sent me a great article on California’s plan to have the school text books go digital. What a great move! As the article points out – it would save the students some backaches.
One issue of course is the homes without computer – but it seems to me that this is a perfect use of the Kindle. Maybe there’s an opportunity to marry those super sturdy $100 laptops available in Third World Countries with the Kindle.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed this week that going digital could save schools hundreds of millions of dollars a year. I don’t know that the cost savings would be immediate – but I suspect that’s true in the long run.
I think another thing to consider is how kids learn and what they should prepare for in the future. In 10 years are we going to be reading books or Kindles? (I actually heard a public radio show on that topic and they determined that in two years we’d still have books and e-books.) I know in my work life I read a lot more online than off.
Right now the stimulus funding requires grants to go out this summer for projects that stimulate broadband deployment, (the economy and jobs). There’s also a mandate to have the FCC work on a national broadband plan – but that won’t be done for a while. So that’s a little like sending my husband to the grocery store before I have a menu for diner, which I have done with varying degrees of success.
A National Broadband Strategy should begin with America’s colleges and universities, community colleges, K-12 schools, public libraries, hospitals, clinics, and the state, regional and national research and education networks that connect them and extend to reach government agencies, agricultural extension sites, and community centers across the nation.
Their reasons are compelling. I think that academia has brought good things to technology in the past – and vice versa. I just wish that someone else had made the plea – it seems less authentic somehow coming from academia itself.
Blandin Foundation gets some interesting inquiries through the Blandin on Broadband blog and through our Toolkit web sites. A recent submission gave us reasons to celebrate and to ponder.
A family in rural Chisago County told us that they have not been able to get broadband services due to their rural location. DSL was not available at their remote location according to Frontier Communication’s customer service center. A similar situation exists for a significant numbers of Minnesota households as documented by the Center for Rural Policy, Connect Minnesota and as observed by my regular rural Minnesota travels.
Broadband is especially important to this particular family. One household member is seeking additional education and employment. Another is recovering from serious injuries suffered in an accident. Education, employment and health care-the trifecta of broadband killer applications!
When we received this email, I took a look at my telephone exchange map, confirming that Frontier was the provider. I also took a look at the Genesis Wireless coverage maps as they provide fixed wireless services in east central Minnesota, but they do not provide service in the area. Then I sent an email and made a call to JoAnne Johnson at Frontier. JoAnne is a friend, former colleague at Onvoy and briefly at Community Technology Advisors, and a member of the MN Ultra High Speed Internet Task Force.
JoAnne made some calls, Frontier’s staff did some investigation, and some new technologies were deployed to extend DSL the extra distance to our emailer’s home. At Blandin, we got some great satisfaction from helping this one family. Frontier got a new customer. And our emailer and family have enhanced Internet access. If we checked back in six months or a year, we might find a household that has been able to address some or all of its critical issues through the use of broadband.
While our little intervention was successful, this is no way to ensure broadband access to all Minnesotans. Blandin Broadband Principles call for ubiquitous, affordable broadband that enable our citizens to do what needs to be done over the Internet. We will continue our work to promote this concept across the state as the state broadband task force considers policies and federal and state officials invest broadband stimulus monies.
Make your own and your community voices heard directly to elected and appointed officials and through the MN Broadband Coalition! Now is the time.
I’m posting this on behalf of the Windom folks. They received funding from Blandin and here are some of the things they are seen and done with that funding…
Blog notes for Blandin Grant by Wayne Wormstadt, superintendent
Benefits of the grant are directly seen through the funding for the equipment to enhance our video classes at Windom.
Other benefits are the opportunities for the students with the video equipment to showcase school district and learn practical skills and influence career choices.
Helps with publicity and public access are future benefits for all involved.
The Homework helper has been a concern as the ongoing cost to support this project to connect students with teachers at home. The ongoing cost of equipment and pay for stipends makes this a very unlikely program in which to sustain after the grant is complete.
A change of course from Homework helper would be to take the funds and provide Smartboards and Webcam in our 6th grade classrooms along with the fiber connection. This would then allow our 6th graders to communicate with students in Mountain Lake and Jackson County School Districts. They currently communicate via paper and pencil through out the year and get together for projects and joint field trips. The collaboration would increase and also allow live interaction. This is important as we are part of an integration collaborative to have our students interactive with other minorities. As Mountain Lake has a significant Hmong and Hispanic population this allows our students to experience ethnic diversity. The live interaction will only increase and enhance the number of opportunities. This will be much more cost effective and sustainable beyond the grant as equipment costs will be minimized and also stipends will not be necessary within this project.
Concern on the video end is the lack of training opportunity and the time allowed to teach a complicated program. Student mastery is difficult with limited time. Resources for the school become tight with new Biennium budget projections coming out. How do we make this program more responsive to the needs of the students including mastery and maintain financial viability of the program in economic strain? An elective with 9 students using expensive equipment vs. a class of 20-25 students with little overhead costs could force us in the future to possible make this a reduction in 2-4 years depending on state funding.
The Blandin Foundation is supporting four standout broadband programs through the Light Speed program. The program’s purpose is to stimulate the deployment of bandwidth intensive applications that connect local institutions to area resident’s home. This post comes from a Light Speed community leader.
