Perspective

Jump-starting a Revolution in Learning

By Robert Tinker

We are on the verge of an educational revolution, one enabled by computers and networking. The revolution, however, may stall before it starts due to the lack of innovation. Effective educational technologies require careful development and long-term support and funding; it is not clear where these funds will come from.

Current research is showing how technology-rich materials could revolutionize education. The mechanisms are in place to disseminate such materials. Yet there is insufficient funding to create the materials in the first place. Applied research and materials development is desperately needed if we are to fully realize the educational potential of technology. Innovative, technology-rich materials could trigger sweeping improvements in teaching and learning in all grades and subject areas.

Education is a national security issue because education is fun-damental to the economy and to the quality of life. Compared to the cost of traditional aspects of national security - the military, intelligence agencies, and the new homeland defense initiative - the funds required are trivial.

To generate technologies that could improve K-14 education broadly, an investment is needed at the level of $100M per year over five to eight years. While this is a huge sum, it is far less than the total funding from federal and private sources for educational technology, currently between $1 billion and $2 billion per year.

Funding is needed to support roughly 50 innovative projects at $2 million per year. Each project would address national needs in a particular subject and grade range from elementary through beginning college. The funding would cover software development, the creation of activities that could be disseminated widely online, initial research, materials evaluation and revisions, and related teacher professional development strategies.

Again and again, scientists, business leaders, government panels, and educators have called for this level of funding. For example:

Scientists. The Federation of American Scientists recently released a report that quantifies the low level of support for these materials internationally. This report states:

"Given that the private sector is principally interested in identifying relatively immediate, profit-making ventures, government investment in education research is extremely important, necessary and justified if educational systems are to maximize the use of technology."

Business leaders. Last year, the CEO Forum published a report urging policy-makers to expand support for educational technology investments. Their recommendation for research and development is:

"The federal government should increase its investment in dedicated education technology research and development to at least $100 million. This is similar to the education technology proposal made by President Bush during the fall campaign. Research and development should be used to determine the most effective technology methods to improve student achievement, and support the development of assessment tools that measure 21st century skills."

Government. In 1997, a report by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) warned that the promise of educational technology would "remain unfulfilled in the absence of a significant increase in the level of funding."

Educators. Last year Harvard's Prof. Chris Dede provided detailed testimony on the appropriate role of government in technology-enhanced education. He said that "ten percent of federal and states' total investments in learning technologies should be directed to educational research and dissemination, with emphases on sophisticated curriculum development."

Because the required effort would need to be funded with public funds, the software and materials should be made available to schools free or at a nominal cost. The Linux/Gnu open source effort provides a precedent for the collaborative creation and dissemination of free software that is both complex and reliable. The open source community has created Linux, the best, most stable operating system, and also a broad range of general applications.

Why not harness that same spirit of cooperation for the field of education? In the Winter '02 issue of @concord, I detailed our launch of the Open Source Library for Educational Tools (OSLET). This is an online library of free software, seeded with several powerful applications we have developed here at the Concord Consortium. We expect OSLET to grow as we add more tools to the library. We are hoping that others in the research community will contribute as well.

The projects we envision would have much greater impact by developing interchangeable software and using the same platform for network-based learning activities and online materials. The platform could use templates to incorporate good instructional design that would enforce across projects the inclusion in all modules of clear objectives, links to standards, scaffolding, and a balanced approach to student assessment. The Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE), developed by Professor Marcia Linn at UC Berkeley, is an example of the kind of platform that could become a standard.

Using a template-based platform like WISE would allow schools, developers, and publishers to modify the activities and modules, adapting them to different educational environments. Teacher professional development should be designed around the module modification process so that teachers learn the content and pedagogy while tailoring the materials to their students' needs and interests. The resulting new versions could be shared online.

The US currently has an unbalanced national strategy for educational reform. We are focused heavily on dissemination while providing inadequate resources to create innovative materials to be disseminated. The cure is to continue supporting dissemination, while significantly increasing our commitment to supplying new, technology-rich materials - materials that are proven effective through research and that offer the potential for vastly improving education.

The result could be explosive. In a few years, a broad range of research-based, classroom-tested materials that make good use of technology could be available online free or at low cost. The existing dissemination channels could prepare teachers and schools to use these materials effectively. We would soon see significant, measurable gains in student learning. The advances would be impressive in mathematics and science, where current research has demonstrated such gains in small studies. Comparable research in other disciplines is lacking, but similar gains are likely. All that is missing is a relatively modest investment from government and private funders to fill in a gap in the current educational reform strategy.

This is an investment that will have an impact on all students at all grade levels. It will revolutionize education. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity.

Robert Tinker (bob@concord.org) is President of the Concord Consortium

ARTICLE LINKS & NOTES

Federation of American Scientists - International Review of R & D Priorities and Funding, January 2002 report http://www.fas.org/learn/intl_rev/index.html

CEO Forum - Education Technology Must Be Included in Comprehensive Education Legislation, March 2001 Policy Paper http://www.ceoforum.org/reports.cfm?CID=4&RID=5

President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) - Panel on Educational Technology, Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States, March 1997 http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/k-12ed.html

Chris Dede - testimony http://www.house.gov/science/research/may10/dede.htm

Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE) - http://wise.berkeley.edu

Open Source Library for Educational Tools (OSLET) - article by Robert Tinker, @concord, Winter 2002 http://www.concord.org/newsletter/2002winter/oslet.html

OSLET - http://oslet.concord.org

The projects described in this newsletter are supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the Noyce Foundation and others. All opinions, findings, and recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. Mention of trade names, commercial products or organizations does not imply endorsement.

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