One of the top themes of the National Rural Education Technology Summit yesterday was definitely the virtualization of education.  Convened by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, government leaders such as FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra, and Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan spoke to more than 100 rural educators attending the Summit.  Discussion ranged from obstacles of teachers to the opportunities of broadband, with several institutional speakers sharing success stories in between, two of which are highlighted below:

PBS -

Rob Lippincott, Senior Vice President of Education at PBS, delivered a speech noting the increasing resources his organization is investing in Internet tools.  “Teachers value digital media,” he proclaimed with the statistic that 76% of teachers use digital media regularly.  He finds that teachers are increasingly using media as a learning accelerator and that kids learn better with interactive engagement.

Florida Virtual School –

Julie Young, President & CEO of the Florida Virtual School, an accredited, public, online e-learning school serving students in grades K-12 all over the world.  Young serves millions of students, targeting rural, urban, and home-schooled students in particular.  Young countered the myth that virtual education is isolating, noting that the experience is very high touch for both students and teachers.  Watch my interview with Young below and click here for a recent guest posting from Young on NextGenWeb.

The event closed with words from Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra about the abundance of support from the White House in embracing technology for better government efficiency and transparency, including for education.  You can watch Chopra’s speech below:

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Virtual network HASTAC and the MacArthur Foundation have launched their 3^rd annual Digital Media & Learning Competition.  $2 million in awards will go to innovators progressing the field of digital media and learning, an area that was predicted to boom at CES.  Prizes range from $200,000 to $5,000, but of course everybody wins.  The deadline for the preliminary application is January 22^nd, so get ready, set… INNOVATE.

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The FCC’s Director of Education, Steve Midgely, was the first guest of honor at yesterday’s Broadband Breakfast.  Midgely began by sharing the details of how education falls into the FCC agenda, explaining that it is one of the major national purposes, side by side with public safety, health, and energy.   And like other aspects of the national broadband plan, Midgely is considering stakeholder data from academics, nonprofits, corporations, and any other relevant research.

Midgely expressed a strong focus on broadband adoption.  “Non-adopters are at an educational disadvantage,” he stated pointing out that 78% of students regularly use the Internet for classroom assignments and 80% of parents say that the Internet helps their children with schoolwork.  He also believes that in addition to benefiting educators and students, increasing technology use would be a good driver for innovation transparency in education.  Some of the technology uses he highlighted include:

• Online learning
• Distance learning
• Digital resource repositories (i.e. online textbooks)
• Electronic education records
• Content sharing and peer production

A panel of experts followed, all echoing the importance of broadband adoption both at home and in schools.  Greg Barlow, Chief Information Officer of Anne Arundel County said that he would like to have a 1:1 computer to student ratio.  Frank Gallagher of Cable in the Classroom stated that 40% of high schools don’t offer AP courses, urging for online learning to fill that gap to keep students competitive in our global economy. Matthew Ohlson, Instructional Leader at Florida Virtual School has the following education goal: “Reach any student, any place, any pace.”

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On Thursday, November 19, National Journal Group hosted a policy breakfast on higher education. Click below to watch archived footage from NGW’s live stream of the event.

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Connected Nation’s Tennessee program recently donated 20 brand new Dell computers to the Saint John Baptist Church After-School Program in Haywood County, a program that is serving as a hub of connectivity to a community with limited access to broadband technology. Currently, the program has 31 kids signed up to participate, but hopes to eventually be able to open its’ doors to at least 200 – 300 children. The program also plans to ultimately welcome the entire community to come and use the computers at designated hours throughout the week. A great story in connectivity and broadband empowerment.

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A panel of experts convened before the FCC yesterday to talk national broadband strategy and online safety.  The clear consensus: While there are roles for government and industry, the best solutions are rooted in consumer education.

Adam Thierer, Director, Center for Digital Media Freedom and Senior Fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, offered promising news.  In his research, he has found no correlation between online safety concerns and broadband adoption.  Thierer cited household media rules, parental controls and outstanding benefits of broadband as reasons for this positive outcome.

Facebook’s Director of Public Policy, Timothy Sparapani, urged the FCC to maintain perspective, since many stories of online safety violations are sensationalized.  “Every day people share 1 billion pieces of themselves without incident on Facebook.”   Therefore, Sparapani believes resources should focus on the most vulnerable populations.

For purposes of the broadband plan, panelists urged a focus on media literacy that reflects changing expectations of privacy among different generations.  Schools, educators and parents must help guide this mission by helping people find the best that the Internet has to offer.  Industry should continue to provide technical and other solutions in today’s rapidly changing environment.  Finally, the government must continue public awareness campaigns like OnGuard Online.   Through this concerted and collaborative effort, we can have a safe and thriving Internet.

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Is the world of online learning on par with classroom instruction? “Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning,” a report prepared by SRI International for the Department of Education, reveals just how effective broadband-powered education is proving to be.

Evaluating 99 studies that quantitatively compare online and classroom performance, SRI International found that, on average, students who did some or all of a course online ranked higher than those who did their schoolwork exclusively in the classroom. In particular though, blended instruction – combining online and face-to-face elements proved to be a stronger education method than pure classroom learning.

The effectiveness of online learning is in no small part due to the ever-evolving dynamism of broadband. After all, distance learning has come a long way from staid correspondence courses. With the arrival of online video and individualized online curriculums, online teaching has the potential to be more tailored and effective. And given young students’ interest in the Internet and attraction to multi-media, websites like Brightstorm and TeacherTube are not only appealing, they even manage to make learning cool.