A University of Minnesota professor is teaching class at the school — while traveling by bicycle through 10 African countries. …As he travels, he’ll study the food, agriculture and agro-ecosystems of each African country. He’ll share his observations with his class through a satellite radio, e-mails and the Internet.
I think it’s a great example of how broadband and Internet technology has changed our lives dramatically. Some of us can travel because of our jobs – like this teacher. And some of us can travel despite our jobs – like my year in Ireland last year. For some of us technology helps us live wherever we want – so long as there is broadband available.
So for communities who want to attract a wider range of citizen broadband in essential and for folks looking for a working break broadband is essential too.
Thanks to Dustin Artwohl at Video Guidance for sending me info and a video from Southland Public Schools in Adams in SE Minnesota. They talk about how they use broadband to better serve the students and save money.
Here’s the intro to the video from Ryan C. Luft, the Principal of Southland Middle/High School:
This past Monday, Southland and Leroy-Ostrander students and administration had the opportunity to show the State of Minnesota what is happening down here in education. We have been working with Riverland Community College in Austin, MN to deliver college level courses over our ITV system for our students. It has been a huge success! There was a meeting in Dover-Eyota where 7 local Minnesota Legislators, as well as many Southeastern Superintendents, met to discuss the bandwidth issues in this part of the state. We were asked to showcase what we are doing here at Southland and will be developing a model that hopefully will go region/statewide in a couple of years.
The students are now able to take classes from Riverland Community College while staying on campus, which means the money for classes-per-student stays on campus. Also the students are able to save money themselves and avoid the hassle of going back and forth between campuses.
The school talks about how they want to take the next step – meeting the Governor’s challenge to move classes online – but lack of broadband is standing in their way. They only have a T1 and that’s not enough.
They want to share instructors and kids to help make the most of their shrinking budgets.
Students from the class talk about their experience too. You can see where paying for gas to take classes off campus is a big issue for them. Plus it’s more fun to be on campus.
Sitting in the Task Force meeting on a couple of weeks ago it struck me how quickly people were ready to say and believe that Minnesota is not underserved when it comes to broadband. I suspect that people have “broadband” though 90+ percent of the state. But as someone on the Task Force said in an aside to me – aren’t they the Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force not the access task force?
Next month the Task Force is going to hear from K12 and other users. I hope they hear stories like this that demonstrate that adequate broadband is in the eye of the beholder. People are being hindered by slow speeds and we need to think about a policy that removes broadband as a bottleneck for innovation (for school, businesses, homes..).
Here are notes from the Broadband Roundtable meeting. Here’s the stated purpose of the meeting:
Roundtable participants will discuss the need for rural communities to have greater investment in and access to high speed broadband internet. Attendees will provide real world examples of the challenges rural communities face as well as success stories. Senator Klobuchar will discuss her priorities around “Information Infrastructure” and the Obama administrations emphasis on funding this effort.
Last month I mentioned the breakout session on Second Life in Schools at the Blandin broadband conference. One thing that struck me was that the teachers at the community colleges received no training in how to teach in Second Life. Maybe it works for some but I just don’t thank sink or swim approach works well for everyone.
So I was delighted today to read about how Goodhue Public Schools is handling technology in the classroom. They hired Carl Anderson, a technology integration specialist, to help teachers integrate technology into the classroom. He’s available for the teachers, he team teaches and he provides training on new tools.
What a good idea!
Ten or more years ago, I provided training to teachers on how to use the Internet. The training was free but they weren’t paid to attend. I thought that was unfair. Also while I feel like the teachers learned a lot – our computer lab was not necessarily the same setup as they would have at home or school. We weren’t on hand when they needed support mid-semester. Goodhure has a much better approach.
Having the equipment and the broadband in place is only half the battle. Teaching people how to use technology makes it accessible. Our tiny example at home – my husband (a teacher) got a cell phone for Christmas. This isn’t his first – but this time it comes with lessons from our 10 year old about how to set up and retrieve voicemail, how to text and how to set an alarm. So I have high hopes for a spouse I can reach by phone soon.
We had 3 options for the first breakout session. I have included links to presentations when I had them:
Feasibility Applications
Melissa Reeder, IT Director, City of Northfield
Myron White, Executive Director, Red Wing Port Authority
Government Applications
Merton Auger, City Administrator, City of Buffalo,
Gary Shelton, County Administrator, Scott County
Education Applications
Joe Shultheis, E-Learning Services Coordinator, Century College
Warren Schaeffer, St. Paul College
Video demonstration of Second Life.
I went to this session. This is the second tour I have had of Second Life. I am going to look more into it. What I found interesting was the statistics on how many people participate in virtual worlds. My kids are big Club Penguin fans; and I think that’s where they are starting to catch people. I think they started using CP in first grade. Second Life looks like the most grown up version of the online worlds. The biggest demographic there apparently is single women over 35.
The presenters talked about virtual worlds in higher education. I asked if teachers were trained to teach in a virtual world. They answer was an emphatic no – why would they be? My husband’s a teacher at a community college. He has no idea what Second Life is – so I found that answer surprising. I suspect that either certain teachers gravitate to the option of suing virtual tools and/or most spend a lot of their free time learning it.
Posted by Ann Treacy 
Posted by Ann Treacy 
Posted by Bill Coleman 
Here are notes from the 
