Last week, Wisconsin’s State Superintendent unveiled a Vision for Digital Learning in Wisconsin. (Thanks to Jennifer Bevis at Blandin Foundation for the heads up!) It’s an excellent idea, especially given the explanation the Superintendent provided in a press release on the report…

“We gathered good people to formulate these recommendations and action items in order to support innovation in schools and districts,” said State Superintendent Tony Evers. “Schools shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to figuring out how best to use technology. This plan will serve as a roadmap of best practices and maximum impacts.”

Last month, I wrote an article on flipped classrooms in Stillwater and potential issues with assuming all students have adequate access to broadband and technology to participate in a flipped curriculum. (Quick reminder, a flipped classroom instructs students to learn, often via video at home and practice skills in the classroom.) The article spurred a discussion (online, but via Facebook so semi-private) where someone thought access to broadband was probably not an issue in Stillwater. Maybe not – but it is an issue in other areas. I think lifting the discussion to a statewide level rather than community level as Wisconsin has done, helps minimize education gaps. My hope is that it sets a standard that helps raise education goals – but it also requires the schools to consider inequities in broadband access – and helps build the case for ubiquitous coverage.

But to get back to Wisconsin and delve into the specifics, the press release highlighted recommendations…

• Providing students the opportunity to take online and blended courses before graduating from high school
• Exploring methods that allow teachers to maximize their efforts, such as the “flipped classroom”—where the tradition of transferring knowledge via lecture is replaced with a digital homework assignment such as a podcast; meanwhile, students do homework in the classroom, where teachers can engage in improved coaching and assessment
• Invigorating collaborative efforts with businesses and industries
• Allowing students to use their own devices for learning
• Ensuring sufficient and affordable broadband access for schools and students, and equitable access for every household with students
• Developing a statewide, online environment for Wisconsin educators to share and explore quality teaching resources and methods, to avoid redundant curriculum development tasks and to share best practices

The vision is a website it is divided into the following areas:

1. Pedagogy & Instruction – nice shift to teachers as facilitators
2. Curriculum & Assessment – nice focus on collaboration
3. Professional Learning & Leadership
4. Data & Information Systems – nice balance of assessing students and systems, which should mean more strive to improve
5. Policies & Procedures – good connection to workplace
6. Hardware & Infrastructure

I have to pull out just one comment from the Hardware and Infrastructure section because it hits on an issue that I think is important…

The FCC’s “Household Broadband Guide” recommends households with four computers have between 6-15 Mbps, even if just one of those computers is used for an application such as streaming video, video conferencing, or online gaming. “Broadband” is defined as having a minimum of 4 Mbps connection to the Internet.

Finally the site includes a list of action items. I suspect or hope that progress towards achieving those items will be tracked as time goes on. (Given that the vision is less than a week old, it makes sense that nothing is crossed out yet.) The format of the report is easy to follow. It seems as if they had the right people in the room to create a vision that addresses the needs of teachers, administrators, students, families and future employers; it also presents technology as a solution to those needs – not another issue to be addressed.

The vision is built somewhat upon the same structure as the National Broadband Plan – where the required steps will be filled in as the path is followed. Due to many fewer moving pieces, this is a lot easier to grasp than the National Broadband Plan. It would be a nice model for the Minnesota Broadband Task Force’s vision/outline too.