Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ: What is Brain Science,
and what are some good references in this area?
The field of study called "Brain Science" or "Brain
Theory" has received a lot of attention in recent years. The
field has made significant progress in the past five years
(perhaps as much as in all previous years combined).
Researchers and other writers in this field seem divided as
to whether the field is well enough developed so that it
can, at the current time, be contributing significantly to
the design of curriculum, instruction, and assessment. There
appears to be a growing trend to saying the answer is
"yes."
The references given below tend to support the "yes"
answer. However, they also suggest that this is a vibrant
and developing field, and that we can expect substantial
progress in the years ahead. IT plays a major role both in
the research and in the educational products that are based
on the research. readers looking for an introduction to the
field are well advised to read the two monthly columns
referenced under Scientific Learning Corporation.
Additional information and references are available in
the Cognitive Science
section of this OTEC Website.
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FAQ: With respect to IT in
education, what are lower-order and higher-order skills? How
do these relate to the idea of "integrating" IT throughout
the curriculum?
Here are a few examples that help to answer the first
question.
- It takes only a few minutes for a student (even a
very young student) to develop minimal lower-order
skills in using a word processor as an electronic
typewriter. Here is a list of some of the higher-order
areas of knowledge and skills that such a beginner
lacks. A modern word processor contains hundreds of
aids to writing and editing. For example, it may
contain aids to help create headers, footers, page
numbering, tables, styles, index, and table of
contents. It may contain an outliner, provisions for
arranging a list in alphabetical or numerical order,
and provisions for inclusion of graphics. And, of
course, it contains a spelling checker and may contain
a grammar checker. Finally, it interfaces with
graphics software and perhaps with other major
software tools such as a spreadsheet and a
database.
- Lower-order skill in desktop publication consists
of printing out what one has created using a word
processor. It does not incorporate what is known about
enhancing effective communication through use of
knowledge and skills in desktop publication. Desktop
publishing is the design and layout of a document for
effective communication. Increasing expertise is shown
by knowing and following the rules about effective use
of white space, layout, typefaces, graphics, and color
to improve communication.
- It takes only a few minutes for a student to learn
the rudiments (lower-order knowledge and skills)( in
use of email. Some higher-order skills include:
Responding appropriately to a whole list or to an
individual sender when receiving a message from a
distribution list; Organizing and saving messages in
file folders; printing messages; Sending and receiving
attachments; Building and maintaining an address book;
and Building and maintaining a distribution list.
- Quite young students can learn to make rudimentary
use (lower-order knowledge and skills) of the Web. The
World Wide Web can be used to find information, to
carry out business transactions, and as an aid to
distance learning. Increasing expertise is evidenced
by the ability to efficiently locate, evaluate, use,
and learn from multiple, high quality sources of
information on a topic. It is evidenced by having
research skills that are used to determine good
information and good websites. It is evidenced by
making effective use of the "advanced search" features
found in search engines. It is evidenced by knowing
the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of
- Young children can learn to make simple linear
multimedia slideshows. A multimedia (hypermedia)
document can be nonlinear and include text, sound,
graphics, animation, video, and color. Increasing
expertise is evidenced by the ability of design and
implement more complex and more effective multimedia
documents. Multimedia is a very complex communication
environment.
The examples just given are designed to illustrate that
for each computer tool, there is a huge range of possible
knowledge and skill, from a beginning novice to a world
class expert. And, of course, the same can be said for being
able to apply the tool to represent and solve problems and
to address complex and challenging problems in diverse
areas. Higher-order knowledge and skills refer both to
knowledge and skills specifically oriented toward an IT
tool, and also oriented toward effective use of the tool
throughout the full range of one's (non-IT) knowledge and
skills.
This leads into a brief answer to the second
question.
IT is now an integral component of the content and
application of every academic discipline. For example,
scientists and engineers routinely use computers and other
IT facilities as part of their everyday work. Similar
statements hold to a greater or lesser extent for most
people who have jobs based on using knowledge and skills
gained in their formal education. Roughly speaking, business
and industry in the United States employs as many
microcomputers as people. That is, the computer to employee
ratio is 1 to 1.
