques-tions about the program.

Classes and seminars occur in the virtual rooms the sitehas created, and different groups have rented space at thesite.The largest is Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.,which has an entire virtual “building” to itself for courses.

Some well-known educational organizations haverented space. For instance, PBS TeacherLine has rented“suites” on different floors of the virtual Tapped In build-ing. The suites include different rooms where teacherscan meet to take part in online classes.

TeacherLine is a collaboration between the PublicBroadcasting Service, the National Council of Teachersof Mathematics, and the International Society for Tech-nology in Education that offers professional developmentin math and technology integration.

And the Galef Institute, a nonprofit organization thatworks to improve schools, also “rents” a space on the siteto offer their own classes.

Online or Up Close?

Still, online programs are not a cure-all for shortcom-ings in professional development, experts in educationaltechnology warn.

Simply having access to the technology that can getteachers to the professional-development sites is a hurdlefor some prospective participants, says Kleiman of theEDC. And some computers that teachers can access are

outdated and have slow, dial-up modems, which can makedownloading materials and videos a time-wasting process.

That’s why many online professional-developmentproviders offer programs that can be accessed with a56K modem, or issue CD-ROMs that can play a video sothat it does not have to be downloaded.

Some people, moreover, prefer face-to-face exchanges,says Kleiman. “They need nonverbal signals, and peopleare learning to provide some of those clues online,” he says.

For example, he says, short acknowledgment mes-sages that say the reader understands the point a per-son is trying to make can be important. Those messagescan work in the same way a nod of the head or other vi-sual cues do in a classroom.

Even though many educators report feeling more con-nected by using the Internet to communicate with othereducators, online learning can create a certain degree offragmentation, adds Joellen Killion, the director of spe-cial projects for the Oxford, Ohio-based National StaffDevelopment Council. Professional development shouldfocus on improving student learning, which means thatthe entire school community needs to collaborate to ad-dress particular goals or issues, she says.

When teachers are all taking courses online that arenot interrelated, the inevitable result is a “fragmenting[of] the process to improve the school,” says Killion.

The NSDC has written a book that is available onlinecalled E-Learning for Educators: Implementing the Stan-dards for Staff Development, to provide administratorswith guidance when they are considering using onlineprofessional development in their schools or districts.Among many other recommendations, the book suggeststhat districts plan ongoing maintenance of the technol-ogy used in online professional development, and thatthe programs teachers use include features such as dis-cussion groups and team projects.

Though she acknowledges the many benefits of online



professional development, Killion says another poten-tial problem is hidden costs. Paying for technical helpand support, purchasing technologies that have theproper bandwidth, and buying new computers can allbe an added expense that districts may not considerinitially, she says.

‘Smart, Savvy’ Training

Beyond those concerns, she cautions that some administrators might abdicate responsibility for professional development if all their teachers are participating in training programs on their own time.And if that happens, she says, the district loses theopportunity for collaboration, which many profes-sional-development experts agree is vital to makingthe experience worthwhile.

Scott Noon, the vice president of teaching and learn-ing initiatives for the Brisbane, Calif.-based ClassroomConnect, one of the largest providers of online profes-sional development in the country, calls that processthe POP phenomenon. That means administrators buythe resources, usually in the form of a subscription toa certain provider, pass out passwords—thus thePOP—and then leave it up to the teachers to pursuetheir own goals, without much support.

Many providers of online professional development,including Classroom Connect, also offer in-personseminars. As long as districts or schools have a comprehensive plan for professional development, theright combination of face-to-face interaction and independent work over the Internet can be a highlyeffective tool, says Killion of the NSDC.

The ideal professional-development situation? Thatsetup, Killion says, would feature “smart, savvy inte-gration of online and face-to-face” interactions. ■



Resources

EdTech Leaders. Provides resources to thoseinterested in developing their own local onlineprofessional-development programs.www.edtechleaders.org

Educational Impact. Offers both onlineprofessional-development courses and face-to-faceseminars. www.educationalimpact.com

National Staff Development Council. Outlinesprofessional-development standards for e-learning.www.nsdc.org/educatorindex.htm

National School Boards Association. Providesonline courses for education leaders.www.nsba.org/itte/onlinecourses.html

Many providers offer online courses targetedspecifically at teachers. Some of those providers include:

Association for Supervision and CurriculumDevelopment. www.ascd.org/pdi/pd.html

Connected University from Classroom Connect Inc. http://cu.classroom.com/

PBS TeacherLine. www.pbs.org/teacherline/

Tapped In. www.tappedin.org

TaskStream. www.taskstream.com

teachscape. www.teachscape.com

Teach Stream. www.teachstream.com

One State’sDigital Quest

One State’sDigital Quest

A HOST

OF NEW

TECHNOLOGIES

ARE MAKING

SOUTH DAKOTA

A BREEDING

GROUND

FOR E-LEARNING

INITIATIVES.

By Rhea R. Bor ja

Timber Lake, S.D.

High school teacher Bobbi Maher slowly walks back and forth on

the blue carpet of her classroom and peers at her first-year

Spanish students. They wait patiently, their textbooks open

before them. She stops and focuses on a brown-haired boy

slouched over his desk. “Eduardo,” she asks in Spanish, “ cuál es tu deporte

favorito?” (What’s your favorite sport?)

Junior Dante Miller, aka Eduardo, looks up at the image of Maher on the 36-

inch television monitor in front of him and says, “Es el esquí.” (It’s skiing.) After a

brief pause, his voice comes through clearly with the help of a small microphone.

“Bueno, excellente,” Maher responds, sending a smile at him over 60 miles of

high-tech telecommunications wiring.

Of the 16 high school students in Maher’s Spanish class, 10 sit in her room

at Timber Lake School in rural northwestern South Dakota. Five, including

Miller, learn from a classroom more than an hour’s drive away in the hamlet

of McIntosh, a stone’s throw from the North Dakota border. And the 16th

youngster sits in Dupree, 51 miles south of Timber Lake on the Cheyenne

River Indian Reservation.

?

Rhea R

. B

orj

a/

Educa

tion W

eek


Interactive-videoconferencing

classes are a common sight

in South Dakota,where the state

is usingtechnology to link

geographicallyisolated schools.

South Dakota, a rural state known to outsiders mostlyas the site of Mount Rushmore, is one of the most wiredin the country. New technology such as Maher’s interac-tive-videoconference class—an updated twist on old-school distance learning—is erasing boundaries andopening new avenues of learning for the state’s 729public schools, 78 private schools, and 15 colleges anduniversities.

Now, students from tiny McIntosh, population 217, to124,000-resident Sioux Falls can take classes over theDigital Dakota Network, the high-speed telecommuni-cations backbone that supports Internet access, a grow-ing online academic curriculum, and statewide onlinetesting.

Meanwhile, teachers such as Maher—the only Span-ish teacher for her district—can share experiences withother foreign-language teachers statewide via video-conferenced “staff meetings.” They can also get ad-vanced degrees by taking classes over the DDN fromNorthern State University’s e-learning center or fromother colleges. This North Central state also boasts ofthe high rate of computer access it gives students: At aratio of one computer for every 2.4 students, SouthDakota leads the nation.

Nearly all school districts throughout the countryhave Internet-accessible computers and other commu-nications technology. But only a few states, such asSouth Dakota, can boast of a statewide network thatlinks schools, colleges, libraries, and government agen-cies; offers interactive distance-learning with otherschools and government agencies; and delivers onlinecurricula and testing.

People outside South Dakota are starting to sit upand take notice. For the past two years, the Folsom,Calif.-based Center for Digital Government, a researchand technology advisory institute, ranked the statefirst in a nationwide survey on how states use technol-ogy to benefit their citizens. And Gov. William J. Jan-klow received the Eagle Award from the United States

Distance Learning Association for leading the technol-ogy charge in his state.

“They’re way ahead of the pack,” says KathleenClemens, the director of marketing and membership ser-vices for the distance-learning association, based inNeedham, Mass. “We use South Dakota as the leadingexample of what can be done between the public and pri-vate [sectors] and getting people to work together.

“California has done some of this, and New Jersey,”she continues. “But I’m not aware of any [other] statethat’s made as much noise and gotten the job done.That’s the key.”

Building a Digital Foundation

At first glance, South Dakota seems an unlikelynexus for new technology. No high-tech powerhouselike Microsoft has its headquarters here. You can drivefor hours and see deer and bison, but not a single per-son. Many people in the small towns dotting the rollingprairie leave their doors unlocked, and some of theirchildren still attend one- or two-room schoolhouses.

While its rural nature has positive aspects, it alsomakes citizens feel isolated, says Gov. Janklow, a Re-publican. Many school districts are spaced a good half-day’s drive from neighboring districts, and school foot-ball and other sports teams log hundreds of miles to getto their games. South Dakota’s rural nature has alsoproved to be a hard sell for schools trying to recruit andretain teachers.

The smallness of most schools is another factor. In astate where 171 of 176 districts have fewer than 100high school students, educators traditionally haven’tbeen able to offer the variety of academic choices theircounterparts in, say, Illinois or Florida take for granted.“We face a continuing decline in the number of teacherswho will move to small-town America to teach,” Janklowsays. “It’s not fair for a freshman in high school to take

O N E S T A T E ’ S D I G I T A L Q U E S T


Virtual ContentSouth Dakota just recently began offeringsome academic curricula online. In February,officials released an interactive state historytext for 4th grade. The online history bookcovers a host of topics, including the plight of Buffalo, American Indian history, and thetravels of Lewis and Clark.

Spanish and then have that teacher quit.”So, six years ago, the governor got busy. First, he

brought together a “dream team” of tech-savvy folkssuch as South Dakota Secretary of Education RayChristensen and Otto Doll, the state’s commissionerof information telecommunications, to help achievehis vision. He negotiated $12 million worth of high-speed wiring and technology services with the tele-phone company Qwest Communications Inc. and withSDN Communications, which represents 30 of thestate’s rural cooperatives and independent phonecompanies.

Janklow got another $7 million in services such asbroadband and videoconferencing access, and Web-hosting and network support came from several uni-versities and state agencies, says Jim Edman, thenetwork-technology manager for the state office ofinformation and telecommunications. The governor

persuaded Qwest to throw in $17 million worth ofaudiovisual equipment as well.

“We have an advantage because we came in as theirbiggest consumer,” says Tammy Bauck, the programmanager for the state education department’s office oftechnology.

Then Janklow laid the technology foundation byapproving the installation of 11.5 million feet of CatV wiring and 208,000 feet of fiber-optic cablethroughout the state’s 76,000 square miles. The prob-lem was the prohibitive cost. Estimates of the projecton the open market ranged from $80 million to $100million. So the governor had minimum-security in-mates from the state prison upgrade the electrical in-frastructure of South Dakota’s schools, colleges, andlibraries. As a result, the wiring price tag came to $15million.

The second phase started two years later, in 1998.Called “Connecting the Schools,” this second pushbrought truckloads of computers and other technologyequipment to schools, colleges, and libraries. It pro-duced the state’s network backbone, the DDN; and itsaw the start of videoconferenced distance-learningclasses from Aberdeen to Yankton. Here again, the gov-ernor proved to be a hard bargainer—at one point,buying 16,040 brand new Gateway and Apple comput-ers for about $500 each.

“He’s a penny-pincher,” says Bob Mercer, the gover-nor’s press secretary.

But all the fancy wiring and thousands of shinynew computers would all go to waste, Janklow and others realized, if teachers weren’t properlytrained to use them. He nixed the traditional after-school or one-day staff-development courses, sayingsuch “10-hour quickie courses” provided only shallowtraining.

“I’m not going to train them how to run softwareprograms,” Janklow says of the state’s teachers. “You



“[Online testing] hasbeen so wonderfulfor us. The minuteyou click ‘done,’I can pull up your ...results.” PAIGE FENTON, Principal,

Harding County School

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can train a monkey to do that.”Instead, he started monthlong technology academies

for teachers. Beginning in the summer of 1997, teachersfrom throughout the state have been gathering at col-leges and other sites for a 200-hour program to improvetheir teaching using technology-rich lessons. As an in-centive, teachers pocket a $1,000 stipend, plus another$1,000 to use for technology tools they use in theirclasses, including digital cameras, scanners, and soft-ware.

The program has proved popular: So far, about 40percent of the state’s teachers have taken these “tech-nology in teaching and learning” programs. Two otherwell-attended versions are geared toward school tech-nology leaders and teachers interested in distancelearning.

Higher education has not been left out. Over the pastfour years, the state has awarded about $4 million to

more than 220 college instructors who want to use tech-nology to improve student learning. The money pays theprofessors—at an average of $15,000—to work in thesummer to make that happen.

One biology professor, for example, began an online di-alogue between her students and college students inGermany and Mexico. She also assigned them to makedigitized videos of laboratory techniques, which will beavailable over the Internet or on CD-ROM.

Northern State University also recently added astatewide e-learning center. At this college in Aberdeen,S.D., courses that aren’t usually offered in many publicschools—such as physics, music, and Advanced Place-ment calculus—are taught over the Digital Dakota Net-work. Student-teachers, graduate education majors, andother college students can also obtain distance-technol-ogy internships, supplemented by on-site mentoring byteachers and university supervisors.

Over the years, Janklow has cut through bureaucraticred tape that delays and shrinks many wide-scale ini-tiatives, and pushed the idea of technology-rich schoolsin speeches to the legislature, business leaders, and any-one else who would listen. And doing so has helped placeSouth Dakota on the technology forefront, many peoplehere and elsewhere say.

“We’re not a rich state, but we’ll do everything we canto get ourselves on top of the heap,” says Christensen,the education secretary.

Windows on the World

With a few clicks of his computer mouse, senior sys-tems engineer Jon Christopherson unveils the world.As 150 students in videoconferencing rooms aroundthe state watch attentively, a satellite 438 miles aboveEarth shows how flooding in Mozambique widened itsLimpopo River from 100 yards to 10 miles wide.

Another image shows the black scar left by an80,000-acre fire in South Dakota’s Black Hills, and asecond shows reforestation efforts a year later. Yet an-other satellite image reveals the northern Californiacoastline, zooms in on the Golden Gate Bridge, thenshows ships afloat in the San Francisco Bay. WhenChristopherson finishes, students pepper him withquestions.

The engineer works at the U.S. Geological Survey’sEarth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) Data Cen-ter in Garretson, S.D., north of Sioux Falls. This presen-

tation is one of many he and other engineers and scien-tists are doing to make students’ earth science, geogra-phy, and even social studies lessons more real. Theclasses have become so popular that they’re now offeredtwice a month, instead of once a month.

“It gives them the chance to see people who are work-ing out in the field, to hear from somebody besides ateacher,” Christopherson explains. “They get to take afield trip without the hassle of driving.”

Gov. Janklow calls the Digital Dakota Network the“outlet to the world,” and it’s easy to see why. More than6,400 classes or presentations are being offered over theDDN this school year. Most of them focus on high schoolstudents, but elementary and middle pupils also sharethe network.

For instance, a puppetry troupe from Atlanta per-formed over the DDN earlier this year for elementarypupils, and even helped them make their own puppets.

A string quartet from the National Symphony Orches-tra in Washington recently traveled to Aberdeen to play for 4th through 8th graders; the performancewas broadcast to more than 20 DDN studios across thestate.

But the core attractions of videoconferencing are ad-vanced or elective classes that wouldn’t otherwise beavailable to rural students, such as Jay Wammen andRob Lyons of Harding County. On a cold and clear Feb-ruary morning, these two seniors sit quietly at a kidney-shaped desk, their eyes fixed on the moving hand of col-lege math professor Christine Larson. In front of them isa computer-size control board, which monitors video-camera and audio functions.

Larson is teaching from the campus of South DakotaState University, 520 miles away in Brookings, but thestudents see exactly what she is doing. With a black felt-tip pen, she quickly jots a series of algebraic equationson a “doc-cam,” a high-tech version of the overhead pro-jector. Back in Harding County, the students see num-bers fill one television monitor. In the lower left-handarea, the monitor shows Larson, a blonde woman in apurple blouse, sitting at a desk and talking to the stu-dents as she writes.

A second monitor shows the two Harding CountyHigh School seniors making notations with their pen-cils. Out of the videocamera’s sight, six feet away fromthe boys, is another teacher tapping on computer keys.Such “e-facilitators” keep an eye on the students, andhelp the remote teacher distribute class material andexams.

Larson also has three students in her classroom atSouth Dakota State, and one student in Flandreau, 28miles southeast of the university. The math professorspeaks conversationally and seems to look Wammen andLyons in the eye when addressing them. When she asksa question, Wammen and Lyons answer softly, but thesmall flat microphone sitting next to their calculatorspicks up their voices easily.

It is almost, the students say, like being in the sameroom with her. They admit that it was slightly unnerv-ing at first to talk to a television monitor, but they soongot used to it.

“It’s pretty much like a normal class,” says Wammen.But the boys also say that videoconferencing doesn’t

allow them to interact with the teacher as much as theywould like. That sentiment sounds familiar to BobbiMaher, the Spanish teacher at Timber Lake.

“Sometimes my kids miss having me to themselves,” she



“We’re not a rich state,but we’ll do everything we can to get ourselves on top of the heap.”

RAY CHRISTENSEN, South Dakota Secretary of Education



says during a brief lull between her classes. “One kid saidthat someday we’ll just have a TV, not a teacher. Butthere’s no way you can take the human factor out of ed-ucation. That’s what I’m trying to re-create [here].”

So Maher tries to get to know her “remote” studentsbetter by chatting with them at the beginning and end ofclass. And they’re welcome to contact her by phone or e-mail. She’s also trying to organize a bowling party for herSpanish 1 students so they can all get better acquainted.

In fact, some have already become friends, she says,noting with a lift of an eyebrow that she’s had to squelchthe high-tech version of note passing. Instead of scrawl-ing a note on a piece of paper and handing it off, Mahersays, students have been known to write a message on asmall whiteboard with a felt-tip pen, then flash it to thevideocamera for faraway classmates to see.

Teaching and Testing

Maher likes teaching over the digital network, butacknowledges it isn’t for everybody. First, such in-struction takes more time to organize than a tradi-tional class. While her image and voice beam instantlyto her students in remote classes, Maher still has to ei-ther fax or e-mail class assignments and tests to the e-facilitators, who then photocopy the material and handit to the students. Then it takes at least another sev-eral days for the students’ work to get back to Maher.

Another problem area is whether courses are trans-ferable from district to district. Just because you com-pleted a first-year Spanish course in one school, for in-stance, doesn’t mean you’re ready for intermediateSpanish in another. That’s exactly what happened in oneof Maher’s classes.

Last semester, Maher had eight students from Hard-ing County in her Spanish 2 videoconferenced class. Butshe noticed almost immediately their hesitancy and dis-comfort when she called on them.

“I could visibly see they were stressed out,” she says.That’s because the Harding County students’ Spanish

1 class, taken at their home school, was based on vocab-ulary. Maher’s class was based on grammar and conver-sation. So while the Harding County teenagers could saythe Spanish words for “library” or “family,” it was hardfor them to converse in complete sentences. The studentsended up dropping the DDN class with no penalty.

Then there are the annoying technical glitches thatcrop up from time to time. Maher, who tends to walkaround the room while talking, learned to stand still orwalk very slowly in her DDN classes. The classroomvideocamera is supposed to track her movements auto-matically, but can’t keep up with her quick pace. Whenthat happens, students see Maher in one area—butwhen she moves, the picture on the monitor pauses,and then the teacher is suddenly across the room.There’s no visual continuity.

The high-tech whiteboard, the 21st-century versionof the blackboard, can also pose problems. The white-board has a built-in camera that carries whatever iswritten on it directly to the television monitors in re-mote classrooms. But sometimes words come out in-complete on the other side, or take several seconds totransmit. As a result, Maher doesn’t use the white-board.

“I don’t want to waste time fixing things when I haveonly 50 minutes of class,” she says.

Paige Fenton, the principal of the K-12 HardingCounty School, plans to revamp the videconferencedclasses she’ll offer to students next school year and goto block scheduling. That change may cause somewaves in other northwestern-area schools, which got onthe same time schedule so they could share classes overthe DDN.

But at least several of the five classes offered could betaught by teachers in Harding County, not by thosemiles away, Fenton says. And one of them—anatomy—isdifficult to learn over the digital network because of thelaboratory work students need to do. Interactive dis-tance-learning classes are a great benefit, the Harding

County principal says, but educators are still learninghow to best use them.

Fenton is more enthusiastic about online testing,which was required statewide this school year. SouthDakota public schools must now test students in grades3, 6, and 10. Unlike with paper-and-pencil tests, resultsfrom the Dakota Assessment of Curriculum Standards,or DACS, tests are available in seconds, not days orweeks.

“The minute you click ‘done,’ I can pull up your nameon the computer and get the test results,” Fenton says.

The tests, which can be taken only online, also adaptto a student’s academic ability. If a student keeps an-swering test questions correctly, for example, the onlinetest adjusts and asks harder questions. The data com-piled not only show whether a child is below grade level,proficient, or advanced, but also give a specific picture ofhis or her strengths and weaknesses. Such statistics armteachers with the information they need to individualizetheir instruction.

In her second-floor office with a view of Buffalo’s mainstreet, Fenton rolls her chair over to her computer andstarts typing. She pulls up a 3rd grader’s math and read-ing results. The black-and-green chart is clear: In thetest unit on fractions, the pupil scored a grade level of3.9, while in decimals, she did even better, hitting a 4.6grade level. In reading, she scored a 4.0 grade level onvocabulary, but only 2.5 on fiction.

Another screen gives “suggested learning objectives” forthe pupil. One section on reading shows that while thechild could identify story detail and the main idea of ashort fictional passage at the 2nd grade level, she neededto learn how to draw conclusions and analyze characters.

“This has been so wonderful for us,” Fenton says, not-ing that her teachers have embraced the new high-techtesting wholeheartedly.

Online Curriculum

South Dakota just recently began offering academiccurricula online. In February, officials released an interactive state history text for 4th grade. A uniton the explorers Lewis and Clark, for example, dis-cusses their expedition to the Pacific Northwest, com-

Ahead of the Game

South Dakota fares well when compared to the nation on many indicators of technologyaccess, training, and use in schools.