Given the rapid rise of technology-based distance learning across the nation, it’s excellent news that online education can go the distance, enhancing knowledge no matter where you live via a simple broadband connection.

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Broadband’s ability to improve education is the topic of the day at tomorrow’s FCC broadband workshop. Broadband has seemingly unlimited potential to advance how we learn. Think of smaller school districts that struggle to provide a full slate of Advanced Placements courses. Broadband can bridge that divide. Remember the days of covering your textbooks with old grocery bags? What if instead we had educational materials that could be continuously updated and are accessible digitally (not to mention the cost savings and environmental benefits). And, the ability to get a degree online—affordably and on your own time—can change lives, particularly for the many Americans who are making career transitions amid today’s challenging economy.

NGW is committed to bringing you a steady stream of insights and inspirational stories on the future of education in a broadband world. We’ve talked with Susan Patrick of iNACOL, the national association serving the growing numbers of K-12 students learning online, and Ron Packard, CEO of K12, Inc., a leading online curriculum provider, and others who want to harness the full potential of broadband to both enhance education and help more Americans reap the benefits of life-long learning.

From using the appeal of online gaming to help students master their lessons to addressing over-crowding through the rising trend of virtual public schools, broadband can play a game-changing role in advancing U.S. education. We commend the FCC for shining a spotlight on this important issue, and we look forward to the conversations at this workshop. Of course, if you have a question, don’t raise your hand and wait to be called on — participate in the FCC webinar here.

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Beth Still is a Social Studies teacher at an alternative high school in western Nebraska. In addition to teaching f2f classes, she also develops online courses using Moodle. She is one of just a handful of teachers in her region that has an online presence. She maintains a professional blog and is ever-present on Twitter . She is on a personal mission to get as many of her colleagues as networked as possible, so they can understand and enjoy the benefits of a classroom without walls.

NextGenWeb interviewed Still to get her perspectives on the recent National Educational Computing Conference that took place in Washington DC, June 28- July1, 2009.

What were some of your personal highlights of NECC?
My NECC experience began on Saturday with Edubloggercon. This is a one-day event where bloggers from around the world get together to discuss issues facing education. Many of the best minds in education attend this event. Getting to learn from them and with them in such a setting with relatively few participants was definitely a highlight.

I have developed an amazing network of colleagues on Twitter since I started building my network last year at NECC in San Antonio. This was the first chance that I got to meet them in person. The most special meeting had to be meeting Richard Byrne for the first time. Back in April I launched a project called Send a Newbie to NECC in which I utilized the power of my PLN to raise funds to send Richard to NECC. It was personally rewarding to meet someone that I had a large impact on.

What are some of the new online educational tools that attendees seemed most excited about?
This is a tough question to answer. The word “new” means different things to different groups. A large number of NECC attendees were not familiar with many (if any) Web 2.0 tools so everything is new to them. Blogs and wikis are brand new to many people. There did not seem to be specific tool that people were talking about this year, although Diigo , Glogster , and VoiceThread were discussed frequently. This may have been because the founders of each company spent time in the Bloggers’ Cafe and were more than happy to discuss their product. All three of these companies have education versions that are available for free or at a very low cost to teachers.

Are there other upcoming trends that you see forming in technology-based education?
There are more and more schools offering online classes. Students who have not taken an online class in high school are woefully unprepared when they get to college. Schools have taken note of this, and they are beginning to offer a variety of virtual courses in addition to the regular classes. For example, my employer, ESU#13 , started a virtual school last school year. We are able to offer classes to students who need to repeat a course or who just need a wider variety of scheduling options. We strongly encourage students to interact with their instructors using Skype and Elluminate so that we can connect with them just as we would in a traditional classroom setting.

How do you see students using the Internet differently when they have access to higher speeds?
As high-speed Internet connections become more common students will be able to create more content faster and truly become prosumers [people who both produce and consume content] of the web. Unfortunately, there is not a push in schools for students to become content creators. There are small pockets of educators who are pushing this idea, but the vast majority of districts still block so much useful content. The average district in the United States blocks all images, videos, social networking sites and games. There are laws in place that govern what must be blocked, but many districts take it to the extreme and hide behind their team of lawyers and claim that things are being block to “protect the students.” Once students have access to these sites, they will be able to remix and create new and exciting content.

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The future of the classroom as we know it was the topic of discussion today at an ITIF event held to release a new study “How Information Technology Can Enable 21st Century Schools.” The study details how technology can remake the American classroom, raising performance while potentially cutting costs.

Just as technology has transformed American industry and increased productivity, with broadband networks and all of the information and resources they deliver to us, we have the capability to transform education. Connected education can be individualized to meet a student’s learning style, maximize areas of expertise and strengthen areas where a student may be struggling. The information, resources and interactive tools available for students to access online provide the core information, so teachers can focus their time on fostering creativity and critical thinking skills.

Curtis Johnson with Education Evolving spoke about the power of technology at the event and told the audience that, by 2017, the majority of high school students will learn online. We all remember struggling through a subject, trying to keep up as the class moved onto the next level. Imagine a classroom where you could have had more time to really understand that algebra lesson while your classmates move on to geometry. Meanwhile, you may be acing your chemistry exam, while another classmate takes some extra needed time to master biology.

NGW is committed to exploring how technology and online learning can open doors to new educational opportunities through distance learning, access to diverse subject matters, innovative teach tools and more. Today’s discussion showed how we can use technology to help customize learning to maximize the potential of every student. Remember learning about Ford and the Model T? The story of the early days of connected education just might be a lesson future generations of students learn about in history class.

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