Integration of IT into education means the routine use of
IT in curriculum content, instructional and learning
processes, and evaluation. An analogy with pencil, paper,
and books might prove helpful. Our educational system
thoroughly integrates pencil, paper, and books into the
curriculum content, instructional and learning process, and
assessment. (In assessment, however, we place great emphasis
on memorization and quick recall. Open book tests are not
the norm.) We have a long long way to go in such thorough
integration of IT into education.
Click
here for an excellent discussion of integration of IT into
Geographic Education.
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FAQ: Why is there a need for
a special emphasis on IT in education?
Our formal educational system began at the time of the
invention of reading, writing, and arithmetic about 5,000
years ago. Writing and mathematics are two human-developed
"languages" (as contrasted with spoken language, or
"natural" language). Writing and mathematics are aids to
thinking, problem solving, and communication. They are aids
to the human brain; they can be thought of as mind
tools.
In more recent times, the computer and telecommunications
field we call information technology (IT) has been developed
by humans. IT is another example of a mind tool. It is an
aid to thinking, problem solving, and communication (just
like writing and mathematics). Moreover, it builds up and
increases the power of writing and mathematics.
Our educational system is relatively slow to change. IT,
on the other hand, changes very rapidly. During the past 50
years we have seen improvements by more than a factor of a
million in computer speed, telecommunications bandwidth, and
computer storage capacity. We have seen huge advances in the
availability of computer software that can aid is
representing and solving complex problems.
The reason for a special focus on IT in education is that
the speed of change of IT has created a huge gap between
capabilities of IT and what most students are learning about
use of these capabilities. Moreover, the continued rapid
pace of change in IT is actually increasing the gap! Our
children are not getting a "quality education" when it comes
to IT.
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FAQ: Does Distance
Learning work?
There is a lot of Distance Learning going on in Oregon,
and the amount is increasing at a substantial rate. At a
statewide level, Senate Bill 622 is providing $25 million a
year for 1999-2001 to support the development of high
quality 2-way video systems for Distance Learning.
The term "Distance Learning" can refer to everything from
a Correspondence Course making use of surface mail, to real
time Interactive Video. Two particularly important Distance
Learning modalities lie between the two esteems of
Correspondence Course and Interactive Video:
- Synchronous and asynchronous use of the Internet
(perhaps some combination of E-mail and the Web) for
Distance Learning.
- Various forms of Computer-Assisted Learning (CAL)
that are embedded in computer applications (for example,
the Help features for many applications) and/or exist as
stand-alone CAL software (for example, a CD-ROM based
unit of instruction, or an Edutainment piece of
interactive software).
First, one should note that there is no fine dividing
line between the two bulleted items. Second, all computer
users are getting used to Help features being both
interactive and instructional. Such Distance Learning
provides "Just in Time" instruction and is of growing
important in our overall formal and informal educational
system
Over the past century, there has been considerable
research on the effectiveness of Distance Learning. Roughly
speaking, DL provides an opportunity to learn; the
effectiveness of this opportunity varies widely with the
learner. Thus, research on the effectiveness of DL has
produced varying results. It works well for some people; it
provides learning opportunities that might not otherwise be
available; in some cases, such as in interactive Help built
into software, it fills a need that cannot readily be met by
more "conventional" types of instruction.
The first reference given below covers well over 300
studies of DL. The name of the Website suggests the findings
from this list of studies -- No Significant Difference. The
second reference given below contains studies in which
significant differences were found.
It is evident that DL will be of steadily increasing
importance in our formal and informal educational systems.
We currently expect all students to learn to learn in the DL
environment we call "Learning by reading." In the future, we
will expect all students to learn to learn in interactive
IT-based DL modes.
The "No Significant Difference Phenomenon"
[Online].
Accessed 12/23/00: http://nova.teleeducation.nb.ca/nosignificantdifference/
.
Significant Difference [Online]. Accessed
12/23/00:
http://nova.teleeducation.nb.ca/significantdifference/.
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FAQ: How can parents
tell if their children are learning to make appropriate use
of IT?
Most people who ask this question are looking for a
simple answer, and they do not realize the complexity of the
question. To see this, substitute other topics such as art,
language arts, math, music, science, social sciences,
physical education, and so on in place of IT. It takes a lot
of knowledge with a particular area to judge whether your
children are getting an appropriate education within this
area.