SOURCE: Market Data Retrieval, 2001

Students per instructional computer

Students per instructional multimedia computer

Students per Internet-connectedcomputer

Schools with Internet access

Schools with Internet access from one or more classrooms

Schools where at least half theteachers are “beginners” when it comes to using technology

Schools where at least half theteachers use the Internet for instruction

South Dakota U.S.

2.4

3.7

3.4

95%

94%

8%

84%

4.2

6.9

6.8

92%

86%

24%

69%

plete with Internet hyperlinks to a page of their jour-nals and a vocabulary list.

Pupils are also logging on to a site called “DiscoverSouth Dakota,” which gives children and teachers theframework to learn more about their state through In-ternet research and e-mail collaboration with otherstudents.

But not all pupils have equal access to online curricu-lum tools.

While the student-to-computer ratio in HardingCounty School is 2-to-1, students in the county’s fourtiny rural schools have a ratio of approximately 10-to-1.Those schools have enrollments ranging from seven to35 K-12 students, and typically have one or two comput-ers hooked up to the Internet through a 56k dial-upmodem, says Wayne Blankenbiller, the Harding Countysuperintendent of schools.

That’s a situation he hopes to improve in the near fu-ture, says Blankenbiller, who wants to install morephone lines, create a mini-network, or provide wirelessaccess to help the small schools. Harding County, likemany districts, is still fine-tuning its technology accessand hardware.

But the county has come a long way in just a fewyears. So far, 90 percent of its teachers have gonethrough the state’s four-week technology academies;many take part in the online “staff meetings” sponsoredby the state; and one or two are pursuing advanced de-grees online.

Beyond such steps, Blankenbiller says, Internet access,videconferenced classes, and “telecollaboration” havehelped give the same opportunities to his students thattheir counterparts in Sioux Falls and Rapid City enjoy.

Sitting in his office as the late-afternoon winter sunshines in, he leans back in his chair and says,“Whatwe’re doing is opening the world to kids.” ■



Online Testing

Several states have begun or are planning to administer statewide tests over the Internet. Two states—Oregon and South Dakota—are administering onlineassessments this school year, and 10 other states are piloting or planning to give their state tests over the Internet.

SOURCE: Education Week survey of state departmentsof education, 2002

State test administered online in 2001-02 (2)

State does not have online testing (39)

State is developing an online test (10)

WA

OR

CA

AK

ID

NV

AZ

MT

WY

UT CO

NM

ND

SD

NE

KS

OK

TX

HI

MN

IA

MO

AR

WIMI

IL IN OHPA

NY

MEVT

NHMARI

KYWV

VA

NC

SC

FL

GAALMS

TN

LA

CTNJDE

MDDC


Tracking Tech Trends

Despite fiscal belt-tightening and the recent decline in the

technology sector of the U.S. economy, states still made great

strides over the past year in helping students get access to

computers in schools.

According to the most recent data from Market Data Retrieval, a Shelton,

Conn.-based market research firm, the number of students per instructional

computer improved in nearly every state last year. Nationally, in 2001, there

were just over four students for every instructional school computer, and the

number of students per Internet-connected computer in schools dropped from

7.9 in 2000 to 6.8 in 2001.

Still, other trends related to training and the use of technology are lagging.

Spending on staff development and training decreased as a percentage of

school technology budgets from 2000 to 2001. The percentage of schools where

a majority of teachers use computers daily for planning or teaching rose

slightly across schools overall, but remained flat in schools where more than

half the students are members of racial or ethnic minorities.

Data from the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress show

that more than half of 8th graders reported that they didn’t use computers in

their mathematics classes. Among those who did say they use computers, the

machines were most often used for playing games or engaging in drill-and-

practice activities, rather than more sophisticated uses such as simulations

or demonstrations of new topics.

Those data underscore the point that purchasing computers and improving

Internet connections are just part of what it takes to make technology an

integral part of teaching and learning. Preparing teachers to use and integrate

technology into their work in meaningful ways remains a challenge.

This year’s access numbers paint a picture of across-the-board

improvement. Technology Counts 2002 includes many state-by-state indicators,

a number of which pay particular attention to technology access in high-

poverty and high-minority-enrollment schools. In those schools, and across

public schools generally, there are now more higher-quality computers

accessible to students in a variety of settings.

In 2001, 61 percent of instructional computers had high-speed processors,

up from 53 percent in 2000, according to MDR. The number of computers per

TrackingTech Trends

STUDENT

ACCESS TO

COMPUTERS

IMPROVES,BUT SERIOUS

CONCERNS

REMAIN

ABOUT HOW

TECHNOLOGY

IS USED.

By Rona ld A. Sk inner

T R A C K I N G T E C H T R E N D S


Access Improving

19.7

6.3

13.6

5.77.9

4.96.8

4.2

1998 1999 2000 20010

5

10

15

20

25

Stud

ents

per

com

pute

r

Instructional computers

Internet-connected computers

Wiring Schools and Classrooms

Note: For this chart, high-poverty schools are schools where 75 percent or more of the students are eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “Internet Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2000”

35

50

65

78

8995 98

9489

7962

53

31

20

3

1994 1995 1996 1997

60

80

0

20

40

100

Perc

ent

School Internet access—all public schools

Classroom Internetaccess—all public schools

School Internet access—high-poverty schools

Classroom Internet access—high-poverty schools

U.S. public schools are approaching universal access to the Internet. But atthe classroom level, a divide between high- and low-poverty schools remains.

The Divide Hits Home

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Tool online, 2000

22

38

1316

33

9

4th Grade 8th Grade0

10

20

30

40

50

Perc

ent

of s

tude

nts

with

no

com

pute

rs a

t ho

me

Not eligible for federallysubsidized lunches

Eligible for federallysubsidized lunches

Nationwide

Students eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program are morelikely to report not having access to a home computer.

ACCESS CAPACITY

1998 1999 2000

Teacher Preparation

Note: Data are from 1999.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, “Teacher Use of Computers and the Internet in Public Schools,” 2000

3021

46

26

61

35

71 66

0 1-8 9-32 More than 320

20

40

60

80

100

Perc

ent

Teachers who report feeling well or very well prepared to usecomputers and the Internet

Teachers who receive technology training are more likely to feel preparedto use computers and the Internet to teach their classes.

Teaching the Teachers

SOURCE: Education Weeksurvey of state departments of education, 2002

Twenty-six states and the District of Columbia require that teachers receivetechnology training or coursework prior to initial licensure. In seven states,teachers must demonstrate their technological skills to be licensed.

Spending Priorities

Note: Percentages do not add up to 100because of rounding.

SOURCE: Market Data Retrieval, “Technology in Education 2001”

Staff development

14%

Software20%

Hardware67%

While most experts agreethat funding for staffdevelopment should be a priority in schools, mostschool technologyexpenditures go to hardware and software.

Hours of professional development in the use of computers and the Internet over the previous three years

Teachers who report usingcomputers or the Internet for instruction

2

8

3

14

5

27

14

51

38

64

38

77

60

Technology training/courseworkrequired (23)

Both training and demonstration of competence required (4)

No technology-related requirementsfor licensure (21)

Demonstration of technologycompetence required (3)

WA

OR

CA

AK

ID

NV

AZ

MT

WY

UT CO

NM

ND

SD

NE

KS

OK

TX

HI

MN

IA

MO

AR

WIMI

IL IN OHPA

NY

MEVT

NHMARI

KYWV VA

NC

SC

FL

GAALMS

TN

LA

CTNJDE

MDDC

Note: Internet-connected computers include both instructional and noninstructional computers.

SOURCE: Market Data Retrieval, “Technology in Education 2001,” and published tabulations from earlier MDR surveys

student in classrooms, computer labs, and libraries alsoimproved.

In fact, public schools are approaching universal accessto the Internet, with 98 percent of schools now connected,according to the U.S. Department of Education. Access tothe Internet in classrooms is also improving steadily. Datafrom the Education Department indicate that 77 percentof classrooms had Internet access in 2000. In schools where75 percent or more of the students were eligible for the fed-eral free and reduced-price lunch program, 60 percent ofthe classrooms were wired in 2000.

Still, while disparities in access to technology based onpoverty and minority enrollment diminished in schools in2001, several indicators suggest a wider digital divide athome.

Overall, only 22 percent of 4th graders and 16 percentof 8th graders reported not having a computer availableat home, according to NAEP data. Among students eligiblefor free or reduced-price lunches, however, 38 percent of4th graders and 33 percent of 8th graders did not havecomputers at home.

That’s where schools come in, says Amanda Lenhart, aresearch specialist for the Pew Internet & American LifeProject, a nonprofit organization based in Washington thatsupports research into the Internet’s impact on society.

“School is filling a void for kids whose families can’t af-ford, or for other reasons don’t have, the Internet athome,” she says.

Training Teachers and Administrators

According to John P. Bailey, the director of educationtechnology for the Department of Education, “You canhave the fastest Internet connection, the best computer,and the most sophisticated curriculum software, but ifthe teachers aren’t trained in how to use it, it’s not goingto make a difference in the classroom.”

But data from MDR indicate that staff development isnot as high a funding priority as hardware—accountingfor only 14 percent of school technology spending in 2001,compared with 17 percent in 2000. Hardware accountedfor two-thirds of spending, and software spending re-mained at 20 percent.

Bailey points out that states receiving technologyfunds under the federal “No Child Left Behind” Act of2001 must spend at least 25 percent of that money onprofessional development. But he also emphasizes thattechnology is mentioned throughout the act, givingstates the flexibility to dedicate funds from other cur-riculum-content programs.

Professional-development funding under the No ChildLeft Behind Act can also be used for administrators, Bai-ley says. “So there is a commitment to recognizing thatteachers need to be trained, but there’s also a commit-ment that school leaders … need to receive training inhow to make decisions and how to use technology to sup-port education,” he adds.

Currently, 26 states and the District of Columbia re-quire technology training for initial teacher licensure.Thirteen states offer incentives, such as free laptop com-puters, or continuing education credits, for teachers touse technology in their classrooms. Up from 11 stateslast year, 22 states are now offering incentives for prin-cipals and administrators to use technology in their jobs.Most of the increase was due to states taking advantageof state challenge grants for leadership developmentfrom the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

How Technology Is Used

Despite an increase in access to computers, indicatorson the use of computers in school are mixed.

Data from MDR show an increase from 2000 to 2001 inthe number of schools reporting that a majority of theirteachers used the Internet for instruction. The increasewas even more pronounced in high-poverty and high-mi-nority-enrollment schools. But apart from the increaseduse of the Internet, general use of computers in the class-


T R A C K I N G T E C H T R E N D SAdvertisement

room appears to be stagnant.As part of the 1996 and 2000 NAEP surveys, students

were asked how often they used computers for mathe-matics in school. In 1996, a third of 4th graders and about a quarter of 8th graders reported that theyused computers at least once or twice a week.Four years later, the reported levels of use were un-changed.

Questions to teachers about how computers are incor-porated into math classes also reveal no change between1996 and 2000. Surveys in both years found that teachersof about a quarter of 4th graders, and just over half of 8thgraders, reported not using computers at all in class—andamong those who did use them, the most frequently re-ported uses were playing math games and engaging indrill-and-practice activities. Tasks that promote higher-order-thinking skills were used much less frequently.

In 2000, the teachers of only 3 percent of 4th gradersand 8 percent of 8th graders reported using computersto demonstrate new topics. The teachers of only 6 per-cent of 4th graders and 12 percent of 8th graders re-ported running math simulations or applications oncomputers in class.

Over that same period, the NAEP data suggest an in-crease in the proportion of students reporting that they

use a computer at home for schoolwork. The percent of4th graders reporting use of a home computer for school-work at least once or twice a week rose from 19 percentto 23 percent, and the percent of 8th graders using homecomputers for schoolwork increased from 29 percent to48 percent between 1996 and 2000.

But NAEP data reveal an immense gap in use of theInternet at home between high-poverty students andtheir better-off peers.

Thirty-three percent of 4th graders and 41 percent of8th graders eligible for the federal free and reduced-price lunch program reported in 2000 that they used theInternet at home. Among those not eligible for subsi-dized lunch, 61 percent of 4th graders and 72 percent of8th graders reported home use.

Beyond access, teaching teachers and students to usecomputers to enhance learning is a critical step in inte-grating technology into the curriculum. In speaking tostudents whose teachers use technology in the class-room, Lenhart of the Pew Internet & American LifeProject finds that students are skeptical of teacherswho force technology into their lesson plans.

“Not just using technology for technology’s sake, butusing it effectively, is something which we all should betalking about,” says Lenhart. ■

T R A C K I N G T E C H T R E N D S


Putting Technology to Good Use?

Note: Teachers were asked, “If you do use computers, what is the primary use of these computers for mathematics instruction?” Data are presented in terms of the percent of students whose teachers responded to each category.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Data Tool online, 2000

Note: Data are from 2001. Percentages do not add up to 100 because of rounding.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, “A Nation Online: HowAmericans Are Expanding Their Use of the Internet,” 2002

25

51

24

16

42

13

6

12

3

8

Do not usecomputers

Drill andpractice

Playing mathgames

Simulations/applications

Demonstratenew topics

0

0 20 40 60 80 100

20

40

60

Perc

ent

of s

tude

nts

Percent of 10- to 17-year-olds

4th grade

Just school

School and home

Just home

Other, not home

Does not usethe Internet

Drill and practice or playing math games are the most frequently reporteduses of computers for math instruction.

Income and the Internet

Eighty-eight percent of youngsters (ages 10 to 17) with family incomesof more than $75,000 a year usethe Internet, and 83 percent use it athome. In families earning less than$15,000, a majority of 10- to 17-year-olds do not use the Internet at all, and of those who do, nearlyhalf depend on school computers.

USE

Expectations for Students


Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have either specific studentacademic standards for technology or integrate technology expectations intotheir state standards for core subject areas. Three states—New York, NorthCarolina and Virginia—test student knowledge of technology.

More than $75,000

$50,000-$74,999

$35,000-$49,999

$25,000-$34,999

$15,000-$24,999

Less than $15,000

5

9

15

19

21

21

58

47

39

26

14

20

25

23

20

16

8 54

45

38

25

20

12

3

3

2

8th grade

State standards include technology (34)

No state technology standards,and state does not test studentsuse of technology (14)

State standards includetechnology, and state testsstudents use of technology (3)

WA

OR

CA

AK

ID

NV

AZ

MT

WY

UT CO

NM

ND

SD

NE

KS

OK

TX

HI

MN

IA

MO

AR

WIMI

IL IN OHPA

NY

MEVT

NHMARI

KYWV VA

NC

SC

FL

GAALMS

TN

LA

CTNJDE

MDDC

11

T R A C K I N G T E C H T R E N D ST R A C K I N G T E C H T R E N D S

Students per instructional computer in ... (2001)

Classrooms Computer labsLibraries/

media centers386 or less, or Apple IIState

High-minority-enrollment

schools

586, Pentium II,Pentium III, or

PowerMac

Students per instructionalmultimedia computer in ... (2001)

? Data not available because the state did not participate in NAEP or did not have a sample large enough to yield a reliable estimate.

8.0

5.9

7.5

7.2

10.2

8.1

7.3

4.7

7.2

6.6

6.5

10.8

5.5

7.1

5.5

6.1

4.8

6.5

9.0

6.3

9.7

6.8

6.4

6.2

8.0

5.4

6.4

6.0

9.1

7.2

5.7

6.0

7.0

8.3

5.9

5.6

6.4

8.3

6.3

8.3

6.0

3.7

8.2

6.0

9.6

7.6

6.3

8.2

5.6

5.8

4.9

66..99

58

52

59

62

58

58

63

88

56

58

63

53

67

63

61

58

57

53

55

60

55

64

63

58

61

65

58

61

62

60

72

59

64

55

58

71

62

54

65

61

63

66

58

63

62

62

62

52

60

65

56

6611

20

34

28

19

25

27

21

7

28

27

21

34

19

22

22

27

25

29

21

26

24

22

22

27

20

22

27

25

22

21

18

22

20

24

27

17

21

31

20

25

20

20

25

25

22

25

22

34

17

22

28

2233

22

13

13

19

17

15

16

5

16

15

17

13

13

16

17

16

18

18

24

14

20

15

15

15

19

14

15

14

16

19

10

18

16

21

15

12

17

14

15

14

17

14

17

13

16

13

16

14

23

13

16

1166

89.9

76.0

79.7

70.1

126.8

64.1

52.7

79.2

98.5

83.5

81.5

90.2

65.2

73.4

66.4

51.7

46.9

69.7

101.7

67.6

76.4

85.0

66.0

51.2

89.0

63.3

51.7

52.7

116.1

78.3

73.5

84.6

94.1

75.4

58.6

78.2

61.5

62.9

75.8

105.1

69.0

46.5

100.5

82.7

82.8

71.1

73.3

62.6

83.1

52.1

40.0

7766..77

17.0

13.0

14.6

12.2

22.1

14.6

16.7

14.9

8.4

17.7

16.5

23.0

12.7

13.7

11.1

10.8

9.9

13.2

16.8

13.2

15.4

16.7

13.3

10.2

17.5

12.4

11.2

9.8

16.5

15.5

14.9

12.6

17.2

15.6

9.4

18.2

11.1

14.1

13.0

21.9

14.0

7.1

20.8

12.8

12.6

16.9

12.9

15.5

10.9

10.6

8.1

1144..55

12.4

6.8

11.5

11.6

14.2

11.9

12.5

8.7

10.4

7.9

9.4

11.7

7.8

12.7

8.9

10.1

7.8

10.2

14.3

11.0

16.1

11.5

12.0

12.0

11.9

10.0

9.2

8.4

14.1

11.8

10.7

9.2

11.0

12.6

9.8

8.6

10.5

11.9

11.5

11.9

9.7

7.2

10.6

9.7

15.0

10.3

9.9

10.1

8.7

10.6

7.0

1100..77

5.4

1.9

3.5

5.2

6.3

4.0

5.6

4.2

3.7

3.5

4.2

5.4

?

5.4

4.4

4.6

3.4

4.5

6.2

?

5.4

5.1

5.5

4.0

5.9

4.5

2.8

3.0

5.8

?

4.5

3.7

6.2

4.7

2.2

4.9

4.3

3.4

4.7

4.3

4.3

2.0

5.4

3.8

2.7

?

4.0

3.7

?

3.4

1.8

44..77

5.5

2.5

?

4.4

6.3

4.1

4.9

4.7

?

3.6

4.1

3.9

2.9

?

4.1

4.1

3.3

4.1

6.2

3.9

5.2

5.4

5.4

3.7

5.9

4.0

2.8

3.1

6.6

6.9

4.5

3.5

6.4

4.9

2.1

4.4

4.1

4.2

?

4.4

4.2

2.0

?

3.7

3.7

4.3

4.2

?

4.0

3.3

2.2

44..55

5.6

3.0

4.1

4.3

6.0

4.0

4.7

4.3

3.5

3.6

4.3

5.5

3.8

4.4

3.4

3.3

2.8

4.1

6.2

4.0

5.2

4.6

4.4

3.2

6.1

3.9

3.2

3.1

5.5

4.7

4.1

3.6

4.4

4.8

2.8

3.9

4.0

4.3

4.0

5.2

4.4

2.4

4.8

3.7

5.0

4.1

4.0

3.9

4.0

3.1

2.6

44..22

High-povertyschools

Instructional Computers

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.


Access to Technology

Students per instructional computer located in ... (2001)

Percent of instructional computers that are ... (2001)

486 or Mac non-Power

9.0

6.0

?

7.8

11.5

9.7

8.8

5.7

?

6.8

7.2

6.7

4.5

7.7

?

6.9

6.0

7.3

9.3

6.0

11.3

8.7

8.8

6.0

8.1

5.6

6.6

5.5

12.6

6.9

6.2

6.3

11.6

8.8

4.3

6.5

6.7

6.9

?

8.4

6.1

3.2

?

6.4

9.0

7.0

7.4

?

6.7

5.6

4.9

77..88

StateHigh-poverty

schools


Not eligible

See Page 96 for data sources and notes.

66

?

97

85

81

?

72

?

80

?

76

100

69

83

88

89

93

91

85

85

93

89

92

98

91

80

79

90

91

?

?

94

87

95

93

58

90

84

?

59

89

?

53

90

99

75

94

?

87

97

99

8844

76

?

92

87

79

?

66

?

93

?

75

99

65

90

80

93

95

86

80

83

91

82

87

99

85

83

83

83

93

?

?

86

84

97

89

41

88

80

?

59

87

?

65

92

92

73

83

?

84

95

99

8822

55

?

41

45

59

?

39

?

66

?

73

54

39

62

57

?

36

72

53

48

46

51

48

49

50

45

44

59

69

?

?

48

73

77

62

72

43

59

?

68

68

?

64

62

23

69

67

?

54

51

38

5588

51

?

39

42

52

?

49

?

74

?

70

57

43

65

57

?

36

72

49

47

50

57

46

44

44

46

44

60

76

?

?

45

67

78

58

59

42

55

?

49

70

?

59

54

19

68

72

?

62

40

40

5522

8.2

4.8

6.3

8.2

11.4

9.2

10.1

5.2

7.6

6.4

7.4

10.7

?

9.2

7.9

8.4

6.1

7.2

9.6

?

11.5

7.7

8.7

6.2

8.3

6.8

7.9

4.9

9.1

?

6.2

6.5

10.8

8.9

5.7

7.2

6.9

4.4

8.2

8.1

6.2

3.2

10.0

6.7

8.3

?

6.6

7.8

?

5.7

4.3

88..11

86

?

74

75

91

?

89

?

81

?

93

94

84

84

95

81

86

96

85

80

72

86

74

71

85

81

85

87

86

?

?

85

80

95

88

99

77

80

?

91

94

?

94

81

57

91

92

?

88

79

64

8855

85

?

68

73

92

?

92

?

79

?

94

94

82

82

97

78

86

99

89

76

67

81

71

70

81

80

80

86

88

?

?

85

66

96

89

97

73

77

?

88

93

?

93

81

61

95

86

?

83

79

69

8833

86

?

77

76

90

?

89

?

85

?

91

93

86

85

93

81

86

96

86

83

76

88

79

70

91

79

89

87

86

?

