In a message dated 4/3/06 12:42:13 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Bonnie -- I'm confused as to your reference to the "Rising Above the > Gathering Storm" report. The NY Times article was certainly a > disappointment - it was clear they haven't done their research. > But I've not seen anything in the "Rising Above" report that implied > that we had a playing field -- in fact that report points out how far > behind we are in danger of falling. > > Thanks for clearing this up. > In the paragraph mentioning the gathering storm I was talking about Katrina. My reference to the Rising Above the Gathering Storm,would have been to point out the parts of the report that show the new technologies that we have that all do not have or know how to teach with. I have been to an NSF meeting on Broadening the Base in Science, Math,Engineering and Technology, and they pointed out that there are less than one percent Native Americans in SMET, 2 percent black, and three percent of Latinos engaged in SMET. There is in that Rising Above the Gathering Storm, the report, the warning that we are falling further and further behind and they give indicators. We are 17th in the world in the use of information technologies. We used to have a fall back , because we could attract the best and brightest from many countries who would come here and enter the workforce. Nothing wrong with that, but the digital divide in SMET is horrendous. The expert on this work is Dr. Richard Tapia at Rice University. We have neglected sorely minorities who have participated in American Schooling, and practically excluded them from the learning of meaningful science and math. ( I have the PISA report to share) There are whole countries that are on broadband, and there are projects that surpass many of our projects. We may still hold a base on innovation, but I have to point out that many of our computer scientists and analysts are people who came as immigrants, or student to study here and who stayed. 9/11 had certain curtailed that a bit. Countries are beginning to develop their own resources and create their own content and projects. I have participated in some of this work with the country of Greece. I was priviledged to work abroad on many initiatives. The higher end of technology , as NCSA defines it , is being developed globally in Parallel Computing. I guess I have to stop writing in the morning when I am upset. The gathering storm I was talking about was the real Katrina, the hurricane. Having worked with NASA as a teacher, I heard predictions long ago that there might be difficulty in New Orleans. I was referring to the weather, the storm, and the lack of coherent communications about what to do. I have students who live in that area, or former students who wrote about the mis-directions given to citizens. I have an intriguing video clip, but it is very sad. The gathering storm report is different This is the report , but it has a bigger title. If I was referring to it, I would give that title "Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future" The whole book is on line and can be downloaded in a pdf. It is free. http://darwin.nap.edu/cart/deliver.cgi?record_id=11463 Final Forthcoming/Prepubs Are Available This is a forthcoming title. Prices are subject to change without notice. Please contact customer service for updates regarding current pricing and projected date of release. You may purchase the prepublication version of this book for immediate shipment or preorder the final book to ship to you when it is published. Before I finalized my work with the government, I was involved in a group that created three reports that outlined all of this information. But most of the references to this work are gone and the policy group seems to have disappeared. Probably from a lack of funding. I have the hard copies and the information is very much the same. There was probably a lack of interest, funding, and support from the current government until this report. I call attention to this part of the executive summary. http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309100399/html/3.html Everyone should read pages 3, and 4. This is a time when teachers are not valued, when science is being chucked out the window because of the schedules of testing for NCLB and when hands on science and meaningful trips and project based learning are being ignored for memorization. Furthermore, the way we teach math has not changed. Thank you for helping me clarify. There was another report that was done by NCATE -1997 that was the philosophy on which PT3, Preparing Teachers for the 21st Century, but it has been taken down and is not even available on Wayback. We all know that PT3 , Preparing Teachers for the Use of Technology was cut to the bone and then some. So it is crazy in a way to see that this is one of the recommendations. Perhaps the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. Here is a reference to it. I would be grateful if anyone can give a whole copy of the report. Teachers may be forgiven if they cling to old models of teaching that have served them well in the past. All of their formal instruction and role models were driven by traditional teaching practices. Breaking away from traditional approaches to instruction means taking risks and venturing into the unknown. But this is precisely what is needed at the present time." - National Council For Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) Task Force on Technology and Teacher Education, Technology and the New Professional Teacher: Preparing for the 21st Century Classroom (1997) Tomorrow's teachers will enter classrooms that look and feel much different than the classrooms their education professors may have taught in 30 years ago. Today, 98 percent of schools and 77 percent of classrooms are connected to the Internet. Bonnie Bracey Sutton bbracey at aol com Bonnie Bracey Sutton Speaker's Bureau, GLEF.org http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/bbracey CyberEd Resources : ICT's and Education (owner) Games and Education (owner) Science without Frontiers STEM Initiatives K-12 (owner) http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/bbracey Portal Work http://edreform.net/ applications.edreform.net Technology Applications for Learning The Technology Applications for Learning Network is a catalog of technology applications for learning. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