?

84

91

94

86

99

78

80

?

94

94

?

95

78

58

89

94

?

91

78

57

8877

69

?

95

86

82

?

72

?

92

?

74

99

65

86

86

91

94

89

82

85

92

86

90

99

84

82

76

87

92

?

?

88

84

96

93

52

89

81

?

59

88

?

58

92

97

72

91

?

85

96

99

8833

45

?

34

40

46

?

53

?

100

?

69

60

44

66

56

?

30

74

47

48

47

57

47

43

43

44

44

60

78

?

?

37

56

79

54

55

41

56

?

41

70

?

58

44

20

67

75

?

63

42

42

5500

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.



schools

Percent of 4th graders in schools where computersare available all the time in classrooms (2000)

Statewide Eligible

National School Lunch Program

Not eligible

Percent of 8th graders in schools where computersare available all the time in classrooms (2000)

Statewide Eligible


Not eligible

Percent of 4th graders who have computersavailable in a separate computer lab (2000)

Statewide Eligible



StateHigh-poverty

schools


schools

Percent of schools with Internetaccess from one or more

classrooms (2001)


80

95

85

83

82

91

79

99

81

85

85

95

94

84

90

91

90

90

85

93

80

82

81

93

85

87

93

95

86

89

82

91

77

81

97

91

85

92

79

89

93

94

93

88

95

92

89

92

89

87

95

8866

91

96

93

90

87

98

87

93

?

94

93

95

?

88

89

100

95

94

88

?

89

90

88

93

91

83

100

100

89

?

86

90

80

94

100

82

90

94

90

95

94

95

96

93

100

?

93

95

?

94

100

9900

88

94

?

94

87

97

87

100

?

94

94

97

96

?

96

92

93

97

89

97

91

89

87

96

92

90

91

99

86

?

89

89

79

95

100

86

92

93

?

91

95

89

?

94

97

100

94

?

99

96

100

9911

91

93

92

95

86

94

90

99

85

92

93

93

96

92

94

95

93

96

90

97

92

90

91

95

91

94

94

96

90

95

88

92

85

95

97

90

91

93

88

93

94

95

96

93

97

97

93

94

97

95

98

9922

9.7

3.9

6.6

7.4

11.7

7.3

19.8

6.5

9.0

7.5

9.0

8.4

?

10.6

9.8

11.2

8.6

7.6

10.2

?

10.0

7.7

9.2

5.7

8.2

8.1

7.1

5.1

7.8

?

7.6

6.3

14.4

9.3

7.7

7.3

5.9

4.9

9.8

10.6

6.5

3.7

8.2

6.8

6.3

?

6.4

7.2

?

7.2

2.5

88..55

10.2

4.6

?

6.9

11.7

7.2

16.9

7.7

?

7.9

8.7

5.8

4.9

?

8.6

7.9

6.9

6.3

10.0

4.4

10.4

8.8

9.3

5.3

8.3

6.0

6.3

5.2

10.2

17.3

8.0

6.0

15.1

9.6

5.0

6.5

6.0

6.4

?

10.9

6.4

3.9

?

6.5

6.3

4.9

7.5

?

7.0

6.0

3.8

88..11

8.6

5.2

7.1

6.4

10.1

6.7

8.7

5.2

8.6

7.1

7.5

8.4

5.1

6.9

5.6

5.3

5.1

6.0

9.3

5.8

8.5

7.3

6.5

5.3

7.9

5.8

5.9

4.6

8.8

6.7

6.8

6.2

8.1

8.8

4.9

5.7

5.6

6.8

7.2

8.3

5.8

3.4

7.6

5.9

6.7

6.8

6.3

6.5

5.6

5.6

3.8

66..88

85

?

90

86

90

?

99

?

100

?

89

94

91

99

94

?

93

94

86

93

97

95

91

100

85

93

97

99

88

?

?

86

96

95

98

92

87

96

?

97

88

?

74

96

99

95

96

?

98

99

96

9933

85

?

92

90

88

?

93

?

95

?

90

94

92

97

94

?

93

91

82

86

97

98

85

100

85

90

91

98

84

?

?

95

93

94

95

95

81

94

?

83

89

?

70

94

99

97

96

?

98

98

95

8899

86

?

90

88

89

?

98

?

93

?

84

95

92

98

94

?

93

93

85

92

97

96

90

100

84

93

95

99

87

?

?

93

95

95

98

93

84

93

?

93

89

?

72

95

99

95

96

?

98

97

96

9922

Internet

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.


Access to Technology

Students per Internet-connected computer in ... (2001)

Percent of schools with Internet access (2001)

76

98

?

77

78

87

67

91

?

85

78

100

91

?

82

84

86

88

84

95

69

74

77

92

84

80

95

92

83

?

73

90

70

78

100

88

84

93

?

90

94

92

?

85

93

100

84

?

90

73

85

8833

StatewideHigh-poverty

schoolsNot eligible

Percent of 8th graders who have computersavailable in a separate computer lab (2000)

Statewide Eligible



schools


schools


High-povertyschools

1Among schools with at least one classroom connected to the Internet. See Page 96 for data sources and notes.2Among schools with Internet access.

Home Computers

13

?

11

18

10

?

5

?

12

?

9

15

8

10

12

?

9

11

14

6

8

5

9

8

15

12

7

8

14

?

?

12

9

11

9

11

11

8

?

6

10

?

13

11

4

7

8

?

11

8

10

99

39

?

41

40

30

?

26

?

31

?

32

40

32

38

39

?

33

32

38

20

26

27

30

29

37

37

28

27

40

?

?

41

24

33

31

34

36

27

?

33

35

?

36

41

25

20

34

?

34

35

27

3333

52

44

77

48

68

75

62

100

?

73

69

84

?

82

74

63

76

73

70

?

68

70

58

80

70

64

55

89

63

?

53

66

73

65

50

68

72

79

62

64

78

74

49

77

93

?

72

73

?

58

100

7700

86

83

86

84

79

87

77

98

77

82

89

75

94

82

91

92

84

93

70

88

80

80

81

93

80

86

85

92

86

89

79

87

66

84

87

89

83

87

80

79

90

95

86

88

89

86

90

89

84

88

94

8844

57

55

78

66

67

80

66

100

75

73

71

86

71

80

77

81

65

72

67

59

68

68

66

84

74

77

43

69

56

49

71

65

76

65

53

82

77

74

73

65

80

74

45

81

87

38

74

80

66

75

63

7722

49

33

?

59

65

80

59

100

?

70

67

82

75

?

73

81

65

67

66

53

58

61

57

74

72

76

41

66

70

?

49

63

74

61

53

76

76

73

?

58

81

70

?

79

85

50

66

?

62

63

44

6699

23

?

21

27

18

?

10

?

25

?

18

24

15

19

17

?

15

20

28

9

12

9

14

12

26

18

14

13

21

?

?

26

15

18

14

15

21

13

?

13

21

?

21

24

9

9

14

?

20

13

14

1166

17

?

15

20

10

?

8

?

14

?

15

16

11

16

15

14

11

17

18

11

10

7

13

11

19

16

12

14

15

?

?

12

10

13

14

17

16

11

?

11

17

?

15

12

9

10

11

?

19

12

13

1133

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.



schools

Percent ofclassroomswith Internet

access (2001)1

Statewide Not eligible

Percent of 4th graders who do not havecomputers available at home (2000)


schools Eligible


Not eligible

Percent of 8th graders who do not havecomputers available at home (2000)

Statewide


78

94

87

71

79

88

66

93

83

83

79

94

?

73

75

82

85

73

85

?

73

75

73

92

85

61

95

79

88

?

72

91

67

81

100

89

86

100

69

89

92

89

89

84

94

?

88

85

?

68

75

8811

Percent of schools that connect to the Internetthrough a TI, T3, digital satellite, or cable modem

(2001)2

EligibleStatewide

30

?

31

35

27

?

16

?

32

?

28

29

20

26

20

20

22

32

33

17

18

15

20

18

34

25

20

24

27

?

?

36

22

26

20

24

31

20

?

22

31

?

27

29

16

14

19

?

29

21

22

2222

41

?

50

49

42

?

34

?

35

?

43

43

33

42

35

35

41

48

42

31

32

37

38

36

42

43

33

44

46

?

?

53

34

45

32

37

44

36

?

41

42

?

44

49

34

28

37

?

42

38

39

3388


State regularlyconducts datacollection ontechnology inschools (2002) Teachers Administrators

Demonstration oftechnology

competenceTechnology

training/coursework StatewideHigh-poverty

schoolsHigh-minority-

enrollment schools

Data Training Incentives Teacher Proficiency


Capacity to Use Technology

Requirements for initial teacherlicensure include ... (2002)

State offers professional or financialincentives for teachers or

administrators to use technology (2002)

State requirestechnology

training for teacherrecertification

(2002)

Percent of schools where at least half the teachers are“beginners” when it comes to using technology (2001)

18

14

38

50

40

27

75

?

?

22

18

?

?

48

46

50

27

?

17

?

15

33

19

56

30

36

?

?

0

?

44

38

48

31

?

50

47

?

27

40

22

25

67

29

33

?

19

42

?

30

?

3333

18

0

?

44

42

25

67

?

?

19

18

25

0

?

44

38

14

21

19

22

33

23

21

50

25

32

0

0

0

?

50

38

51

28

0

40

31

26

?

40

21

11

?

28

31

?

23

?

44

31

33

2299

20

20

37

36

37

17

38

25

25

18

16

29

12

25

18

15

23

16

23

21

13

27

24

20

28

14

17

15

6

25

26

33

33

27

14

27

31

25

16

18

25

8

40

24

20

10

14

29

38

18

12

2244

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✔

✔

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✔

✔

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✔

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✔

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✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

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✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

4455

✔1

✔1

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✔

2277

? Data not available because state did not have a sample large enough to yield a reliable estimate.1NCATE accreditation, which includes technology standards for teachers, is required for all teacher-preparation institutions.

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

77

✔

✔

✔

✔

44

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

1133

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

2222

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.


State standardsfor students

includetechnology

(2002) Eligible Not eligibleStatewide

Percent of schools where at leasthalf the teachers use a computer

daily for planning or teaching (2001)


27

?

28

29

31

?

33

?

37

?

27

23

34

30

37

30

33

28

31

31

22

32

33

28

28

28

30

25

30

?

?

29

29

34

25

32

26

34

?

36

30

?

27

28

35

27

32

?

37

28

32

3333

36

?

26

29

34

?

40

?

44

?

37

25

31

31

34

31

32

28

36

34

32

42

37

34

34

30

28

25

29

?

?

27

38

37

28

35

24

29

?

45

35

?

33

34

31

32

30

?

36

38

32

3344

31

?

29

29

33

?

35

?

42

?

31

24

32

31

36

30

33

28

35

32

26

35

34

30

32

29

29

24

30

?

?

28

34

35

26

34

26

32

?

38

32

?

29

31

33

29

31

?

37

30

32

3333

✔

✔

pilot

✔

33

Standards Instructional Computers

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.


Use of Technology

Percent of 4th graders who use a school computerfor mathematics at least once or twice a week (2000)


schools

State testsstudents ontechnologystandards

(2002)


Eligible Not eligibleStatewide

Percent of 8th graders who use a school computerfor mathematics at least once or twice a week (2000)


26

?

21

24

26

?

18

?

26

?

23

19

21

25

19

?

19

19

33

18

18

18

20

22

30

21

22

24

19

?

?

20

24

19

19

29

21

15

?

16

29

?

21

24

25

28

21

?

25

24

25

2255

22

?

18

22

24

?

21

?

27

?

20

20

24

18

21

?

21

18

24

21

15

17

20

22

25

17

24

23

24

?

?

24

23

14

21

25

22

19

?

16

24

?

21

27

23

25

19

?

23

23

22

2222

78

96

70

83

64

80

59

85

56

84

89

85

92

81

81

87

81

87

67

86

73

68

75

86

74

80

88

86

88

88

68

75

64

80

85

83

75

75

72

71

82

88

73

82

78

82

85

80

67

76

90

7788

70

80

?

74

60

73

25

?

?

84

88

75

80

?

60

67

72

82

66

82

60

86

62

64

77

54

100

69

100

?

40

75

57

77

83

74

69

73

?

80

83

91

?

80

80

?

88

?

66

53

100

7733

24

?

18

23

25

?

21

?

27

?

22

20

23

20

22

?

21

19

31

20

16

17

20

22

28

18

23

24

23

?

?

21

23

15

20

26

22

19

?

16

26

?

20

26

24

26

20

?

24

23

23

2244

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

3377



13

?

5

9

10

?

9

?

21

?

11

15

10

21

14

?

7

13

18

3

9

9

10

9

12

9

12

14

13

?

?

19

7

11

7

11

16

10

?

12

12

?

22

14

6

9

9

?

16

8

22

1133

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.


High-minority-enrollment schools

Percent of 4th graders whose teachers report that the primary use of computers for math instruction is for ... (2000)

Drill and practice Playing math gamesDo not usecomputers Drill and practice

Do not usecomputers

Percent of 8th graders whose teachers report that the primary use of computers for math instruction is ... (2000)

Playing math games


7

?

13

5

10

?

28

?

19

?

14

9

13

14

14

?

8

22

7

20

22

16

16

36

3

18

24

17

17

?

?

11

19

14

24

21

4

18

?

21

12

?

8

13

10

31

23

?

15

26

18

1122

28

?

32

24

31

?

23

?

34

?

18

50

20

24

13

27

29

18

20

33

33

35

30

39

26

24

22

24

28

?

?

25

34

14

25

21

24

41

?

20

29

?

19

16

33

40

17

?

2

26

20

2255

28

?

10

21

12

?

6

?

27

?

29

11

17

8

22

?

12

13

29

7

21

8

6

9

16

13

8

11

8

?

?

13

10

27

6

18

15

7

?

5

33

?

20

25

10

6

18

?

35

6

11

1166

3

?

6

11

2

?

5

?

5

?

6

5

2

6

6

4

6

4

10

3

10

5

6

8

6

6

8

1

5

?

?

8

7

8

2

11

3

5

?

6

6

?

4

12

3

4

10

?

5

7

8

66

23

?

33

17

42

?

37

?

35

?

39

30

45

37

39

37

33

41

40

39

28

39

43

28

29

42

33

36

44

?

?

42

38

42

49

41

34

36

?

62

33

?

47

44

36

44

42

?

17

35

28

4422

45

?

27

46

22

?

34

?

23

?

37

15

33

31

40

31

31

36

29

23

27

19

20

22

38

26

36

36

21

?

?

24

20

34

23

27

36

18

?

11

31

?

29

26

26

12

29

?

71

32

41

2244

65

90

64

64

60

62

50

?

?

75

91

?

?

63

64

50

69

?

65

?

67

80

70

70

65

42

?

?

100

?

52

77

52

75

?

88

71

?

39

80

79

100

75

75

86

?

93

62

?

54

?

6699

43

?

65

62

60

?

51

?

18

?

41

62

56

52

38

?

68

46

40

64

37

56

58

37

61

51

42

44

53

?

?

52

54

42

42

40

61

56

?

57

38

?

44

39

64

47

39

?

29

51

40

5511



High-minority-enrollment schools Statewide High-poverty schools

Percent of 4th graders who use a home computer forschoolwork at least once or twice a week (2000)


Internet Home Computers


Use of Technology

Percent of schools where at least half theteachers use the Internet for instruction (2001)

Percent of schools where at least half the teachers have school-based e-mail addresses (2001)

Eligible Not eligibleStatewideHigh-poverty

schools


schools Statewide


63

80

?

67

56

58

42

64

?

53

59

74

68

?

56

72

72

79

65

78

55

51

49

53

65

65

56

72

39

?

68

68

44

66

86

65

63

72

?

56

73

87

?

65

70

?

69

?

69

54

68

6633

63

81

62

67

61

71

59

62

52

57

66

57

79

73

63

77

74

81

66

78

64

67

64

75

65

77

72

80

52

68

71

68

59

69

87

73

66

71

64

68

75

84

71

70

67

75

75

63

73

69

78

6699

68

79

60

59

56

56

40

64

50

53

59

58

?

58

50

63

62

55

66

?

58

62

48

59

64

51

70

46

50

?

68

63

42

66

100

65

61

93

46

59

71

79

66

62

81

?

68

56

?

45

67

5599

77

100

82

90

69

89

48

100

63

81

81

96

100

80

91

94

86

98

77

98

74

65

80

97

64

80

79

96

76

88

80

79

62

83

94

91

78

99

78

94

88

91

77

88

95

88

90

89

77

89

97

8833

79

100

?

85

65

64

33

?

?

82

69

100

100

?

95

89

94

100

72

100

57

60

60

82

60

57

89

100

100

?

50

77

29

85

100

92

74

100

?

100

87

91

?

87

90

?

94

?

75

88

100

7799

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.

88

100

78

64

66

69

25

?

?

73

71

?

?

48

100

50

75

?

72

?

69

63

56

80

57

45

?

?

100

?

60

75

30

78

?

95

65

?

67

100

83

100

62

81

86

?

93

71

?

83

?

7722

19

?

18

15

20

?

24

?

30

?

20

20

15

23

24

18

17

19

19

21

23

23

18

20

22

20

18

18

18

?

?

17

24

20

16

20

14

19

?

21

20

?

18

18

18

20

19

?

18

20

18

2233

22

?

14

16

20

?

22

?

30

?

20

17

14

23

20

16

15

15

19

18

24

21

20

18

24

20

14

15

15

?

?

15

29

18

15

22

13

17

?

21

21

?

20

19

15

21

20

?

17

21

13

2233

16

?

20

14

18

?

25

?

29

?

20

22

15

23

26

20

17

23

17

23

21

23

17

21

19

19

20

21

19

?

?

19

19

22

17

19

16

20

?

22

19

?

16

18

19

21

20

?

18

20

21

2233




Statewide Not eligible

Percent of 4th graders who use the Internet at home (2000)

Eligible


Not eligible

Percent of 8th graders who use the Internet at home (2000)

Statewide


Percent of 8th graders who use a home computer forschoolwork at least once or twice a week (2000)

EligibleStatewideNot eligibleEligible


37

?

40

33

52

?

61

?

45

?

40

38

44

44

43

?

44

42

36

61

50

59

49

49

40

40

46

47

41

?

?

36

54

43

40

48

34

48

?

57

42

?

37

40

43

67

48

?

42

52

48

4488

29

?

26

26

41

?

36

?

40

?

32

27

37

31

26

?

25

35

32

46

38

39

39

32

34

26

31

35

24

?

?

28

42

30

27

30

25

36

?

38

36

?

26

29

32

53

31

?

32

33

39

3377

42

?

48

38

59

?

67

?

54

?

44

45

47

50

46

?

49

47

40

66

55

63

52

53

46

44

54

52

46

?

?

43

58

49

45

52

40

51

?

65

48

?

42

47

46

70

53

?

48

55

52

5522

44

?

44

38

43

?

61

?

40

?

46

45

49

45

53

51

52

43

41

55

56

59

50

51

38

49

51

51

47

?

?

37

54

47

52

50

43

49

?

54

42

?

49

46

51

54

57

?

47

47

49

5500

31

?

27

26

28

?

39

?

37

?

30

33

34

27

35

36

33

30

32

39

39

35

28

38

29

31

35

35

28

?

?

23

41

28

36

36

30

32

?

37

31

?

34

29

35

36

37

?

35

29

34

3333

59

?

59

50

60

?

70

?

66

?

60

56

60

55

59

57

63

55

57

62

66

68

60

55

55

59

60

61

58

?

?

58

67

60

58

59

58

58

?

65

56

?

59

62

57

60

66

?

57

55

57

6611

54

?

57

50

57

?

74

?

45

?

62

52

62

58

65

?

58

59

49

72

70

74

66

66

47

58

63

64

57

?

?

47

67

61

64

66

57

66

?

71

53

?

58

54

61

67

70

?

61

64

63

6633

32

?

28

34

37

?

50

?

38

?

39

34

41

33

41

?

33

43

34

55

46

50

48

46

31

35

42

44

33

?

?

29

50

38

41

44

37

44

?

47

35

?

38

34

41

46

44

?

42

37

42

4411

67

?

70

60

68

?

81

?

62

?

75

61

71

70

70

?

67

70

68

77

78

80

73

71

63

66

72

72

66

?

?

68

75

70

71

71

71

73

?

81

67

?

68

70

67

73

77

?

72

69

70

7722

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona

Arkansas

California

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware


Florida

Georgia

Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kansas

Kentucky

Louisiana

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Michigan

Minnesota

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

Nevada

New Hampshire

New Jersey

New Mexico

New York

North Carolina

North Dakota

Ohio

Oklahoma

Oregon

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

South Carolina

South Dakota

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Washington

West Virginia

Wisconsin

Wyoming

U.S.

The following summaries provide snapshots of

what types of e-learning initiatives are under way in

the states. Some states have been much more

aggressive than others in using the Internet to offer

online courses, conduct Web-based testing, or provide

online professional development. The snapshots try to

give as much detail as possible about those efforts.

In those states that haven’t done as much with e-

learning, the summaries take a look at other efforts they

have made to improve the uses of educational

technology.

Alabama

State Education Agency Web Site:www.alsde.edu/html/home.asp

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Melinda Maddox(334) [email protected]

Pre-K-12 Enrollment: 726,000

Number of Public School Teachers: 48,000

Students per Network-Connected Computer: 6.9

Students per Internet-Connected Computer: 8.6

E-rate Funding (Through March 15, 2002):$114,729,700

Alabama plans to expand its online high school dra-matically to help students meet the state’s standards.

More than 300 students from eight districts partici-pated this school year in eight different courses online.During the 2002-03 school year, those course offeringsare expected to grow to at least 30, says Robert L.Youngblood, the administrator of the Alabama OnlineHigh School. An additional 60 districts are planning totake part in the program.

The University of Alabama’s program for rural ser-vices and research operates the initiative with statemoney. This year, the program received about $470,000.

One important feature of Alabama’s virtual highschool is its emphasis on helping to achieve equity, saysJon D. Chalmers, the acting director of the rural-ser-vices program.

“We’re really focused on meat and potatoes[courses] for all students in the state,” he says. Thecourse offerings are aligned with the state’s academicstandards and graduation requirements, and include,for instance, Spanish, calculus, and chemistry.

Alabama has several other educational technologyprograms worth noting.

Through a $1.2 million grant from the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation, the state department ofeducation has created the Alabama Renaissance Tech-nology Academy, a five-day technology-training pro-gram for principals and superintendents. The Tech-nology in Motion program, financed by the state at$1.5 million this school year, trains teachers to betteruse technology. And T-4 Alabama, short for Teens andTeachers Teaming 4 Technology and underwritten bya federal grant, trains students to collaborate with

teachers to produce technology-rich lessons.Meanwhile, the state’s virtual library, a partnership

of several state agencies and public libraries, offers Al-abama residents access to a wide range of material.And a new Web portal—the Alabama Learning Ex-change, expected to be online this summer—will pro-vide educators with information about the state stan-dards. The portal will eventually expand to includelesson plans, Web resources, and information on bestteaching practices.

Alabama schools receive general technology fundingfrom the state, based on a $181-per-teacher allocation.The total was about $7.9 million this school year.

—ERIK W. ROBELEN

Alaska

State Education Agency Web Site:www.educ.state.ak.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Michele DeShaw(907) [email protected]






With support from the U.S. Department of Educa-tion, four school districts have launched Alaska Online,a curriculum and teacher-development initiative theyhope to fully implement statewide next school year.

Through that project, 6th to 12th graders can takeinteractive academic courses on the Internet taughtby certified Alaska teachers, who teach these online

courses either full-time or part-time.Alaska Online will also give teachers and adminis-

trators opportunities to take professional-develop-ment courses via the Web by next winter. Educatorsalso plan to use the Web-based tool as a course-reviewprocess by which educators will review online coursesto ensure they meet state academic standards.

Eventually,Alaska officials want to form partnershipswith other states to share academic courses online.

While more than a dozen districts already offer on-line classes to some 3,600 students, the state has nocentral information database, says Michael Opp, thecoordinator of Alaska Online and the director of theAlyeska Central School, a state-operated correspon-dence school in Juneau. Filling that need is what hehopes to do with Alaska Online.

The project has received $500,000 in federal start-up aid, but Opp hopes the state will also providemuch-needed seed money, approximately $400 perstudent for 1,000 students for the first year.

Educators are also piloting a teacher-assessmenttool, the BETA Toolkit, to find out how to better inte-grate technology into the classroom. Using “self-as-sessment” and “peer observation” checklists and othertools, the kit gives teachers ways to measure how theyuse technology in their instruction.

The kit will soon be expanded to include teacherand student assessments, curriculum links and sam-ple lessons, professional-development resources, anddata-collection tools. A team of 12 educators fromacross the state, assembled by the state education de-partment, helped develop the project.

“The toolkit assessments let teachers not only see

where they are, but also where they might go next,”says Michele DeShaw, the program manager for tech-nology and innovation for the Alaska Department ofEducation and Early Development. —RHEA R. BORJA

Arizona

State Education Agency Web Site:www.ade.state.az.us/


S T A T E O F T H E S T A T E S

State of the StatesState of the States

SOURCE: Market Data Retrieval, unpublished tabulations from2000-2001 School Technology Survey and U.S.Department ofEducation, 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress

0

20

40

60

80

AlabamaPe

rcen

t

Schools where the majorityof teachers are beginnerswith technology

Schools where the majorityof teachers use the Internetfor instruction

Schools subscribingto online curriculum

8th graders who usethe Internet at home

20

63

9

54

100


0

20

40

60

80

Alaska

Perc

ent





20

81

9N/A

100

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Tom Collins(602) [email protected]






Top priorities for Arizona are to provide today’sschools with computers, Internet access, and teach-ers trained to help students put the technology togood use.

Under the direction of the state’s School FacilitiesBoard, the state has purchased enough computers toensure that all 228 school districts have at least onecomputer for every eight students, education offi-cials say.

The next steps on the board’s agenda are to connectall network-capable computers in schools across the

state and link districts to the Internet with broad-band connections that allow the transmission and re-ception of voice, video, text, and graphic data.

The state will provide districts with access to its In-ternet Application Service Provider, or ASP, at nocharge until June 2005, according to state officials.

The ASP will host school and teacher Web sites, pro-vide e-mail services for staff members and students,and support a state-mandated online student-trackingsystem that will chart what schools spend on stu-dents, testing data, and other information.

The ASP will also enable schools to access soft-ware, including more than 250 educational titles.These materials will be available over the Internet,making them accessible to students, parents, teach-ers, and other staff members, whether they’re work-ing from school or home. According to state officials,districts will have the option of storing academicportfolios on secure Web sites for students’ entire ed-ucational careers.

Meanwhile, to help train teachers to use the newcomputer technology for classroom instruction, thestate offers the Arizona School Services through Edu-cation Technology program, or ASSET.

The program helps teachers determine their com-puter competency and pursue professional develop-



Pre-K-12 Enrollment (2000-01): U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center for Education Statistics,“Early Estimates of Public Elementary and SecondaryEducation Statistics: School Year 2000-2001,”February 2001. The figure includes students enrolledat a school or local education agency on the school dayclosest to October 1, 2000. Membership includes allstudents in prekindergarten through grade 12 andungraded classes.

Number of Teachers (2000-01): U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center for Education Statistics,“Early Estimates of Public Elementary and SecondaryEducation Statistics: School Year 2000-2001,” February2001. The figure includes all professional staff memberswho provide instruction to students and maintain dailystudent-attendance figures for a group or class at any ofthe levels from prekindergarten through grade 12 andungraded classes.

Students per Network-Connected Computer(2000-01): Market Data Retrieval, “Technology inEducation 2001.” “Network-connected” refers to any

computer connected to at least a local area network(LAN), including noninstructional computers.

Students per Internet-Connected Computer (2000-01): Market Data Retrieval, “Technology inEducation 2001.” “Internet-connected” computers refersto any computer that can access the Internet, includingnon-instructional computers.

E-rate Funding (2002): Unpublished tabulations fromthe Schools and Libraries Division of the UniversalService Administration Company. The federal E-rateprogram provides discounts on telecommunicationsservices, Internet access, and internal connections, withpriority given to schools and libraries that serve poorerstudents or are located in rural areas. Since thebeginning of the program in January 1998, a total ofmore than $7.95 billion has been awarded. The dollarfigure for each state is the total funding awarded toschools and libraries through year four of the program,March 15, 2002, rounded to the nearest $100. Updateson how much each state has been awarded are postedat: www.sl.universalservice.org.

United States

VITAL STATISTICS ON U.S. PUBLIC SCHOOLS

SOURCE: Market Data Retrieval,unpublished tabulations from 2000-2001School Technology Survey and U.S.Department of Education, 2000 NationalAssessment of Educational Progress0

20

40

60

80

Perc

ent

Schools where majority of teachers are “beginners”with technology


Schools subscribing toonline curriculum content


24

69

12

63

100

Total Pre-K-12 Enrollment: 47.2 million

Number of Teachers: 3 million



E-rate Funding: $7.95 billion

Alabama . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Alaska . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Arizona . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Arkansas . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

California . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Colorado . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Connecticut . . . . . . . . . . 71

Delaware . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

District of Columbia . . . . . 73

Florida. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Georgia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Hawaii . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Idaho. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Illinois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Indiana . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Kansas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Kentucky . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Louisiana . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Maine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Maryland . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Massachusetts . . . . . . . . 81

Michigan . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Minnesota . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Mississippi . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Missouri . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Montana . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Nebraska . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Nevada . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

New Hampshire . . . . . . . 86

New Jersey . . . . . . . . . . 86

New Mexico . . . . . . . . . . 87

New York . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

North Carolina . . . . . . . . 87

North Dakota . . . . . . . . . 88

Ohio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Oklahoma. . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Oregon . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Pennsylvania. . . . . . . . . . 90

Rhode Island . . . . . . . . . 90

South Carolina . . . . . . . . 91

South Dakota . . . . . . . . . 91

Tennessee . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Texas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Utah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Vermont . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Virginia . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Washington . . . . . . . . . . 94

West Virginia . . . . . . . . . 94

Wisconsin . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Wyoming . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

STATE PROFILE INDEX


0

20

40

60

80

Arizona

Perc

ent





37

62

15

57

100

ment. The same state funding targeted at maintain-ing a minimum of eight students for every computerin Arizona schools also helps pay for teacher trainingthrough ASSET. —DARCIA HARRIS BOWMAN

Arkansas

State Education Agency Web Site:http://arkedu.state.ar.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:James Boardman(501) [email protected]






Online education and distance learning are playinglarger roles in Arkansas since the state opened itsDistance Learning Center in July 2001, says JamesBoardman, the state’s assistant director for informa-tion and technology.

The center offers classes using a variety of tech-nologies, including television, video, and the Web, ac-cording to Belinda Kitrell, the program manager forthe center. One of its projects is the Arkansas VirtualHigh School, which offers 13 online courses, includingU.S. history, geometry, and oral communication. About

1,200 students in grades 9-12 are enrolled in thecourses, which are tied to state academic standards.

The teachers of the classes are required to take astate-sponsored online course that shows them how toteach online. “To be a good virtual instructor, you needto take a course virtually,” says Kitrell. In addition,the state makes the content of the virtual highschool’s online courses available to all teachersthrough the Distance Learning Center’s Web site.State education officials want teachers to access anduse the online material to supplement their curriculaand classwork.

What’s more, Arkansas teachers can take online or

distance-learning summer professional-developmentclasses through the center. And the center offerstraining and classes—all online—for administratorsand school board members. As it is, Arkansas teach-ers are required to have six hours of technologytraining a year. Boardman says teachers are pro-gressing from basic knowledge to more sophisticateduses of technology.

He’d like to see more progress, though. “One of ourweaknesses,” he says, “is in professional develop-ment and the threshold of teachers comfortable withtechnology.”

Budget cuts are looming in Arkansas state agencies,however, and educational technology is no exception.This fiscal year, Boardman says he had to cut $2 mil-lion out of his department’s $15 million budget. As aresult, enrollment fees for schools participating in thestate’s online- and distance-learning programs willprobably go up, and a program in which students trainteachers to use technology isn’t likely to be expanded.

—KATHLEEN VAIL

California

State Education Agency Web Site:www.cde.ca.gov/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Nancy Sullivan(916) [email protected]

Pre-K-12 Enrollment: 6.2 million




E-rate Funding (Through March 15, 2002):$1,254,733, 300

California has authorized some charter schools tooperate as online charter schools with all instructiontaking place over the Web or with distance-learningteaching tools.

But because local districts authorize charter schools,state officials have not kept close track of how manyof the state’s 370 charter schools are using such tech-niques. The state has had a charter school law since1992.

Still, the state’s Advisory Committee on CharterSchools found that some of those cyber charter schoolscould not prove that they were spending at least halftheir funding on instruction, as required by state law.As a consequence, those schools could face penaltiesthat include a reduction in state aid this year.

In January, the state began requiring that schooldistricts design comprehensive technology plans ifthey wanted to receive state grants to upgrade theireducational technology programs. In the past, districtssimply put together programs for grant applications.So far, the policy has not been tested because nogrants have been offered.

The legislature also established a technology com-mission last year to advise the state board of educationon technology matters. The commission is supposed torecommend a statewide master plan for educationaltechnology to the state board later this year.

In 2001, the legislature approved the High-TechHigh School grant program, which will provide one-time grants to eligible school districts or charterschools to establish high schools with a rigorous col-lege preparation curriculum emphasizing science,mathematics, and engineering, and also possibly in-

cluding digital arts and media. Technology would beintegrated throughout the curriculum and used forteaching and learning, but these would not necessar-ily be online high schools.

The schools are scheduled to open no later thanSept. 30 of this year. So far, the state has allocatedfunds for $2 million in grants to three schools; eachschool district receiving a grant must match the statemoney. The state is considering legislation to allowfive grants of $1.2 million each.

State technology officials are hoping the legislaturewill add more money. But with an estimated revenueshortfall of more than $12 billion in the current year’sstate budget, they concede that may not happen.

—JOETTA L. SACK

Colorado

State Education Agency Web Site:www.cde.state.co.us/index_home.htm

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Eric Feder(303) [email protected]






For the past three years, Colorado students havebeen able to log on to the Internet to take such classesas Advanced Placement calculus, Latin, and astron-omy, despite the fact that the state provides no fund-ing for technology or e-learning initiatives.

A catalogue of some 25 courses is instead offered bythe Colorado Online School Consortium, which is runout of a tiny school district in rural Colorado. The con-sortium operates on a $724,000 federal grant, and itcharges schools about $100 per semester seat, saysTim Snyder, the program’s executive director.

“Students can get the courses at school or at 3 inthe morning at home,” says Snyder, who is also the su-perintendent of the 400-student Sargent district.




0

20

40

60

80

Arkansas

Perc

ent





36

67

6

50

100


0

20

40

60

80

California

Perc

ent





37

61

9

57

100

The state, in deference to a tradition of local controlof education, has never gotten involved in providingfunding for technology to school districts. But some ed-ucators, including Snyder, would like the state to takeover the delivery of online courses.

A statewide task force on e-learning has been lobby-ing lawmakers to set up a state entity that would over-see online learning. The legislature this spring was con-sidering a $2.4 million budget request for an onlineprogram, but with the state’s budget facing a majordeficit, advocates of the funding were not optimistic.

Even without funding, says Snyder, advocates werehoping that a statewide organization might be estab-lished by law.

In the meantime, the online consortium expects togrow. Some 450 students are taking courses this year,Snyder says. While most take courses that aren’t avail-able in their schools’ classrooms, others use the onlinecourses for recovering missing credits or dealing withscheduling conflicts. —MARK WALSH

Connecticut

State Education Agency Web Site:www.state.ct.us/sde/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Travis Rose(860) [email protected]






Connecticut’s drive to improve school technology haslost little momentum, despite a recent push to rein inoverall state spending on K-12 education.

Among a series of budget proposals he unveiled inJanuary for fiscal 2003, Gov. John G. Rowland recom-mended that $10 million be put toward the continuedconstruction of a Connecticut Digital Network, up fromthe $4.7 million currently allocated. With the new




0

20

40

60

80

Colorado

Perc

ent





17

71

14

N/A

100

money, state officials predict, the initiative would befully operational by the end of next year—meaning itwould be able to connect every K-12 school, public li-brary, and higher education institution in the state viathe Internet.

Organizers of the project still are deciding what fea-tures to include, but a major aim is to allow new op-portunities for students, parents, and teachers acrossConnecticut to share information.

A related effort, the Connecticut Digital Library,went online last year. It gives schools and studentsWeb-based access to a host of library catalogs, refer-

ence materials, short biographies, suggested readinglists, and full texts of many periodicals.

Rowland proposed $2 million for maintaining andupdating the digital library in fiscal 2003, the sameamount as for the 2002 budget year. He also recom-mended level funding—at about $1.5 million—for the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium.Launched in 1996 as a collaborative effort by Con-necticut institutions of higher education, the consor-tium runs a network through which students can ac-cess college-level, Web-based classes.

Over the past year, Connecticut has honed consid-erably its educational technology standards. State officials have spelled out new expectations for tech-nology competencies for students, teachers, and ad-ministrators. Those standards are being used to guidethe technology training the state offers educatorsthrough its regional education service centers—an effort that the state has underwritten with federalfunds. —JEFF ARCHER

Delaware

State Education Agency Web Site:www.doe.state.de.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Valerie Woodruff(302) [email protected]






Delaware has pumped $20 million into classroomtechnology over the past three years to buy and installcomputers and network equipment in its schools. Now,every public school has a T1 line and every classroomhas at least one multimedia computer, according toWayne Hartschuh, the executive director of theDelaware Center for Educational Technology.

But Hartschuh, whose agency is independent of thestate education department but is financed like otherstate agencies, says the center had to cut 2 percentfrom its budget in the middle of the fiscal year. As aconsequence, he says, some upgrades are on the backburner.

For instance, the technology agency used to buynew computer parts to replace ones that were brokenor worn out. Now, technicians are using spare parts toreplace them instead of buying new equipment. De-spite the budget constraints, one major priority for thecenter is teacher training. “The beginning level isdropping, and the intermediate level is up,” Hartschuhsays, referring to the levels of knowledge Delawareteachers have of technology. “It’s a good sign that morepeople are trained and getting used to technology.”

In the summer of 2001, 85 teachers took part in theDelaware Technology Academy, a state-sponsored pro-fessional-development program. The academy pro-vided workshops and classes on subjects such as digi-tal imaging, Web-page design, creation of graphs in




0

20

40

60

80

Connecticut

Perc

ent





38

59

12

74

100

Excel, word processing, and technology integration. Thegoal was to have the teachers pass along what theylearned to colleagues in their schools.

Meanwhile, interest in online learning is just begin-ning in Delaware. The state department of education islooking into offering Advanced Placement courses on-line, says Hartschuh.

In addition, through a matching grant of $322,500from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, superinten-dents and principals will be taking leadership coursesthrough a distance education program. The grant callsfor every school in the state to buy a satellite dish to de-liver the content for the courses. —KATHLEEN VAIL


State Education Agency Web Site:www.k12.dc.us/dcps/home.html

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Joseph Lane, Jr.(202) [email protected]






The District of Columbia public schools plan to test e-learning before deciding whether its benefits outweighits drawbacks, says Stan Johnson, the director of in-structional technology for the capital city’s schools.

Recently, school officials contracted with WebCT—aLynnfield, Mass.-based e-learning company—to provideonline content for professional development this year.And, as early as next school year, the company will pro-vide online content for academic classes for high schoolstudents. Johnson says he wants to start out slowly of-fering online classes for students to make sure every-thing is done carefully and correctly. “We have to be re-ally comfortable with what we hang out there,” he says.

Undoubtedly, he says, online learning could be usefulto many students. But without a certain maturity level,




0

20

40

60

80

Delaware

Perc

ent





25

62

7N/A

100

some students would certainly face problems in an on-line class, says Johnson.

This year, training teachers to use technology in theclassroom is the primary focus of the district’s tech-nology program. The training is modeled after the In-ternational Society for Technology in Education’s pro-fessional-development standards, as well as the AppleClassroom of Tomorrow teacher-training techniques.

Teachers with computers in their classrooms are re-quired to take from 36 to 45 hours of direct trainingover the course of the school year, says Johnson. Tech-nology training is provided to teachers during theschool day and addresses the academic standards andcurricula of the grade levels of the teachers.

Johnson says it has taken about four years to getteachers comfortable with basic technology skills—using a keyboard and computer mouse, for example.Now, he wants them to move toward more advanceduses so they can start to integrate technology intotheir classroom lessons. —KATHLEEN VAIL

Florida

State Education Agency Web Site:www.firn.edu/doe/index.html

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Ron McCord(850) [email protected]






Florida supports school technology in much thesame way other states do, but one program in partic-ular makes the state stand out from the crowd.

The nation’s largest state-sponsored online highschool, the Florida Virtual School, enrolls more than5,000 high school students and offers about 40courses. Every county in the state enrolls at leastone student in the online school, and some comefrom outside Florida. It’s tuition-free for students in

the state; students or schools outside the state arecharged for courses.

The Orlando-based virtual school employs 48 full-time and 28 part-time teachers. Teachers handle up toseven classes at a time, depending on the classes’ size,although most handle fewer than that, according toFlorida education officials.

Enrollment in each class averages 120, but varies de-pending on the subject. Teachers are required to an-swer students’ questions within a day’s time, and mustcommunicate via e-mail or phone with every studentand parent once a month, says Sharon Johnston, thevirtual school’s director of curriculum and instruction.

In addition to the continued expansion of theFlorida Virtual School program, the state has otherinitiatives under way to make better use of educa-tional technology.

Jim Horne, the state’s secretary of education, saidrecently that his state is in the beginning stages of de-veloping an “education portal,” which he envisions willprovide online teacher training, a Web-based systemfor maintaining student academic records, and a bet-ter system of communication between schools, par-ents, teachers, and state officials.

The legislature spent $62.4 million directly on edu-cational technology in 2001-02, according to theFlorida Department of Education. That amount hasheld steady now for two years, and lawmakers wereconsidering spending the same amount in the comingfiscal year.

Student access to computers is improving, state fig-

ures show. Data show that student access to comput-ers has increased from four instructional computersfor every student in 2000 to 3.6 computers for everystudent in 2001. The national average is 4.2. InFlorida, also, teachers must complete a hands-on tech-nology demonstration as part of their certification, en-suring that more teachers integrate technology intoinstruction, according to state education officials.

—ALAN RICHARD

Georgia

State Education Agency Web Site:www.doe.k12.ga.us/index.asp

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Billie Sherrod(404) [email protected]






Although Georgia’s plans to begin offering onlinecourses were temporarily halted this past fall becauseof concerns over the sluggish economy, the state edu-cation department has since begun moving forward

with a limited virtual-learning initiative. Members ofthe state board of education have directed departmentofficials to focus their attention on two specific areas:Advanced Placement courses and core courses in thestate curriculum.

The state has contracted with Apex Learning, a vir-tual-learning Web site, to offer online AP courses andtwo related services—Class Tools, which are supple-mentary resources for AP courses, and Exam Review,an AP test-preparation service—starting this comingfall. The education department has a budget of$477,000 in fiscal 2002 for virtual-learning programs,including $285,000 for the Apex contract. Studentswishing to enroll in the online courses generally will beconsidered on a first-come, first-served basis. But offi-cials will also take into account the size of their dis-tricts, as well the courses that are currently offered inthose districts, says Billie Sherrod, the associate statesuperintendent for technology services.

The department is also contracting with two At-lanta-area school districts—Cobb County and Gwin-nett County—to offer core courses at the high schoollevel, also starting in fall 2002. Both of those districtshave jumped ahead in the virtual-learning arena andhave developed courses that are linked to Georgia’sQuality Core Curriculum.

“This will be for kids who have limited offerings attheir school or have a schedule conflict,” Sherrod says.She notes that the state will be able to serve 175 stu-dents per semester.

Giving students greater and faster access to theInternet is also a high priority for the Georgia Department of Education this year. The state cur-rently provides districts with T1 lines, but those are being upgraded to ATM, or asynchronous transfermode, lines. That change will more than triple the amount the state pays for Internet access inschools, from $4 million to $14 million a year. Morethan 70 percent of that total, however, will be sub-




0

20

40

60

80


Perc

ent





25

52

11

45

100


0

20

40

60

80

Florida

Perc

ent





18

57

13

N/A

100SOURCE: Market Data Retrieval, unpublished tabulations from2000-2001 School Technology Survey and U.S.Department ofEducation, 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress

0

20

40

60

80

Georgia

Perc

ent





16

66

14

62

100

sidized through the federal E-rate program.Money from the state lottery continues to meet

schools’ hardware, software, and networking needs. Thelegislature is expected to spend roughly $30 million inlottery proceeds for those purposes this year.

—LINDA JACOBSON

Hawaii

State Education Agency Web Site:http://doe.k12.hi.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Tom Yamashiro(808) [email protected]






With the federal grant that has been supportingHawaii’s e-learning initiative running out at the end ofthe 2001-02 school year, the state education depart-ment has been looking for ways to pay for virtualschooling with state money.

One option being considered is to offer online coursesduring summer school, which would require studentsto pay some of the cost of teachers’ salaries, says KerryKiode, an educational specialist in the department’s of-fice of advanced-technology research.

Hawaii has been a leader in virtual learning, usingWeb-based courses in recent years to serve students onremote islands as well as those who want the coursesto catch up or move ahead. The state also has E-Acad-emy, which offers online high school courses in mathe-matics, science, and technology. The academy is aimed

at students who are interested in studying engineeringin college, for example, or landing technology-relatedjobs after graduation.

The newest virtual-learning initiative has been E-Charter, a charter school in which students take all oftheir required and elective courses on the Web. About




0

20

40

60

80

Hawaii

Perc

ent





29

57

11

52

100

70 students in grades 7-12 started in the program in2001-02, and the goal is to expand it, Kiode says.

The new online charter has presented officials witha few challenges, however, such as how to teach phys-ical education over the Internet. Plans are under wayto bring the students together periodically, Kiodenotes. “We do have to consider the personal interac-tion,” he says.

Hawaii’s education department has also been work-ing to provide faster Internet access to schools through-out the state. While most schools use T1 lines, those arenot meeting schools’ needs any longer, says K.J. Kim,the department’s telecommunications director.

To provide faster access, the department has begunlinking schools to the state’s I-Net, which is the stategovernment’s fiber-optic network. That arrangementwill also allow the state to save money on monthlytelephone-line charges.

With Hawaii’s economy sagging, the legislaturehasn’t been able to fulfill the pledge that Gov. Ben-jamin J. Cayetano made in 2001 to bring the ratio ofstudents to computers down from 6-to-1 to 4-to-1. Theplan to buy 18,000 new computers, which has beenshelved for now, would have cost $21 million.

—LINDA JACOBSON

Idaho

State Education Agency Web Site:www.sde.state.id.us/Dept/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Dawn Wilson(208) [email protected]






A decline in tax revenues has forced Idaho to re-duce financial support for school technology for thefirst time in eight years.

Since 1994, Idaho has contributed $10.4 million

to districts with state-approved technology plans. For the 2002-03 school year, however, the leg-islature is giving $8.4 million. “It’s a significant cutback, but it’s not as bad as some other stateshave been hit,” says Rich Mincer, the chief of theIdaho Department of Education’s bureau of technol-ogy services.

In past years, local districts had each received a$20,000 base allocation plus $42 per student to spendon hardware, software, support, and training. State of-ficials say they must now decide how best to dividethe coming year’s shrunken technology pie.

In making those decisions, the legislature has pro-vided this guidance: Give greater shares to districtswith lagging technology programs, and make sure alldistricts are prepared to conduct online testing in thefuture.

Idaho wants to begin online testing in 2nd through9th grades this coming fall, but progress toward thatgoal will depend on the results of an online-testingpilot program launched in the 9th grade in 13 districtsthis spring, Mincer says.

The state also wants to set up its own virtual highschool—the Idaho Digital Learning Academy. The leg-islature approved the concept this winter, butawarded no money for the venture, Mincer says.

He adds, however, that the state is helping to payfor a charter school in the Mountain Home school dis-trict for students deemed at risk, and that studentswho participate will take courses online.

The legislature also chose not to approve money fora student-data management system, which Mincersays it had planned to fund. To get the project started,though, an Idaho philanthropic group, the J.A. andKathryn Albertson Foundation, is giving $3.5 millionover two years to help install and test the system in15 districts. The system, which will connect class-rooms with school offices and school offices with dis-trict offices, will electronically keep track of studentattendance, discipline, grades, transcripts, schedules,and other information. —JO ANNA NATALE

Illinois

State Education Agency Web Site:www.isbe.state.il.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Lugene Finley, Jr.(217) [email protected]

Pre-K-12 Enrollment: 2 million





Illinois is one of a dozen states that has establishedan online high school program.

After the governor touted the idea in a State ofthe State Address two years ago, state education of-ficials scrambled to put a fledgling virtual highschool together. And beginning in January 2001, 16courses went online, including foreign languages,technology education, and English as a second lan-guage—subjects the state hoped would attract awide variety of students, says Brad Woodruff, the su-pervisor of the e-learning division at the Illinois ed-ucation department.

The online school charges participating schools

$300 per course that each student takes. The statepurchased the content for the courses from a vendor;it recoups that cost by charging schools to use thecourses. As it is, a vendor provides prepackaged cur-ricula—an approach that Woodruff says was thequickest way to get the program going. He says hisdivision, however, is developing its own core curricu-lum for the school that would be aligned with statestandards.

Most of the virtual high school’s faculty membersare regular full-time teachers in the state, and theyare paid extra for their online teaching time. To findinstructors willing to teach in cyberspace, the schoolrecruited online. Teachers who were offered jobs re-ceived three days’ training before becoming onlineinstructors.

All of the virtual high school classes are designedso that students can log on to them at any time. Butfor the participating schools to receive state money,students taking the online courses must report to a computer lab one period a day to do their course-work. They are also required to have access to tech-nology in the evenings so they can do their home-work, but the access doesn’t necessarily have to be at home—it could be at a library or communitycenter.

As of this spring, the school has 201 students en-rolled in 69 full-semester courses; 1,000 students areenrolled in noncredit Advanced Placement exam-re-view courses. English as a second language remainsone of the school’s most popular offerings. Othersought-after subjects include oceanography, chemistry,physics, and psychology.

Still, Woodruff says, the state has no plans to makethe Illinois Virtual High School a diploma-granting in-stitution. Rather, Woodruff sees the cyber school as a“value-added service” to school districts, home-schooled students, and even private schools.

—KATHLEEN VAIL

Indiana

State Education Agency Web Site:www.doe.state.in.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Mike Huffman(317) [email protected]





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Indiana has one high school offering online courses toany student in the state.

The Wayne Township School District runs the Indi-ana Online Academy, which is paid for with a mix ofstate funds, private foundation grants, and fees paidby academy students who don’t live in the WayneTownship school district. The online academy, which isin its third year of operation and has 150 students, of-fers selected courses—such as Algebra I, economics,and U.S History—rather than a full curriculum. Andmost of the students who have taken online academycourses are from the Wayne Township district, whichhas 13,700 students and is located on the western out-skirts of Indianapolis.

Meanwhile, the Indiana legislature approved $55.4million for school technology for its current biennium,which began July 1, but cut that back to almost nothingin March because of fiscal problems.

Forty million dollars had been approved for the bi-ennium for Indiana’s Technology Plan Grant Program,which gives money to schools on a per-pupil basis andwas expected to be financed with proceeds from state-sponsored gambling activities. That program was cutcompletely and funding from the same source for thestate’s technology infrastructure, called Intelenet, wasalso cut, from $4 million to $2 million.

Eight million dollars that had been approved to bespent over two years for the Education Technology Pro-gram and Fund were cut by $2.1 million. The cutbackwill have to be absorbed during the second year of thebiennium, according to state education officials. Thefund supports several initiatives, including a competi-tive-grant program, called the 4 Rs, for integratingtechnology into the curriculum in kindergarten and 1stgrade, as well as in remedial programs for students in

grades 1 through 3. It also finances the state's BuddySystem Project, which puts computers in the homes ofchildren who don't have them.

All of the money for an effort begun in 1983 to providetechnology professional-development opportunities forteachers and administrators was cut for the second yearof the current biennium. The $1.7 million approved forsuch opportunities for the first year of the biennium willhave been spent by this summer. —MARY ANN ZEHR




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Iowa

State Education Agency Web Site:www.state.ia.us/educate/index.html

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Pamela Adams Pfitzenmaier(515) [email protected]






Iowa spent $30 million annually on technology foreducation from fiscal 1996 through 2001. That $150million in funding helped districts increase the num-ber of computers in their schools and enhance their

networking capability. The state’s student-to-computerratio is now about 3-to-1.

Teachers have also started to move beyond usingthe computer as a typewriter or simply for PowerPointpresentations, too, says John O’Connell, an instruc-tional technology consultant for the state departmentof education.

“The payment and investment was just beginningto pay off,” he argues.

But declining revenues touched off a budget crisisin the Hawkeye State last year, resulting in a reduc-tion of the technology budget to $10 million for the2001-02 school year. With its funding slashed by two-thirds, technology suffered a steeper cut than anyother program in the education department. Districtsalso were given permission this school year to usetheir technology money to reduce class sizes, O’Con-nell says.

While some large school districts have been able toabsorb the budget reduction, he says, smaller districtshave had to scale back their technology efforts, by tak-ing such steps as decreasing the number of technol-ogy-support positions.

Still, Iowa hopes to use technology to bolster thestate’s groundbreaking, $40 million teacher-compen-sation package. That initiative includes mentoring for

beginning teachers, and O’Connell envisions using thestate’s videoconferencing system, Iowa Communica-tions Network, to link teachers in rural areas withmentors elsewhere.

The communications network already involvesmore than 700 classrooms in public schools, commu-nity colleges, libraries, hospitals, and other sitesequipped with two-way-video, audio, and Internetconnections. For precollegiate education, the $200million network expands course offerings for stu-dents attending schools in tiny rural districts and in-creases professional-development opportunities forteachers.

With the last few participating classrooms beingconnected to the network this year, the state nowmust decide whether to upgrade the system, O’Con-nell says.

Meanwhile, for the past two years, Iowa has takenthe unusual step of supporting technology at privateschools. In the current school year, the state has pro-vided private schools with $1.5 million for educationaltechnology. —KARLA SCOON REID

Kansas

State Education Agency Web Site:www.ksbe.state.ks.us/Welcome.html

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Hal Gardner(785) [email protected]






One of the key educational technology efforts inKansas is the development of a state-sponsored in-structional-support Web site.

The Web site, based on Kansas’ curriculum stan-dards, will offer materials to help teachers teach to the standards, says Hal Gardner, the director of educational technology for the state department of education. The site is scheduled to be operational forthe 2002-03 school year.

Among other aid, the Web site will give teachers ac-cess to model lesson plans, sample assessments, andteaching strategies—all of them to be linked to thestate’s academic standards. To ensure the new systemhas high-quality material, a panel of educators will re-view all submissions to the Web site before they areposted online, Gardner says.

Beyond the Web initiative, Kansas has a set of pro-grams designed to deliver teaching or curriculumthrough technology. For instance, KAN-ED is a programthat, if financed by the legislature, would set up astatewide computer network serving schools in collab-oration with the Kansas Telecommunications Industry.It would extend interactive distance learning to allschool districts. Gardner says some critics have arguedthat the program would focus too much on K-12 edu-cation, shortchanging a broader constituency that in-cludes higher education, libraries, and hospitals.

Another initiative, KAL-TECH, is an effort backed bythe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to establish six“academies” for teaching superintendents and prin-cipals ways to use technology to improve theirschools.

Other initiatives include the Kansas TechnologyAdvisory Board, which represents the interests of theK-12 community as well as higher education, the pri-vate sector, and foundations; and the Kansas StudentTechnology Leaders project, a state-sponsored effortto help students play a larger role in the develop-ment of technology programs, and to recognize effec-tive teaching methods that use technology.

—MYRON STRUCK

Kentucky

State Education Agency Web Site:www.kde.state.ky.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:David Couch(502) 564-2020, ext. [email protected]






Almost 500 students are enrolled in the KentuckyVirtual High School—the state’s biggest experimentin online learning.

Most students take one course at a time in an Ad-vanced Placement subject, a foreign language, or an-other subject that their school doesn’t offer.

The 2-year-old school’s primary mission is to helpstudents from schools that don’t offer the courses theyseek. The virtual high school courses use curriculafrom various sources, according to Linda A. Pittenger,the director of virtual learning for the Kentucky De-partment of Education. They include Apex Learning,a Bellevue, Wash.-based company that specializes inonline AP courses, other states that have developedvirtual high schools, and any other source with high-quality material, Pittenger says.

The project has given students the chance to studysubjects that they otherwise would never have hadthe opportunity to learn.

For instance, in the state’s impoverished rural com-




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munities, many students have never had the chanceto take AP courses, Pittenger says. And the virtualhigh school offers Spanish, French, Latin, and Ger-man because the states’ schools face a shortage of for-eign-language teachers.

Students enroll in the courses with the permissionof teachers and administrators. Almost all the stu-dents complete the coursework during the school dayon computers provided by their high school, Pittengersays. Each regular school pays $500 per credit that itsstudents complete.

The online courses are widely available becausemore than 90 percent of the state’s schools have access to the Internet. Kentucky has distributedtechnology aid so that 89 percent of high-povertyschools have at least one classroom with Internetaccess.

While almost all the students participating in thevirtual high school program are juniors and seniors,some younger students, including a few middle school-ers, are taking classes in subjects such as algebra,geometry, chemistry, and biology.

The virtual high school plans to pilot test remedialcourses in reading and mathematics for middleschoolers next school year, and is exploring ways tooffer professional development for teachers online, Pit-tenger says. —DAVID J. HOFF

Louisiana

State Education Agency Web Site:www.doe.state.la.us/DOE/asps/home.asp

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Sheila Talamo(225) [email protected]






Although state funding for educational technologyin Louisiana has declined dramatically in the pastseveral years, the state has no shortage of e-learninginitiatives.

Louisiana has had a virtual high school up and run-ning since fall 2000, with 375 students currently en-rolled.The state-financed program involves a consortiumof 17 high school teachers, offering 19 Web-based courses.This spring, the first group of principals, superinten-dents, and other education leaders will have completed a16-month training program in technology leadershipdubbed LEADTech, for Louisiana Educational Advance-ment and Development with Technology. The initiative,courtesy of a $1.2 million grant from the Bill & MelindaGates Foundation with a state match, seeks to providean in-depth understanding of the role of instructionaltechnology in improving schools and student achieve-ment. More than 400 education leaders have enrolled.

The state offers online professional development forteachers through Louisiana Integrating Technology, orINTECH, a hands-on, 56-hour staff-development pro-gram, and a newer initiative, called INTECH 2, that fo-cuses on science education.

In addition, the state has set up Teach Louisiana,an online clearinghouse designed to help ease thestate’s shortage of qualified teachers. The Web site in-cludes five virtual “centers” on teacher preparation,certification, recruitment, new-teacher induction, andprofessional development. Launched in January ofthis year, the site allows prospective teachers to inputdata about themselves, among other features. Whenpositions open that meet their job-search criteria, theywill receive e-mail notification and can apply online.




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But despite those and other initiatives, school tech-nology has seen better times in Louisiana.

The Classroom-Based Technology Fund, historicallythe state’s largest pot of funding for such purposes, re-ceived no money this school year. By contrast,Louisiana provided $80 million for the fund over theprevious four school years, though that amount di-

minished each successive year. State SuperintendentCecil J. Picard this year has requested that the fundreceive $25 million annually for the next five years.

State officials estimate that Louisiana’s ratio of stu-dents per computer plummeted from about 88-to-1 toabout 7-to-1 from 1996 to 2001, thanks in no smallpart to the technology fund.

“We’re concerned that without continued funding,we’ll really lose ground,” says Carol S. Whelan, an as-sistant superintendent of the Louisiana Departmentof Education. She notes that about one-third of thestate’s public school classrooms lack Internet access,and that of the two-thirds with access, most have onlyone computer. —ERIK W. ROBELEN

Maine

State Education Agency Web Site:www.state.me.us/education/homepage.htm

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Kimberly Quinn(207) [email protected]






Maine’s experiment in wireless education may pro-vide answers to the question of how well universal ac-cess to the Internet aids student learning.

This spring, the state is distributing laptop com-puters with wireless connections to the Internet forevery 7th grader in nine middle schools. In the fall,the state will give schools enough Apple iBook laptops

to provide one for every 7th grader in the rest ofMaine’s 241 public middle schools.

“The laptop is going to exponentially increase the ac-cess the students have to resources, materials, and cur-ricula online,” says Yellow Light Breen, the director ofspecial projects for the state department of education.

While the state doesn’t plan to provide onlinecourses or curriculum, Breen says students will be ableto use the laptops and their wireless Internet connec-tions at any point in the day. They’ll be able to searchfor primary sources in history classes, collect and ana-lyze data in science laboratories, and exchange e-mailswith experts in any subjects they’re studying. It will beup to each district to decide whether students can takethe portable computers home.

By the beginning of the 2003-04 school year, Mainewill have purchased 33,000 iBooks under a $37.2 mil-lion contract with Apple Computer Inc. That will beenough for every 7th and 8th grader to have duringthe school day.

The education department is committed to raisingprivate funds to expand the program to high schoolsafter that, Breen says. If the state finds the money forthat expansion, high school students conceivably coulduse their laptops to take online courses not offered attheir high schools, he notes.

Right now, the biggest task is getting teachersprepared to teach with the computers, he adds. TheBill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the MBNA

Foundation—the giving arm of a credit-card com-pany based in Wilmington, Del.—have each donated$1 million toward teacher professional developmentfor the project.

The state is already offering professional-develop-ment programs to the nine schools serving as demon-stration sites for the rest of the 2001-02 school year. Itwill offer similar services to middle school teachersfrom throughout the state in the summer.

Meanwhile, 57 Maine high schools have two-wayvideoconferencing technology that allows them to offer

courses being taught at other sites. Most use theequipment to offer Advanced Placement and foreign-language study—classes that often are hard to pro-vide in rural communities. An additional 33 highschools are scheduled to have the technology installedin the next year, Breen says. —DAVID J. HOFF

Maryland

State Education Agency Web Site:www.msde.state.md.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Barbara Reeves(410) [email protected]






Maryland plans to take e-learning to center stagethis year when it opens its new Virtual LearningCommunity in the fall. The state, which is sufferingfrom a shortage of teachers who specialize in ad-

vanced mathematics, science, and foreign languages,is hoping to broaden learning opportunities and easeits teacher shortage by giving many schools a morecost-effective online option.

While not an actual diploma-granting high school, thevirtual community would allow students to take higher-level courses from their regular schools or from home.

Initially, 350 virtual seats will be offered in fall 2002to serve the needs of sick or homebound students aswell as those with scheduling conflicts that preventthem from taking a regular class, says ElizabethGlowa, the coordinator for the Web-based-learning pro-ject. Eventually, she says, students will also be able totake courses otherwise unavailable to them because ofshortages of full-time teachers in subjects such as ac-counting, calculus, and physics. She hopes the programexpands to eventually serve thousands of students.

Course content and structure may vary, saysGlowa, who notes that the state would be modeling itsprogram after other online schools, such as the FloridaVirtual School. For instance, some course content fromthose schools may be leased from online-contentproviders during the program’s first year and thenmodified to meet Maryland’s academic standards.

The state will also be buying virtual seats, at a costof $225 to $450 per student, from providers such asthe Florida Virtual School, if only one or two studentsstatewide need a specific class that they are unable totake in their home schools.

Teachers from regular Maryland schools willteach the online courses if more than 20 students request a class. The online classes will be part of their regular teaching duties—in other words,




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they will not be solely online teachers.According to Glowa, students who take online courses

through the virtual community will be given weekly as-signments and be asked to take part in e-mail discussiongroups. While she says some tests will be built into thecourses and taken online, both midterm and final examswill be proctored in an actual classroom. Teachers willalso communicate with students by telephone.

The current state budget for educational technologyis $58.45 million, a drop from last year’s $62.9 million.But state officials say the decrease will have no impacton the virtual community initiative. —MARIANNE HURST

Massachusetts

State Education Agency Web Site:www.doe.mass.edu/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Connie Louie(781) [email protected]






Massachusetts’ most aggressive uses of online edu-cational tools are through its Virtual Education Space,or VES. The statewide system of online resources andspecialized workspaces on the Web allows administra-tors, teachers, parents, and students to keep classroomcalendars, present information, and communicate withone another.

Created by the state education department, VES isalso a library of state standards and district curricu-lum guidelines that provides grade-specific lesson

plans and assessments that are linked to those stan-dards and curriculum. In October 2001, VES added a feature that provided a round-the-clock tutorial for 11th graders preparing to retake the state’s mathematics and English assessment.




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One of the prominent features of the VES system isCLASP, a curriculum library alignment and sharingproject, which gives educators access to online mate-rial to help them link local curriculum with thestate’s academic standards, according to ConnieLouie, the project director for Project MEET. That’sshort for Massachusetts Empowering Educators withTechnology, a federally financed initiative that is a cornerstone of the state’s effort to better utilize educational technology.

“Curriculum directors and classroom teachers areusing this Web-based tool to align their curriculumwith the state’s standards,” Louie says, referring toCLASP. “Using the tool, they develop district curricu-lum guidelines, lesson units, and share the informa-tion with other schools and districts.”

Massachusetts has other educational technologyinitiatives worth noting.

For instance, it has established “local technologyplanning benchmark standards” for 2003, a set of fixedtargets designed to set clear benchmarks for students’knowledge and use of educational technology.

In drawing up the planning benchmarks, the state fo-cused on teaching understanding of basic technologytools such as spreadsheets and databases, as well asadapting to higher-level systems, such as using localarea networks, wide area networks, or high-speed In-ternet connections, Commissioner of Education David P.Driscoll explained in a recent statement. “We can expectthis list to expand as new technologies emerge and be-come more affordable,” he said. —MYRON STRUCK

Michigan

State Education Agency Web Site:www.mde.state.mi.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Susan King(517) [email protected]






Established four years ago to foster a highlytrained workforce, the Michigan Virtual University isalso the state’s main vehicle for helping precollegiateschools take advantage of online learning.

That effort has begun to mature in the currentschool year, as officials have expanded the new highschool portion of the virtual university and added as-sistance just for K-12 teachers.

The Michigan Virtual High School now offers 13Advanced Placement courses, bringing those college-level courses to the roughly 45 percent of Michiganhigh schools that lacked them two years ago. About1,000 students have registered for those classes thisyear. And state officials say results from last yearsuggest that students enrolled in the online coursesperform at least as well on the AP exams as studentsin traditional classroom courses.

Still, teachers of the traditional courses can use on-line multimedia activities provided by the virtual highschool to help their students learn, and any AP stu-dent can access AP exam reviews online. The virtualhigh school also provides online tutorials that preparestudents for the state’s 11th grade assessments.

Just under way at the virtual high school for stu-dents who have fallen behind or need flexibility areself-paced courses in regular high school subjects. Inthe future, state officials hope to provide some onlinehelp specifically for students with learning disabilities.

About 800 information-technology courses or mini-

courses on such topics as using Microsoft Word andcreating a Web page are available to students andteachers through the virtual university. Officials esti-mate that K-12 teachers account for about two-thirdsof the 15,000 registrations the courses have had so far.Those courses are intended to build on the $110 mil-lion Teacher Technology Initiative that last year pro-vided laptop computers and Internet connections tothe vast majority of the state’s 90,000 public-schoolteachers. State officials have also used the responsesto a teacher survey to build in one-on-one help forteachers who want to improve their computing skills.With some 25,000 teachers volunteering to serve asresources for colleagues, the state compiled a list so ateacher can reach a mentor by e-mail. —BESS KELLER

Minnesota

State Education Agency Web Site:www.educ.state.mn.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Mary Mehsikomer(651) [email protected]






While Minnesota has no statewide e-learning pro-gram, state legislators have endorsed the conceptand put a small amount of money toward makingsuch initiatives possible.

A bill passed during the 2001 legislative sessionrequires the Minnesota Department of Children,Families, and Learning, the state’s education agency,

to establish an approval process for online courses.And the law provides some funding for existing pro-grams, including $100,000 one-time grants to schooldistricts to help pay for programs that are approvedby the education department.

Under the new law, state education officials say,districts are allowed to sponsor interactive, Web-based, and independent-study e-learning programs.But the courses have to be approved by the educationcommissioner and must be aligned with the stategraduation standards and Minnesota laws.

In response to the new law, the education depart-ment is leading a task force on e-learning that islooking at issues like program quality and funding.

To support other technology needs schools mayhave, the state is spending approximately $19 mil-lion on its telecommunications-access revenue pro-gram. Under the initiative, districts receive an extra$5 per student for ongoing telecommunications costsassociated with video learning, data support, and theInternet.

Leftover money that a district receives under theprogram can be used to buy computers and relatedequipment.

Any district with telecommunications needs thattop the per-pupil allocation can apply for a grantunder the program. Districts must first apply forother available funding, such as federal E-rate money,before they seek to tap the state’s pool of grant money.

—DARCIA HARRIS BOWMAN

Mississippi

State Education Agency Web Site:www.mde.k12.ms.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Helen Soule(601) [email protected]









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Even though a weak economy has forced Mississippito cut funding for education technology, the state is forg-ing ahead with some projects that were already underway.

In February, the state education budget was cut bymore than $50 million, says Helen Soulé, the directorof the state’s office of educational technology, training,and support.

The cuts included computers for the Classroom Tech-nology Initiative, a public-private partnership promotedby Gov. Ronnie Musgrove that had planned to put an In-ternet-connected computer in every classroom in thestate by the end of 2002. Preliminary figures show that81 percent of that goal has been reached, and a state taskforce continues to solicit private contributions. But fundraising has been slower than expected, and no state

money is available to complete the project.In October, Mississippi established and fully funded

a new online database, the Mississippi Student Infor-mation System, which includes information on studentschedules, report cards, discipline issues, and personnelinformation from every school system.

A new e-learning initiative, the Mississippi OnlineLearning Institute, set to be available in spring 2002,will give students who can’t attend school or those whowant to take courses not offered in their schools greateraccess to courses. Through the program, students willinitially be offered a menu of 22 courses, and teacherswill have access to technology-integration courses dur-ing the 2002-03 school year.

The state will be using the new Mississippi OnlineTechnology Evaluation Instrument to set benchmarksand evaluate its progress toward fulfilling its technologyplan. This school year, state educators are also pilotingan online-testing initiative with 467 students from 25school districts. The test measures students’ knowledgeof beginning-level algebra. During the 2002-03 schoolyear, the state plans to pilot online testing for biology,English, and U.S. history as well. —SHARI METZGER

Missouri

State Education Agency Web Site:www.dese.state.mo.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Deborah Sutton(573) [email protected]





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When Missouri officials examined the impact oftheir efforts to improve students’ access to computers,the results were encouraging, state officials say.

A study released in February showed that 3rd and4th graders who use technology regularly in their

classrooms scored significantly better than other stu-dents last year in all four subjects covered by thestate’s mandatory tests: mathematics, communicationarts, social studies, and science.

The recent analysis of the state’s “enhancing Mis-souri’s Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies,” oreMINTS, project also showed that special-needs studentsgained the most from the project’s concentrated use oftechnology and new teaching strategies. Launched in1999, the eMINTS program provides classrooms withhigh-speed Internet connections, computers for stu-dents, and training and support for teachers on how toincorporate technology into lesson plans.

The study was conducted by the Office of Social andEconomic Data Analysis at the University of Mis-souri-Columbia.

In the past few years, the state has increased dis-tance-learning opportunities for students and has in-corporated technology into state standards, says Deb-orah S. Sutton, the instructional-technology directorfor the state department of education.

For instance, the University of Missouri-Columbiahas a virtual school that serves students in middleschool and high school. The students can take basic oradvanced courses in a variety of subjects. During the2000-01 school year, the school enrolled 7,455 studentsin 13,025 high school courses.

And several other state universities, such asSouthwest Missouri State University in Springfield,offer distance-learning programs that serve highschool students. The SMSU program, for instance, of-fers distance-learning classes in chemistry, physics,and college-level algebra. Also, more than 200 Mis-souri high schools have established distance-learningprograms.

But a state budget crunch is making it difficult toconsider adding educational technology programs. Inthe 2001-02 fiscal year, the state had to reduce theamount of grant funds it made eligible for districts,

which compete for the money. Of the $3 million fortechnology initially proposed for fiscal 2002—ofwhich $1 million had been earmarked for distance-learning projects—lawmakers appropriated only$900,000. All of that was earmarked for distancelearning, Sutton says. —LISA FINE

Montana

State Education Agency Web Site:www.opi.state.mt.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Michael Hall(406) [email protected]






Montana schools received about a dollar a studentfrom their state in 2002 for technology.

The state has only one source for such funding:money from the sale of trees cut down on state lands.Revenue from the sale of timber beyond a state-speci-fied quantity goes to school technology. In fiscal 2002,schools received $156,750, which works out to about$1 per student, according to Michael W. Hall of thestate office of public instruction. Hall is the agency’sspecialist for a federal technology grant paid for by

Title II of the “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001. Astrong tradition of local control in Montana meansthat the state generally goes light in giving money toschools.

The legislature passed a law in 2001 that is in-tended to make it easier for school districts to come upwith money for technology locally. It permits schoolsto establish “technology depreciation funds.”

Hall says some districts have discussed using thatoption, but he doesn’t yet know of any that have gonethrough with it.

Under the legislation, districts can draw up budgetsworth 20 percent of their expenditures for technology

each year. They then can ask their local communities topass mill levies—earmarked property taxes—for thoseamounts. If the levies pass, the districts can spend theproceeds on professional development related to tech-nology or on buying and upgrading equipment.

Hall says Montana state officials started this yearto work with the Marco Polo technology program,sponsored by the MCI WorldCom Foundation. The offi-cials had started training sessions for teachers on ef-fective use of the Internet and Internet contentthrough the program, but then got cold feet becausethey were afraid they’d be perceived as endorsingcommercial products.

The state turned administration of the programover to a technology center at Montana State Univer-sity-Bozeman. —MARY ANN ZEHR

Nebraska

State Education Agency Web Site:www.nde.state.ne.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Dean Bergman(402) [email protected]






State education officials in Nebraska are betting onlottery proceeds to help them complete a distance-learning program that began more than 10 years ago.

The legislature last year approved spending $3 mil-lion over two years to install video-conferencing centersin 80 high schools. When the project is complete, all 300high schools in the state will have so-called distance-learning classrooms, which are equipped with cameras,monitors, and laptop computers that allow teachers andstudents to interact from different locations. Educatorsuse the rooms to combine resources and offer specialtycourses to districts that might not have enough stu-dents to justify hiring a teacher.




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Missouri

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14

77

14

58

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17

72

11

63

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Nebraska

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15

80

11

64

100

In addition, the state’s distance-learning network in-cludes classes offered by community colleges and somefour-year colleges, says Dean Bergman, the director ofeducational technology for the Nebraska Department ofEducation. Teachers also use the rooms for professionaldevelopment.

The first 220 schools’ distance-learning rooms wereinstalled thanks to a variety of funding, including fed-eral grants. The remaining 80 rooms will be built withstate lottery money, as it becomes available over twoyears. Nebraska is also taking steps to create a virtualhigh school. The University of Nebraska’s Indepen-dent Studies High School—a correspondence schoolthat offers coursework through the mail—has madefive of its 55 courses available on the Internet, and isworking to put the other 50 online, too.

Meanwhile, Bergman’s department has recently com-pleted a set of suggested technology standards forschool administrators, such as ways to use spreadsheetsto prepare budgets. In the past two years, the state haswritten similar guidelines for students and teachers inan effort to promote the use of technology.

—PATRICK FLANIGAN

Nevada

State Education Agency Web Site:www.nde.state.nv.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Mark Knudson(775) [email protected]






School districts in Nevada have accomplished thestate’s primary goal of having a “networkable” com-puter in every classroom. The next goal is to connectall those computers to the Internet—and about 95 per-cent of schools have already done that, too, says MarkKnudson, an educational technology specialist in theNevada office of educational technology.

Beyond that target, the state appears to be support-ive of upgrading educational technology. The legislature,which meets every other year, has more than doubledits allocation to educational technology for 2001-2003 to$9.95 million, from $4.2 million during the 1999-2001biennium.

But most of that money has been unavailable sincethe fiscal year that began July 1, 2001, owing to the eco-nomic slump and the impact of the Sept. 11 terrorist at-tacks on this heavily tourist-dependent state, saysKnudson.

Still, Knudson says, the state has been allowed tospend $500,000 to create two statewide online-librarydatabases, which include issues of academic journalsas well as news and special-interest magazines. Hesays the online databases will save schools money be-cause librarians won’t have to purchase subscriptionsfor a myriad of journals and magazines for staff mem-bers and students.

About 68 percent of Nevada’s population lives inClark County, which includes Las Vegas and has thesixth-largest school district in the country. A special dis-tance-learning program is enabling the county to dealwith some of its growth-related demands.

For instance, the district’s distance-learning program



offers 48 semester courses through a mix of television,video, and online setups, says Jami Carpenter, the dis-tance-learning program manager for the 244,700-stu-dent district. When the program began four years ago,300 students registered; most were retaking coursesthey had failed, but needed for graduation. Now, Car-penter says, the program serves 1,100 youngsters, anda much larger percentage are taking the courses be-cause sports or other activities prevent them from fit-ting certain classes into their regular schedules.

—SHARI METZGER

New Hampshire

State Education Agency Web Site:www.ed.state.nh.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Cathy Higgins(603) [email protected]






With more than 80 percent of its schools reportingthat three-quarters of their classrooms have at leastone modern computer, New Hampshire is turning tothe Internet to show teachers how to make the bestuse of that equipment.

With grants from the federal Technology LiteracyChallenge Fund, districts across the state can selectfrom three private providers to show teachers howto integrate technology into the curriculum. Theycan choose from Classroom Connect’s ConnectedUniversity, a Brisbane, Calif.-based service offeringonline courses for teachers; Tech Tutor, a service ofVital Knowledge Inc., based in Fredericton and Mi-ramichi in New Brunswick, Canada, which offerstraining through software and online resources; andFreshPond Education, a Cambridge, Mass.-basedfirm providing face-to-face training and Web-basedtraining.

Most districts choose the online courses, accordingto Cathy G. Higgins, an educational technology con-sultant to the state department of education.

The Granite State also joined up last year withthe MCI WorldCom Foundation to introduce educa-tors to the free Internet resources and lesson planson the foundation’s MarcoPolo Web site. While thefoundation pays for a trainer to teach teachers howto tap into MarcoPolo, the state recruits teachers toturn the site’s curricular content into lesson plansthat match state academic standards. The revisedlessons go on a Web site the state has run for teach-ers since 1999.

Computer-based training is crucial to the state’seducational technology efforts for two reasons. First,it’s less expensive than the face-to-face kind—a plusin a state that relies on federal aid to support all ofits educational technology initiatives. Second, thetechnology reaches the remotest districts in thisrural state.

The state last year also began requiring staff mem-bers in all its 165 school districts to complete annualInternet surveys; the idea is to give districts a contin-ually updated picture of how technology is actuallybeing used in schools.

New Hampshire still has a way to go in buildingvirtual schools for students and in getting hardwareinto its poorest schools. Surveys show that classroomsin those schools have an average of one computer forevery seven students. That’s the highest student-to-

computer ratio in the nation for high-poverty schools,according to Market Data Retrieval, a Shelton, Conn.,market research firm. —DEBRA VIADERO

New Jersey

State Education Agency Web Site:www.state.nj.us/education/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Eileen Stovall(609) [email protected]






As part of its focus on building a technology-savvyteaching corps, New Jersey began a program in the2001-02 school year in which teachers are pluckedfrom the classroom and given time to enrich theirown technology skills and share their expertise withcolleagues.

Under the Technology Fellowship: Mentoring and

Modeling program, the state education departmentchooses 20 teachers with outstanding technologyskills and frees them from classroom duties for anacademic year.

The teachers receive money to buy a digital cam-era and other equipment and to attend conferences.They work on multimedia projects of their own de-sign, focusing on ways to integrate technology intothe curriculum. They also mentor other teachersthrough the state’s 4-year-old network of 20 educa-tional technology training centers.

The program is supported by $2.25 million from thefederal Technology Literacy Challenge Fund, saysEileen G. Stovall, the state’s educational technologycoordinator.

David W. Cochran, the president of the New JerseyAssociation for Educational Technology, praises thementoring program as just the sort of approach thestate needs to harness the power of technology in im-proving education. But he says far more teachers needtraining than are receiving it.

Through its New Jersey Professional Education Port,a Web portal, the state offers professional-developmentcourses online to train teachers in such areas as earlyliteracy and the state’s curriculum standards. Some ofthat study is done via videoconferencing.

The Distance Learning Network Aid program,New Jersey’s main vehicle for state-financed tech-nology endeavors, funnels about $44 per student—atotal of $59 million—directly to districts for widelyvarying purposes, ranging from installation of hard-ware to “electronic field trips” and teacher-trainingvideoconferences. But most schools in the state stillare not equipped to participate in distance education,officials say.

Education department officials are hoping the program will survive the fiscal 2003 budget-makingprocess at its current level, as state lawmakers are eyeing a budget deficit projected to reach $6 billion.

Since 1999, the percent of New Jersey classroomswith Internet access has grown from 46 percent to 84percent. Nearly 77 percent of schools have distance-




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100

learning capability, compared with 42 percent in 1999.—CATHERINE GEWERTZ

New Mexico

State Education Agency Web Site:http://sde.state.nm.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Steven Sanchez(505) [email protected]






New Mexico’s virtual high school program, one of itsmost innovative technology efforts of the past fewyears, faces major budget cuts next year.

The program—which allows students to take coursesonline—will be scaled back significantly because theNew Mexico Department of Education’s technology of-fice is getting $1 million less next fiscal year than it got

this year, decreasing the agency’s budget to $5 million.This year, the school has 1,500 students enrolled in

60 classes at all different academic levels. But nextschool year, it will only offer Advanced Placementclasses and some other AP-related courses.

“With the budget problems this year, prevalent in allstates, we didn’t get the funding we wanted,” says StevenSanchez, the state technology director. “We took a hit.”

The virtual school, created in 2000, has offered stu-dents in New Mexico a way to take classes they wouldn’thave had access to otherwise. It features certified in-structors who teach a variety of subjects. Local highschools award credit for completed courses, most ofwhich are linked to the state’s academic standards.

Other technology initiatives in the state are alsoworth noting. As part of a professional-developmentinitiative, the state offers technology-improvementworkshops for teachers. At the weeklong sessions,teachers have a chance to learn and practice some of

the latest technology skills. New Mexico is also in theprocess of setting up a comprehensive Web site on thestate’s academic standards. It will be a searchable sitethat outlines all the standards, with links to other on-line resources. And it will offer teachers examples ofstandards-based assessments, and allow them to pre-pare lessons and collaborate with other teachers.

In addition, Sanchez says, the New Mexico State Uni-versity system has been developing online-learning ac-tivities for students in the middle grades. —LISA FINE

New York

State Education Agency Web Site:www.nysed.gov/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Teh-yuan Wan(518) [email protected]





E-rate Funding (Through March 15, 2002):$1,027,029,600

In a state as large and diverse as New York, tech-nology is seen as the most promising way to connectteachers who often feel isolated from one another andthe latest educational trends.

So, beginning with the 2002-03 school year, stateofficials hope to have a so-called universal portal par-tially in place. A universal portal is one Internet sitewhere teachers can share information, adapt lessonplans to better meet state standards, and seek advicefrom educational experts.

Roughly $96 million of the state’s $14.2 billion over-all education budget is dedicated to technology, withthe state’s 711 school districts competing for much ofthat money through competitive-grant programs.

But some observers are calling for clearer directionfrom the top to make the best of a decentralized—some would say fragmented—system for financingeducational technology.

“The state has to step in and provide more leader-

ship and address the issue of equity,” says ThomasBeaudoin, the manager of educational services for Al-bany-based New York State United Teachers, thestate’s largest teachers’ union. “We have a lot of peo-ple who know a lot about technology in our state, butwe have far many more people who don’t.”

Statewide education organizations maintain Inter-net sites to help bridge that gap. For instance, the NewYork State Academy for Teaching and Learning, a peerreview group that helps educators improve their teach-ing, allows teachers to review colleagues’ work online.And the Project Accelerate Consortium, a group of ed-ucators and public and private organizations, offersteachers online help in constructing lesson plans andlearning more about standardized tests.

Still, only a handful of districts in New York offeronline courses.

The state education department is withholding itsendorsement of online courses until it can set groundrules that would ensure the quality of those classes.

“It’s slow here, but we want it to be slow,” says JamesKadamus, the state’s deputy commissioner for elemen-tary, middle, secondary, and continuing education.“We’re not encouraging [online coursetaking] becausewe want to make sure we know how to control it.”

—ROBIN FLANIGAN

North Carolina

State Education Agency Web Site:www.ncpublicschools.org

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Frances Bryant Bradburn(919) [email protected]






Online instruction has recently emerged as a hotissue in North Carolina, thanks in part to a high-profileeffort to launch the state’s first virtual charter school.

That bid was stymied, at least for the time being,when the state board of education declined in Febru-ary and again in March to grant a charter for the pro-posed New Connections Academy. The school wouldhave been opened in fall 2002 by an offshoot of Balti-more-based Sylvan Learning Centers Inc. under con-tract with a nonprofit board of directors.

But the public attention attracted by the thwartedproposal—which enjoys the backing of such influentialfigures as former Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.—has lent ur-gency to the state’s efforts to forge a comprehensive pol-icy addressing such issues as how to finance online in-struction on a large scale and how to ensure its quality.

The state board has asked the North Carolina edu-cation department to draft recommendations on thesubject, and has made clear it wants for-profit andnonprofit organizations in the mix as that policy is for-mulated, says Frances Bryant Bradburn, the state’sdirector of instructional technologies.

As a starting place, Bryant says, officials have dustedoff a 2000 proposal by the department’s technology office.That plan calls for the state to offer and pay for a menuof Internet-based courses aligned with North Carolina’sacademic standards and developed by providers rangingfrom local high schools to out-of-state companies.

The proposal recommends starting with a pilot




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New Mexico

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33

68

7

47

100


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33

59

10

67

100

group of 15 districts and providing them with re-sources that include extra staff and training and com-puters and Internet access.

To date, North Carolina’s involvement in Internet-based instruction has included paying for students totake Advanced Placement courses through Apex Learn-ing, a Bellevue, Wash.-based online education company.This school year, the state has allowed roughly 150 stu-dents to take the company’s AP courses and AP test-preparation programs.

The state also has covered the costs for teachers’ andstudents’ participation in Virtual High School, a collab-orative with headquarters in Maynard, Mass., that pro-vides online courses to students across the country.

A district-run, Internet-based school in North Car-olina has gotten some limited support from the state aswell. The Cumberland County Web Academy receiveda $150,000 state grant in 1998 to expand its efforts tooffer high school courses online. The academy, based inFayetteville, now provides courses to 450 students frommore than half the state’s 117 school districts.

—CAROLINE HENDRIE

North Dakota

State Education Agency Web Site:www.dpi.state.nd.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Chris Kalash(701) [email protected]






North Dakota education officials like to think oftheir state as a pioneer in virtual schooling: Since 1995,the state has offered its students, as well as studentsworldwide, the chance to take courses online, and since2000, it has provided the opportunity to earn a highschool diploma entirely over the Internet.

Today, 1,340 students in 50 states and 43 countriestake courses online through the North Dakota Division

of Independent Studies, says Dean Mehrer, the tech-nology director for that agency. The division, estab-lished in 1935 to provide distance education, offers 179print-based courses; 70 of those are available online.

Enrollment fees, as well as state money, supportthe program. The legislature gave the division$670,000 in the current biennium, Mehrer says.

That money represents just one aspect of statesupport for educational technology in North Dakota.The legislature appropriated $8.8 million for schooltechnology in the current biennium, which ends in2003. It also recently created a new office to coordi-nate K-12 technology initiatives in the state. That office—the Educational Technology Council—oper-ates out of the state’s information-technology depart-ment, with input from the state department of pub-lic instruction.

The biggest chunk of state money for educationaltechnology—$2.3 million—pays Internet-access fees forevery public school district in the state. It also pays forthose districts to connect to a newly establishedstatewide network. Completed this past September, thenetwork links districts to the Internet and to state andcounty offices with T1 lines.

With the network in place, North Dakota is consid-ering ways to use it. One plan is to adopt a statewidedata-management system that will keep track of stu-dent information, including attendance records, grades,and schedules. The state is piloting the program in Bis-marck, state officials say, with plans to have it runningin 45 schools by June of this year.

Another chunk of state funding—$750,000—willsoon give high schools in this largely rural state theability to conduct videoconferencing over the Internet.

—JOANNA NATALE

Ohio

State Education Agency Web Site:www.ode.state.oh.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Sam Orth(614) [email protected]






With Ohio in the midst of developing new statewideacademic standards, state education leaders arepushing for technological advances that would helpteachers link lesson plans to those standards.

Because no state money for technology is funneledthrough the education department, financial andmanagement support comes from the Ohio School-Net Commission—a separate state agency formed in1995 to wire every public school classroom to a high-speed network that can support telephone, Internet,and video transmissions.

More than 800 schools in districts of varying wealthand size participate in two distance-learning programs,which have received nearly $56 million since 1996. TheOhio Telecommunity and the Interactive Video Dis-tance Learning programs have more than 70 contentproviders, including the Cincinnati Zoo and the Wash-ington-based Smithsonian Institution. All the contentproviders offer virtual field trips and expert assistance.

SchoolNet also maintains an eClearinghouse, anelectronic repository of more than 3,000 instructionalWeb sites that support state standards.

With Ohio’s state budget facing a $1 billion short-fall in 2001, SchoolNet did not receive its requested$118 million for fiscal 2002 and 2003 to extend astatewide initiative to reduce the ratio of students tomultimedia computers to 5-to-1 in grades 6 and 7, ac-cording to Sam Orth, the executive director ofSchoolNet. Gov. Bob Taft excluded the request fromhis proposed 2002-03 budget, but the legislature ap-proved roughly $38 million for grade 6 anyway. Nofunding was appropriated for grade 7.

Meanwhile, at least three virtual charter schoolsare experimenting with online education.

The Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow opened in fall2000 and has about 2,900 students, ranging fromkindergartners to high school seniors.

In addition, 700 students in grades K-11 are en-rolled in the TRECA Digital Academy, started in fall2001 by the Tri-Rivers Educational Computer Asso-ciation, a state-financed regional educational tech-

nology agency based in Marion and Delaware, Ohio,that serves 31 school districts; the school has plansto add a program for 12th graders. And the Ohio Dis-tance and Electronic Learning Academy, whichopened in November of last year, is serving 100 stu-dents in kindergarten through 12th grade.

—ROBIN FLANIGAN




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69

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87

12

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Oklahoma

State Education Agency Web Site:http://sde.state.ok.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Kathy Dick(405) [email protected]






State education officials report that about 115 online courses are being offered in grades 9 to 12 inOklahoma.

And, using a combination of state grants and com-mercial investments, 132 courses in 230 high schoolshave videoconferencing capabilities using OneNet—the state’s official telecommunications network usedfor accessing the Internet and videoconferencing. PhilApplegate, the state’s executive director for instruc-tional technology and telecommunications, says thegoal is to provide videoconferencing capabilities to 323courses in 239 high schools by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, a task force of superintendents, admin-istrators, and teachers recently spent five months de-

vising guidelines for online and distance learning. Thegroup categorized different types of courses, gave localschool boards the responsibility of ensuring that suchcourses meet state academic standards, and requiredschool boards to first adopt policies to make sure thecourses meet 15 criteria.

Contractual agreements are supposed to be estab-lished between the school district and the parents orlegal guardians of students taking online or distanceeducation courses. The contracts may address suchissues as grading, attendance, and responsibility forequipment costs.




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31

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A proposal to have a second task force examinewhether online courses should be approved and supervised at the state level has been shelved until nextyear. Such regulation would be a daunting task, as elec-tronic information—unlike textbooks— would be ex-pected to be continually updated, Applegate says.

As it is, the state relies heavily on outside fundingfor technology projects. One project under develop-ment, the Virtual Internet School in Oklahoma Net-work, or VISION, partners nine school districts withDell, Intel, and Microsoft so students can take algebraand other math classes online. Legislators appropri-ated $2.7 million for the project last year.

However, given the weak economy, the state’smajor road-construction projects, teacher-salaryneeds, and a significant budget shortfall, educationofficials have little hope that the state education de-partment’s request for $64 million will materialize.

The state is facing a $90 million budget shortfall forfiscal 2002, and the next budget year’s shortfall is es-timated at about $350 million. —ROBIN FLANIGAN

Oregon

State Education Agency Web Site:www.ode.state.or.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Carla Wade(503) [email protected]






Oregon plans to have all of its schools capable of ad-ministering the state’s student assessments onlinewithin the next two years.

It’s an ambitious goal that’s well under way, withstudents at 300 of the more than 1,200 schools in theBeaver State expected to be taking tests by computerthis year. The program, which will eventually replacethe state’s pencil-and-paper testing process, also

aims to provide more specific diagnostic-testing in-formation about individual students for teachers,says Bob Olsen, the director of the state’s TechnologyEnhanced Student Assessment project, or TESA.

But the project—which began in the spring of 2001and is the state’s most significant technology effort—suffered a setback this year, when $1.7 million was cutfrom its 2001-2003 budget of $5.8 million.

Olsen says most of the money that was cut fromTESA was dedicated to developing and reviewing testitems to ensure that they translate from the page tothe computer screen. Despite the budget decrease,the project has delivered 30,000 tests this year.

Beyond the state assessments, an effort is underway to evaluate how technology can be used to helpteachers adhere to state academic standards, saysCarla Wade, an education specialist for the state’stechnology-literacy challenge fund. Math is the firstcontent area being reviewed, and guidelines should beready for the classroom this summer.

But a $13.1 million decrease in education technol-ogy funding this year out of a $24.9 million budget hasforced state officials to halt plans to enhance, improve,or create new programs, says David Rike, the directorfor technology and information-resource managementin the state education department.

For instance, the state had plans to use technology innew ways to improve its data collection. But the budgetshortfall has forced the education department to “main-tain status quo,” Rike says. —KARLA SCOON REID

Pennsylvania

State Education Agency Web Site:www.pde.state.pa.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Julie Tritt Schell(717) [email protected]






More and more students in Pennsylvania are study-ing outside traditional brick-and-mortar buildings,making the state a national leader in online education.

About 30,000 of the state’s 1.8 million students aretaking at least some courses online or through video-conferencing or satellite, says Julie Tritt Schell, thestate’s educational technology director. More than4,000 students are studying online full time, takingall their courses through seven diploma-granting“cyber charter” schools that have begun operatingsince 1999.

But the state’s cyber charter movement has gottenmired in controversy. Many school districts have filedsuit, contending that the state’s charter school lawdoes not contain appropriate mechanisms for ap-proval, funding, and regulation of the online schools.State lawmakers, meanwhile, are working on legisla-tion that would provide a distinct law for cyber char-ter schools.

Pennsylvania implemented its new science andtechnology standards for grades K-12 this school year,along with pilot assessments in grades 4, 7, and 10,Schell says. It also began requiring colleges that certifyteachers to provide in-depth technology education as

part of teachers’ preservice training.In addition, the state expanded its Technology

Leadership Academy to include principals. The pro-gram had already been training superintendents andschool board members in using technology to improveadministration.

But Schell says the state’s economic realitiesforced some hard choices. The education technologybudget for fiscal 2002, about $40 million, would becut nearly in half by Gov. Mark S. Schweiker’s pro-

posed fiscal 2003 budget.One of the items lost in his proposed $20.4 million

technology budget was the third year of the three-yearStudents Achieving Standards program, which pro-vided districts money on a competitive basis to help3rd through 5th graders prepare in a wide variety ofways to meet the science and technology standards,Schell says. —CATHERINE GEWERTZ

Rhode Island

State Education Agency Web Site:www.ridoe.net/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:William Fiske(401) 222-4600, ext. [email protected]






When it comes to educational technology, Rhode Is-land sees itself as a facilitator as much as it does afunder.

Using federal dollars, state officials have set up acompetitive-grant program aimed at showing educa-tors how technology can transform the way they dotheir jobs. Called the Working Wonders initiative,the effort offers a series of summer training oppor-tunities to teachers. Some are for novices, while others




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are directed at helping veteran educators aiming to use computers to push the envelope in their instruction.

Along with the training, most participants usually re-ceive some kind of equipment to take back to their class-

rooms—perhaps a desktop computer or a PowerPointprojector.

The most recent addition to the menu of WorkingWonders grants is a program that provides hardwareand technical support to schools with ideas for usingvideoconferencing. Among other uses, the grants aresupporting: distance learning for students who at-tend school in the isolated community of Block Is-land; efforts by the Rhode Island School for the Deafto use the Internet to communicate by sign language;and programs that allow high school students to com-municate with scientists working in remote locationsaround the world.

Last year, Rhode Island paid for Working Wonderswith the $2.2 million that it received from the federalTechnology Literacy Challenge Fund program. With therecent reorganization of federal initiatives for schooltechnology this year under the new “No Child Left Be-hind” Act, Rhode Island expects its share of funding forsuch programs to increase to $3.1 million.

Meanwhile, the Ocean State doles out its ownmoney each year to help districts address their par-ticular needs in school technology. About the only re-quirement attached to the grants is the stipulationthat school systems submit plans for how they intendto use the money. Otherwise, the districts can spendthe money on virtually anything related to technol-ogy, such as hardware, software, and training.

The annual funding level for that state aid has beenfrozen at $3.4 million for the past four years. Each dis-trict’s take is determined by a formula that includesstudent enrollment and poverty levels. —JEFF ARCHER

South Carolina

State Education Agency Web Site:www.sde.state.sc.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Barbara Teusink(803) [email protected]






Until this year, Web-based distance learning inSouth Carolina has been done mostly through an in-formal network of school districts, colleges, and tech-nology providers. That was scheduled to change thisspring with the launch of the South Carolina Partner-ship for Distance Education.

The partnership seeks to turn its Web site into aclearinghouse for online education courses. If a schooldistrict needs a distance-learning science class, forinstance, the partnership should eventually be theplace to find it, says Don Cantrell, who oversees anumber of technology programs for the South Car-olina Department of Education.

The project was formed as a coalition of state gov-ernment agencies, K-12 schools, higher education in-stitutions, public libraries, and businesses. It is not aplace for students to go directly to register forcourses—rather it is designed to be a place for aschool or educator to see what online courses areavailable in the state, who is offering them, and howto get more information about the courses. Also,teachers can now link lessons with state academicstandards and find instructional ideas on a grant-sponsored Web site called South Carolina Teaching,Learning, and Connecting.

Beyond that, all schools in the state by year’s endwill connect to a new online system that managesstudent data.

The state has also pursued other ways of improv-ing its uses of educational technology. For instance,school principals who enroll in the state’s educationleadership program can qualify for free laptops and

training through a state grant from the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation. As part of their leader-ship training, principals can keep their laptops bymeeting training requirements that include the inte-gration of technology into teaching and the use oftechnology to manage a school.

This fiscal year, the state is spending about $19.6million on educational technology—a drop of morethan 50 percent from the previous year. Legislatorsand the governor were still debating the comingyear’s educational technology budget. Gov. JimHodges, a Democrat, has pushed for some profitsfrom the state’s new lottery to be spent on schooltechnology. —ALAN RICHARD

South Dakota

State Education Agency Web Site:www.state.sd.us/deca/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Tammy Bauck(605) [email protected]






Creating online history lessons for schools and ad-ministering statewide tests online are two waysSouth Dakota is pumping up the use of technology inits public schools, colleges, and universities.

In February, education officials unveiled an inter-

active 4th grade history text, in which students canclick on hyperlinks to Lewis and Clark’s expedition,the fur trade in South Dakota, and other importantevents. Students can also log on to an interactiveWeb page so they can talk and post comments to chil-dren across the state.

Online testing, known as the Dakota Assessmentof Curriculum Standards, is now used throughout thestate after one year of pilot testing. Since this pastfall, approximately 78,000 online tests have beentaken, says Wade Pogany, DACS’ testing coordinator.Schools test students in grades 3, 6, and 10, and re-ceive results immediately.

The tests, which can only be taken over the Internet,adapt to a student’s academic performance. So if a stu-dent keeps answering questions correctly, DACS adjustsand asks more difficult questions. The data compiledgive a more specific picture of a child’s strengths andweaknesses than a paper-and-pencil test, state officialssay. Teachers are then supposed to use the informationto improve their classroom instruction.

The number of teachers participating in the state’smonthlong technology academies is steadily growing.Those Technology in Teaching and Learning pro-grams, which help teachers incorporate technology




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into their lessons, have been taken by about 40 per-cent of the state’s 9,100-plus teaching force, and thenumber of TTL sites has mushroomed from one in1997 to more than 50.

Student computer access has also improved.The statepurchased 16,040 Gateway and Macintosh computers inthe summer of 2001, which means that 44 percent of thestate’s public school students can be online simultane-ously, says Tammy Bauck, the program manager of thestate education department’s office of technology.

As a result, the student-computer ratio has im-proved to 2.4 students for every one computer in2001, better than the ratio of 3.2-to-one in the previ-ous school year, according to Shelton, Conn.-basedMarket Data Retrieval. —RHEA BORJA

Tennessee

State Education Agency Web Site:www.state.tn.us/education/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Tom Bayersdorfer(615) [email protected]






Struggling with cuts in its education budget, Ten-nessee is relying more heavily on federal aid andother grants to further its technology initiatives.

The state last year revamped its programs underthe Technology Literacy Challenge Fund, a federalprogram, to allow 26 schools to pilot-test a new sys-tem of professional development.

The program’s goal is to train all teachers in aschool to integrate technology into the curriculum.Each of the 26 schools received $200,000 last year forequipment and to hire a full-time technology “coach,”a former teacher who helps other teachers planlessons that incorporate technology.

To reward schools that have raised academic achieve-

ment as a result of effectively integrating technologyinto the curriculum, the state awards bonuses of be-tween $50,000 to $100,000 for approved spending thatwill advance technology and learning in the schools.

State officials had expected schools to spend theirbonus money on technology gadgets such as scannersand digital cameras, and they have been surprised athow many schools have asked to use the money to hirestaff members, says Jerry Bates, the director of appliedschool technology for the state education department.

“What we’re finding is that most schools want tohave a coach for another year, because they thinkhaving a coach has made such a significant contribu-tion,” Bates says.

The state has also taken some small steps to ad-vance online learning. One program, begun in fall2000, provides online Advanced Placement courses to72 students living in low-income areas where they oth-erwise would not have access to such classes. Moneyfor the program comes from a federal grant, sharedwith Georgia and South Carolina and administered bythe Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta.

Recent state budget cuts, though, have hamperedefforts to move school business online.

The state is attempting to do routine businesswith districts online as much as possible, says LisaA. Cothron, the executive director of technology forthe state education department. Now, about half ofall reports required by the state, such as enrollmentand test data, are sent by districts to the state viathe Internet. —JOETTA L. SACK

Texas

State Education Agency Web Site:www.tea.state.tx.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Anita Givens(512) [email protected]






With a solid infrastructure and a continued commit-ment to technology in place, Texas is considering waysto expand and improve electronic learning in the state.

One topic under study is virtual schooling. By order ofthe legislature, state officials are exploring whether andhow virtual schools in Texas should receive state money.

“We fund schools based on average daily attendance,and if students are not physically in attendance, how doyou fund them? It’s raised some interesting questions,”says Anita Givens, the senior director for educationaltechnology for the Texas Education Agency.

To gather answers, the state is looking at how vir-tual schools work in other states, such as Florida andKentucky. Texas officials hope to complete their studythis summer and report to the legislature in December.

At the same time, the state is reviewing the qual-ity of online courses now available in Texas—both inprecollegiate and higher education. State officialshave drafted standards to use in evaluating and com-paring the quality of the courses.

“We’re looking at course content to make sure italigns with state [academic] standards,” Givens says.“We’re also looking at how student progress is

gauged and at what the teachers’ qualifications are.”The state is in the process of developing a databaseof online courses that meet the standards.

Texas is also exploring online assessments andmaking plans to pilot an online test in mathematics.The test will be part of a statewide math initiative, aprogram aimed at boosting math skills in grades 5-8.Givens says Texas hopes to give that test a tryout inthe 2002-03 school year.

Other initiatives include ones to enhance teacherexpertise in technology. As of the 2002-03 school year,for instance, all beginning teachers, to gain state cer-

tification, will have to pass a state test that includesa technology assessment.

And in the 2004-05 school year, the state plans to offereducators who meet special standards and pass a test intechnology the chance to become master technologyteachers. Such expert educators would work with otherteachers to integrate technology into the curriculum.

Funding for technology programs in Texas has re-mained constant for a decade. Since 1992, under a pro-gram known as the Technology Allotment, the legisla-ture has allocated $30 per student per year—or $240million annually statewide—for districts to spend onschool technology. Districts can spend the money onhardware, content, and teacher training. —JO ANNA NATALE

Utah

State Education Agency Web Site:www.usoe.k12.ut.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Vicky Dahn(801) [email protected]






Richard M. Siddoway could not figure out whyEnglish classes were such a popular offering from




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the Electronic High School, Utah’s main e-learningprogram.

Many students sign up for electronic courses for sub-jects that aren’t offered in their school classrooms, “butevery high school in Utah offers English,” says Sid-doway, the principal of the electronic school. He even-tually realized that some students prefer an electroniccourse as a makeup when they fail the regular version.

Such students are among the 3,200 enrolled in at

least one course this year at the Electronic HighSchool, which is run by the Utah Office of Education.With the school’s catalogue of at least 14 academiccourses and some 25 others in development, Sid-doway expects the enrollment figure to triple withintwo years. World civilization and earth systems areamong the most popular offerings, he says.

While the electronic high school used to get alongon grants, the state now budgets $400,000 for theprogram, much of which goes to pay for the accred-ited teachers who lead its courses. Enrollment is freeto all Utah students, and they get course credits onthe transcripts of their regular high schools. Privateschool and home school students can also log on tothe Internet-based program.

Utah first established distance-learning courses inthe 1970s, using microwave transmissions, saysVicky Dahn, the director of curriculum and technol-ogy in the state education office. That program,called EDNET, has also used T1 telephone lines andsatellites to deliver courses, but it now relies primar-ily on the state’s fiber-optic network.

“But there are still some areas of this state whereyou just can’t reach with any land lines,” she says.

EDNET’s offerings are more in keeping with tradi-tional distance learning, with students going to spe-cial technology rooms in their schools for two-wayvideo communication with a teacher. The programalso offers college and adult education courses.

—MARK WALSH

Vermont

State Education Agency Web Site:www.state.vt.us/educ/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Bill Romond(802) [email protected]






Many Vermont students are now taking classesusing a videoconferencing computer network pro-vided by the state’s largest telephone company.

Verizon offered to help build the Vermont Interac-tive Learning Network while applying for a new util-ity-regulation plan from the state’s Public ServiceBoard, which accepted the offer in 2000. Now, educa-tors are busy linking high schools with T1 lines for

high-speed audio and video transmissions.The Vermont Institute of Science, Math, and Tech-

nology—a nonprofit foundation—and the state de-partment of education administer the network.

Verizon is providing the infrastructure for the 55 highschools in its service area.The state’s remaining six highschools will be connected with equipment donated by thethree other telephone companies in the state.

The classes allow instructors to teach students in re-mote locations using high-speed videoconferencing tech-nology. The arrangements typically are used to offerspecialty courses to rural schools that don’t haveenough students to justify dedicating teachers to suchcourses, says Bill Romond, the state’s educational tech-nology coordinator.

Valued at $5.8 million, Verizon’s donation pays forhardware, software, free use of T1 lines, salaries fortechnical-support workers, and resources for curriculumdevelopment. The donation expires in 2005.

Currently, the Vermont legislature does not pay foreducational technology initiatives. Federal and local aidand private contributions underwrite such programs.

State education administrators, meanwhile, are inthe final stages of drafting technology standards forlocal educators. A set of technology standards is beingreviewed by the Vermont Standards Board of Profes-sional Educators and should be adopted by the stateboard of education this year, Romond says.

—PATRICK FLANIGAN

Virginia

State Education Agency Web Site:www.pen.k12.va.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Lan Neugent(804) [email protected]






Virginia is moving forward with a new online testingprogram that would measure student progress on thestate’s academic standards, but officials say a tight bud-get has delayed the program’s planned start by at leasta year.

Lan Neugent, the state education department’s as-




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ELEMENTARY & MIDDLE SCHOOLPRINCIPALS & TEACHERS

Angela Williams711 West 40th St., Suite 301

Baltimore, Md. 21211

The Baltimore Curriculum Project (BCP) is looking for elementary andmiddle school principals and teachers who choose to teach disadvan-taged urban children and who work to succeed with every child. Balti-more Curriculum Project provides proven instructional tools and train-ing in the use of those tools. Baltimore offers the fun of its InnerHarbor, and is within easy reach of both the Chesapeake Bay and theAppalachian Mountains. Send résumé and list of references to:

sistant superintendent for technology, says onlinetesting won’t begin in Virginia until the 2004-05school year. “But I view [the delay] as beneficial, be-cause it gives us more resources and time to workwith vendors on the system,” he says.

Other forays into virtual learning are alreadyunder way. For instance, the Commonwealth Gover-

nor’s School in Spotsylvania—a state-financed re-gional high school that opened in 1998 and serves 325gifted and talented students from three counties—uses two-way, interactive audio and video technologyto enhance student learning. Students from nine highschools spend half their days using the technology toget advanced instruction in mathematics, science, so-cial studies, and English.

Meanwhile, the legislature, meeting in March, ap-propriated $116 million for school technology in thenext biennium—slightly more than the $113 millionpegged for technology in the 2000-2002 budget.

Both sums are dedicated to advancing the state’sStandards of Learning Technology Initiative, passedin 1999.

That initiative intends to accomplish three goals:to ensure that all Virginia high schools have Inter-net-ready local area networks; high-speed, high-bandwidth capabilities for instructional, remedial,and testing needs; and a student-to-computer ratio of5-to-1.

To move districts in that direction, the statebegan giving every school district $50,000 plus anadditional $26,000 per school to spend on technol-ogy, starting in the 2000-2002 biennium. The moneycomes with stipulations: Districts have to match 20 percent of the state money with local funds, dedi-cate 25 percent of the local money to teacher train-ing, and ensure that high schools meet the state’sgoals first.

So far, Neugent says, 57 of Virginia’s 132 school dis-tricts have completed the first stage of the state’s certi-fication process toward those goals. Once the highschools achieve the goals, districts are expected to focuson middle and elementary schools. —JO ANNA NATALE

Washington

State Education Agency Web Site:www.k12.wa.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Marty Daybell(360) [email protected]






E-learning is an expanding part of schooling inWashington state, where several districts have pre-pared their own arrays of online courses. About one-fourth of the secondary schools in the state have stu-dents who are enrolled in online courses, according toa survey done in November 2001.

So far, the state government has supported thattrend by creating a telecommunications infrastructureand by providing technical support. Washington,though, has not followed other states, which have takenit upon themselves to supply online courses to schools.

The legislature has set a clear mandate—directingstate school officials to set academic standards, butnot to get into the business of writing curricula, saysDavid S. McDonald, the interactive-video supervisorfor the state education department.

That policy may soon change, says McDonald, whois a member of a committee that is revising thestate’s technology plan for education.

The legislature told the education department inspring 2001 to coordinate a process to help evaluateonline curricula and provide such curricula to schooldistricts. The lawmakers also appropriated $250,000for the 2002 fiscal year for Internet-curriculumgrants to schools, which pay for students to take In-ternet-based courses for college credit.

The state plans to expand its K-20 EducationalTelecommunications Network so it can carry greaterquantities of data, so districts can make more use ofonline Advanced Placement courses and teachertraining provided over the Internet by colleges anduniversities.

The K-20 network transfers data and video amongall the state’s educational institutions: school dis-tricts, community colleges, and universities. “A lot of[states] have separate university networks thatnever talk to K-12,” McDonald notes.

In another state project being piloted this year,teachers in 10 districts are using the network to ac-cess online curriculum tools aligned to the state’sacademic standards.

Districts, though, are responsible for extending the

network from a central point to their schools andclassrooms, a task that is challenging for low-wealthdistricts. Some districts have tapped the federal E-rate program to extend connections to their schoolsand classrooms, according to McDonald.

“E-rate has helped a lot,” he says. —ANDREW TROTTER

West Virginia

State Education Agency Web Site:wvde.state.wv.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Brenda Williams(304) [email protected]






Rather than offer a host of new courses throughWest Virginia’s Virtual High School, the coordinatorsof the cyber school prefer to wait until they have re-quests from educators around the state for specificclasses, state education officials say.

That approach allows the state department of educa-tion to monitor carefully the virtual school’s develop-ment and keep the budget as conservative as possible,says Donna J. Miller, the coordinator for the virtualschool, which is an arm of the education department.

As a way to help make available to studentscourses that their home schools lack because of suchproblems as teacher shortages, the state created the

virtual school in July 2000.Students must be enrolled in a West Virginia pub-

lic school to take the courses.This year, 468 students enrolled in the Web-based

math, social studies, and foreign-language coursesavailable; additional students enrolled in satellite-and video-delivered courses. The students who takeclasses through the virtual school are from 31 coun-ties and 52 schools. And 58 students have taken the




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school’s online Advanced Placement courses thisschool year, Miller says.

The West Virginia Department of Education typi-cally pays 75 percent of the approximately $600-per-course-credit cost, while local districts pick up 25percent. In some cases, when a school shows it can-not afford the cost, the state agency will pay 100 per-cent. Each school district must provide a coordinatorto be available to help students enrolled in virtualschool courses.

The state has budgeted $250,000 annually for the virtual school’s operating costs, with an addi-tional $90,000 each year paying for the school-basedcoordinators.

State education officials use standards written by theSouthern Regional Education Board, based in Atlanta,to review online courses and curriculum providers.

In addition to e-learning, West Virginia schools aremaking headway in other areas involving technology.State officials report that all of West Virginia’s schoolsand 89 percent of its classrooms have Internet access.Now the goal is to help teachers and students learn howto use the technology in their lessons, the officials say.

The education department also plans to put dataabout schools, such as school performance audits, on-line for parents to see. —LISA FINE

Wisconsin

State Education Agency Web Site:www.dpi.state.wi.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Neah Lohr(608) [email protected]






Wisconsin’s technology efforts rely heavily on anagency that is independent of the state education de-partment to wire schools, train teachers, and distrib-

ute block grants. But despite support from school dis-trict officials, the effectiveness of the 4-year-old Tech-nology for Educational Achievement Board is nowbeing questioned.

The state’s Legislative Audit Bureau has raisedquestions about how the agency, known as TEACH—whose executive director is appointed by the gover-nor—spends its money. For instance, althoughroughly $3.2 million in TEACH funds paid for 161full-motion video links in fiscal 2000, comprehensivedata were unavailable on courses offered as a resultof that investment. Federal and state money sup-ports TEACH initiatives.

By the end of fiscal 2002, TEACH will have distrib-uted $167 million in technology-related block grantsto the state’s 426 school districts. Partly as a result,the state reports that the ratio of students per mul-timedia computer dropped from 8.3-to-1 in 1999 to3.7-to-1 in 2001.

School districts, state agencies, hospitals, fire de-partments, prisons, and other institutions make upthe state’s 55 or so distance education networks. Thenetworks started in small, rural areas for conve-nience, but have moved into larger cities as virtualfield trips and other teaching applications havecaught on.

More than 60 percent of the districts—and atleast 282 classrooms—have distance education mon-itors, most of them in high schools, says StephenSanders, an instructional technology consultant forthe Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

Milwaukee’s public school system has had themost success with two-way videoconferencing; it’savailable in 45 of the city’s schools, compared withjust two schools in 1993. District officials say theyhope that number grows to 94 of Milwaukee’s 150schools by 2004.

The technology platform being used to build a statewide video network is no longer manufac-tured, however, and the vendor is offering supportonly through 2005. A task force is investigatingother options.

State officials offer guidance to the handful of dis-tricts experimenting with online courses. But individ-ual districts determine whether such courses are wor-thy of a credit.

No licensing requirements for online teachinghave been proposed yet. The state recommends, how-ever, that schools that allow students to take onlinecourses have teachers on site who have expertise inthe subjects being covered by the online teachers.

—ROBIN FLANIGAN

Wyoming

State Education Agency Web Site:www.k12.wy.us/

State Education Agency Technology Contact:Linda Carter(307) [email protected]






Wyoming’s many small and rural schools typicallyhave turned skyward, using satellite dishes, to ex-

pand their curricula with distance-learning courses.In the past two years, however, a statewide videocon-ferencing and data network has become the deliverysystem of choice.

Completed in 1999, the Wyoming Equality Net-work connects all high schools and higher educa-tion institutions in the Equality State with a DS-1 connection, which easily handles two-way video signals and gives speedier access to the Web.Elementary and middle schools are also on the net-work, but most of them are using slower 56k connections.

The state’s plan to install speedier connections forelementary and middle schools was undercut by theWyoming legislature, which dropped the necessaryfunds from its appropriation for the next biennium,which begins in July. As it is, the flat funding pro-vided by the $11.2 million budget for educationaltechnology will simply maintain the network and anonline professional-development program, saysLinda Carter, the director of instructional technologyfor the state.

Wyoming has made more progress arranging forcontent to distribute over the network. The state has contracted with the Ostendorf Center for Distance Learning, based in Littleton, Colo., toschedule video courses and “learning events” overthe network and to create the online professional-development program.

Other states have avoided video-based courses—in which one teacher leads students simultane-ously in multiple classrooms equipped with videocameras—because they require additional equip-ment and are tricky to schedule. But a video-basedcourse suits many students better than an onlinecourse, says Ken Griffith, a school principal whochairs the state’s videoconferencing governancecommittee.

Still, the state will provide more online courses inthe coming school year and may also establish a “brokering system” to aid schools in buyingcourses from commercial providers, Carter says. Thestate has hired EdGate Inc., based in Gig Harbor,Wash., to maintain a Web site that provides teach-ers with lesson plans, online courses, and other resources.

In the current school year, more than 600 teachersand 100 administrators have gone through 20 days of state-financed training in using technologyto develop standards-based classrooms. Teachers inthe voluntary program, representing 47 of the state’s48 districts, will receive follow-up training in theirclassrooms, Carter says. —ANDREW TROTTER




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DEFINITIONS

• Statewide or State refers to a representative sample ofschools throughout the state.

• High-poverty schools refers to schools where more than halfthe students are eligible for the federal free- and reduced-pricelunch program.

• High-minority-enrollment schools refers to schools wheremore than half of students belong to minority groups.

• Eligible refers to students who are eligible for the federal freeand reduced-price lunch program.

• Not eligible refers to students who are not eligible for thefederal free and reduced-price lunch program.

ACCESS

Students per instructional computer: Market Data Retrieval,“Technology in Education 2001,” and unpublished tabulations fromMDR’S 2000-01 Public School Technology Survey. This figureincludes all computers that are available for student instruction.

Students per instructional computer located inclassrooms, computer labs, libraries/media centers: MDR.

Percent of instructional computers that are 386 or less, orApple II’s; 486 or Macs non-Power; 586, Pentium II,Pentium III or Power Macs: MDR.

Students per instructional multimedia computer: MDR. Amultimedia computer has a sound card and a CD-ROM drive,components that enable it to make use of sophisticatededucational software. This figure includes only multimediacomputers that are available for student instruction.

Percent of 4th graders in schools where computers areavailable all the time in classrooms: U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2000National and State Mathematics Summary Data Tables forGrade 4 School Data. School level officials were asked, “Arecomputers available to students in your classes in any of thefollowing ways? Available all the time in classrooms?”

Percent of 8th graders in schools where computers areavailable all the time in classrooms: U.S. Department ofEducation, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2000National and State Mathematics Summary Data Tables forGrade 8 School Data. School level officials were asked, “Arecomputers available to students in your classes in any of thefollowing ways? Available all the time in classrooms?”

Percent of 4th graders who have computers available in aseparate computer lab: U.S. Department of Education,National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2000 Nationaland State Mathematics Summary Data Tables for Grade 4 SchoolData. School level officials were asked, “Are computers available tostudents in your classes in any of the following ways? Grouped ina separate computer laboratory available to classes?”

Percent of 8th graders who have computers available in aseparate computer lab: U.S. Department of Education,National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP 2000 Nationaland State Mathematics Summary Data Tables for Grade 8 SchoolData.

Students per Internet-connected computer: Market DataRetrieval, “Technology in Education 2001,” and unpublishedtabulations from MDR’s 2000-01 Public School TechnologySurvey. Internet-connected computer refers to any computer thatcan access the Internet, including non-instructional computers.

Percent of schools with Internet access: MDR.

Percent of schools with Internet access from one or moreclassrooms: MDR.

Percent of classrooms with Internet access (amongschools with at least one classroom connected to theInternet): MDR.

Percent of schools that connect to the Internet through aT1, T3, digital satellite, or cable modem (among schoolswith Internet access): MDR.

Percent of 4th graders who do not have computersavailable at home: U.S. Department of Education, NationalCenter for Education Statistics, NAEP 2000 National and StateMathematics Summary Data Tables for Grade 4 Student Data.Students were asked, “How often do you use a computer at homefor schoolwork?” The percents reported are for those studentsresponding “No computer at home.”

Percent of 8th graders who do not have computersavailable at home: U.S. Department of Education, NationalCenter for Education Statistics, NAEP 2000 National and StateMathematics Summary Data Tables for Grade 8 Student Data.Students were asked, “How often do you use a computer at homefor schoolwork?” The percents reported are for those studentsresponding “No computer at home.”

CAPACITY

State regularly conducts data collection on technology inschools: Education Week survey of state departments ofeducation, 2002. States receiving a check in this columnperiodically collect data from districts and/or schools ontechnology-related issues that may include: student-to-computerratio, Internet connectivity, use of technology by both studentsand teachers, technology professional development, etc.

Requirements for initial teacher licensure includetechnology training/coursework or demonstration oftechnology competence: Education Week survey of statedepartments of education, 2002. States receiving a check in thefirst column either require approved programs of teacherpreparation to include technology, or have technology courserequirements for initial licensure. States receiving a check inthe second column either test teachers on technology skills orrequire demonstration of skills in other ways.

State requires technology training for teacherrecertification: Education Week survey of state departments ofeducation, 2002.

State offers professional or financial incentives forteachers or administrators to use technology: EducationWeek survey of state departments of education, 2002.

Percent of schools where at least half of the teachers are“beginners” when it comes to using technology: MarketData Retrieval, “Technology in Education 2001,” andunpublished tabulations from MDR’s 2000-01 Public SchoolTechnology Survey. Respondents were asked, “What percent ofyour teachers are at the following four technology-use skilllevels? Beginner = learning basics, Intermediate = uses varietyof applications, Advanced = uses in curriculum,Innovator/Instructor = leader/instructs others.”

USE

State standards for students include technology:Education Week survey of state departments of education, 2002.States receiving a check in this column have either specific stateacademic standards for technology or integrate technologyexpectations into their state standards for students’ core subjectareas.

State tests students on technology standards: EducationWeek survey of state departments of education, 2002. Statesreceiving a check in this column either use a test for studentsspecifically related to state technology standards, or havetechnology integrated into the state assessment based on thosestandards.

Percent of 4th graders who use a school computer formathematics at least once or twice a week: U.S. Departmentof Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP2000 National and State Mathematics Summary Data Tables forGrade 4 Student Data. Students were asked, “When you domathematics in school, how often do you use a computer?”

Percent of 8th graders who use a school computer for

mathematics at least once or twice a week: U.S. Departmentof Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP2000 National and State Mathematics Summary Data Tables forGrade 8 Student Data. Students were asked, “When you domathematics in school, how often do you use a computer?”

Percent of schools where at least half the teachers use acomputer daily for planning or teaching: Market DataRetrieval, “Technology in Education 2001,” and unpublishedtabulations from MDR’s 2000-01 Public School TechnologySurvey. Respondents were asked, “What percent of yourteachers use a computer on a daily basis for instructionalplanning and/or teaching?”

Percent of 4th graders whose teachers report that theprimary use of computers for math instruction is drilland practice, playing math games, simulations/applications, or do not use computers: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP2000 National and State Mathematics Summary Data Tables for Grade 4 Teacher Data. Teachers were asked, “If you do usecomputers, what is the primary use of these computers formathematics instruction?”

Percent of 8th graders whose teachers report that theprimary use of computers for math instruction is drilland practice, playing math games, simulations/applications, or that they do not use computers: U.S.Department of Education, National Center for EducationStatistics, NAEP 2000 National and State MathematicsSummary Data Tables for Grade 8 Teacher Data.

Percent of schools where at least half the teachers usethe Internet for instruction: Market Data Retrieval,“Technology in Education 2001,” and unpublished tabulationsfrom MDR’s 2000-01 Public School Technology Survey.Respondents were asked, “What percent of your teachers use theInternet for instructional purposes?”

Percent of schools where at least half the teachers haveschool-based e-mail addresses: MDR. Respondents wereasked, “What percent of your teachers have school-based e-mailaddresses?”

Percent of 4th graders who use a home computer forschoolwork at least once or twice a week: U.S. Departmentof Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP2000 National and State Mathematics Summary Data Tables forGrade 4 Student Data. Students were asked, “How often do youuse a computer at home for schoolwork?”

Percent of 8th graders who use a home computer forschoolwork at least once or twice a week: U.S. Departmentof Education, National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP2000 National and State Mathematics Summary Data Tables forGrade 8 Student Data.

Percent of 4th graders who use the Internet at home: U.S.Department of Education, National Center for EducationStatistics, NAEP 2000 National and State MathematicsSummary Data Tables for Grade 4 Student Data. Students wereasked, “Do you use the Internet at home?”

Percent of 8th graders who use the Internet at home: U.S.Department of Education, National Center for EducationStatistics, NAEP 2000 National and State MathematicsSummary Data Tables for Grade 8 Student Data.

HOW MARKET DATA RETRIEVAL’S SURVEY WAS CONDUCTED:

From October 2000 to March 2001, all 89,300 public schools inthe United States received the MDR 2000-01 Technology Surveyby mail, phone, or the Internet. Approximately 35,400 schoolscompleted the survey, yielding a 40 percent response rate. Amajority (93 percent) of the schools responded to the phonesurvey. It should be noted that questions relating to teachers’technology-use skill levels, teachers’ use of computers, averagehours of technology training, teachers with school-based e-mailaddresses, and technology spending were asked of a randomlyselected subset of 6,000 schools and received a median responserate of 77 percent. This level of coverage is more than adequateto produce statistically sound results.

Sources and Notes for State Data Tables

Advanced AcademicsPh: (866) 2eLEARN, (235-3276);www.AdvancedAcademics.com . . . . . . 29

America Onlinewww.aolschool.com;AOL keyword: at school. . . . . . . . . . . . 35

American Productivity and Quality CenterPh: (800) 776-9676;www.apqc.org/education;email: [email protected] . . . . . . . 77

Apex LearningPh: (800) 453-1454;www.apexlearning.com . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Apple ComputerPh: (877) 873-1550;www.apple.com/powerschool . . . . . 14-15

Barrett Kendall PublishingPh: (800) 677-3796;www.bkenglish.com;www.barrettkendall.com . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Bridges.comPh: (800) 281-1168;www.bridges.com/edweek . . . . . . . . . 89

Classroom ConnectPh: (800) 638-1639;www.classroom.com . . . Inside Front Cover

Classwell Learning GroupPh: (866) 351-1953;www.classwell.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

The College Boardwww.apcentral.collegeboard.com . . . . . 52

Compu-TeachPh: (800) 448-3224, ext. 4;www.compu-teach.com/feedback . . . . 55

Corporation for Public Broadcastingcpb.org/ed/5sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

CTB/McGraw-HillPh: (800) 538-9547;www.ctb.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

EdsmartPh: (877) 538-0408; www.edsmartinc.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Electronic EducationPh: (888) 977-7900; www.electroniceducation.com . . . . . . . 17

E-Rate ConsultingPh: (888) 249-1661; www.erateconsulting.com . . . . . . . . . . 81

Fort Hayes University/Virtual CollegePh: (888) 687-1727;www.virtualed.net;email: [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Harcourt Educational MeasurementPh: (800) 211-8378;www.HEMWEB.com. . . . Inside Back Cover

Holt, Rinehart and Winstonwww.hrw.com/ad5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Indiana Wesleyan UniversityPh: (800) 895-0036; www.iwuonline.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Lesley UniversityPh: (877) 4LESLEY;www.lesley.edu;email: [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

LightspanPh: (888) 4 ALL KIDS;www.lightspan.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Mansfield UniversityPh: (800) 577-6826;http://library.mnsfld.edu/;email: [email protected]. . . . . . . . . 72

National Beta ClubPh: (800) 845-8281;www.betaclub.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

National School Boards AssociationPh: (800) 950-6722,Fax: (703) 548-5560;www.nsba.org/itte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

National Study of School EvaluationPh: (877) 815-DATA, (877-815-3282);www.nsse.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

NCS LearnPh: (888) NCSLEARN;www.NCSLEARN.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

NCS Pearsonhttp://etest.ncspearson.com . . . . . . . 71

The New York Times Electronic Editionwww.nytimes.com/see . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Nova Southeastern UniversityPh: (866) 432-1992; www.nova.edu/ngeonline;www.fgse.nova.edu/edweek/ngte . . . . 77

Peak GroupPh: (408) 927-5879;www.peakgroup.net;email: [email protected] . . . . . . . . 73

Penn State UniversityPh: (800) PSU-TODAY, (778-8632);www.worldcampus.psu.edu/offer/etwtc . . 45

Performance Learning SystemsPh: (800) 255-8412; www.plsweb.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Perry Public SchoolsPh: (440) 259-3881; www.Perritech.net;e-mail: [email protected] . . 75

Phonic EarPh: (800) 227-0735, press 5;

(800) 263-8700, in canada;www.phonicear.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

PLATOPh: (800) 44-PLATO;www.PLATO.com . . . . . . . . . . Back Cover

RISOPh: (800) 876-RISO, ext. 7224;www.riso.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Riverside PublishingPh: (800) 323-9540;www.assess2.com;www.riversidepublishing.com . . . . . . . . 33

SafeSchool SolutionsPh: (877) 494-0787;www.safeschoolsolutions.com/elearning;www.safeschoolsolutions.com . . . . . . . 29

Scholastic READ 180Ph: (877) 234-READ, mention code EW05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Scholastic RedPh: (866) 888-5392;email: [email protected] . . . . . . 40

SchoolNetPh: (212) 626-7600;www.schoolnet.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Skylight Professional DevelopmentPh: (800) 348-4474, ext. 612;www.skylightedu.com/consult/3 . . . . . 30

SurfControlwww.surfcontrol.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Teachers College/Columbia UniversityPh: (212) 678-3710, (Admissions);

(888) 633-6933, (DLP & IMP);(800) 209-1245, (Virtual University);

www.tc.columbia.edu/majorchoices . . . 34

TestOutPh: (800) 877-4889;www.testout.com/eduweek . . . . . . . . . 25

University of Nebraska-LincolnPh: (402) 472-4422;dcs.unl.edu/ishs/tech . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Virtual High SchoolPh: (978) 897-1900; www.goVHS.org . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

YamahaPh: (800) 253-8490; www.musicineducation.com . . . . . . . . . 85

I N D E X T O A D V E R T I S E R S

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