Notice that one of the main menu items on the Home Page
of this Website is Parents
& Their Children. That section of this Website is
specifically designed to help answer the question.
One way to answer this question is to look at state and
national standards for IT in education. The International
Society for Technology in Education (which is headquartered
in Eugene, Oregon) has developed National Educational
Technology Standards for Students (NETS for Students. The
NETS for Students specify what students should be able to do
by the end of the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grades. A
reference for NETS for Students is given below.
ISTE National Educational
Technology Standards (NETS) [Online]. Accessed
11/28/00: http://cnets.iste.org/index.html.
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FAQ: Are some of
Oregon's Charter Schools placing a special emphasis on
integrating information technology throughout the
curriculum?
Oregon Public Charter Schools [Online] contains
Description of Oregon's 12 public Charter Schools in
operation during the 2000-01 school year. On a nationwide
level, there is some tendency for Charter Schools to make
quite a bit of use of information technology. For example,
the Internet can be viewed as a window on the world, and the
Web can be viewed as a Global Library. Each is a resource
that can be quite useful to a Charter School. IT is
specifically mentioned in only one of the descriptions of
Oregon's 12 public Charter Schools. On a national level,
Charter Schools tend to be relatively small. Oregon's 12
public Charter Schools are small relative to the national
averages for Charter Schools.
Oregon Public Charter Schools [Online]. Accessed
12/20/00: http://www.ode.state.or.us/cifs/CharterSchools/.
Ten Common Questions About Public Charter Schools
[Online]. Accessed 12/20/00: http://www.oregoneducation.org/coalition/ten.htm.
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FAQ: What roles is IT
playing in home schooling in Oregon?
In the United States as a whole, perhaps 500,000 to 1
million students are being home schooled. (Some people
estimate higher. Solid data seems hard to come by. See, for
example, the brief news item quoted below. It uses a much
higher estimate.) This is approximately 1.0% to 2.0% of the
total school age population. Oregon is probably somewhat
above the national average in terms of the percentage of its
students who are being home schooled. The reference at the
end of this section provides a substantial amount of
information about home schooling in Oregon.
One of the challenges of home schoolers is having easy
access to a library of resource materials. The Web is
helping to solve that problem. Other uses of IT include
communication and access to instructional materials.
The following brief news item is relevant to home
schoolers. It suggests that home schoolers may be relatively
large market for IT-based instructional materials.
Former Education Secretary William Bennett is
founding an online private K-12 school that will offer
the kind of traditional schooling long espoused by
Bennett, including phonics, back-to-basics math and
civics lessons. The for-profit venture, dubbed K12, is
backed by a $10-million investment from Knowledge
Universe Learning Group, a subsidiary of Knowledge
Universe, which was founded in 1996 by Michael Milken,
his brother Lowell, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The
school, which hopes to attract 100,000 students by 2005,
expects to tap into the estimated 1.5-million
home-schooler market for its initial enrollment. "This is
a hugely ambitious project," says Bennett. "We're doing
the whole thing. Every lesson, every day, for 13 years."
Merrill Lynch estimates that the electronic learning
market for K-12 will grow from $1.3 billion in 1999 to
$6.9 billion in 2003. (Wall Street Journal 28 Dec 2000)
(NewsScan Daily, 28 December 2000)
Oregon Home Education Network [Online]. Accessed
12/28/00: http://www.teleport.com/~ohen/.
Quoting from the Website: "OHEN is an inclusive,
statewide, nonprofit organization dedicated to the
support of all of Oregon's home-schooling families. OHEN
provides home schoolers with information about local,
state, and national home-schooling activities and
resources, as well as opportunities to network with other
home schoolers. Celebrating the diversity within our
home-schooling community, OHEN welcomes any person
without regard to educational philosophy, religion,
creed, race, color, sex or ethnic or national origin."
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FAQ: What is Internet
2, and what are some of its educational implications?
Samuel Morse's telegraph, first put into service in 1843,
represents a major milestone in communication. Messages
could be sent over great distances in a relatively short
period of time. Initially, the telegraph was used mostly to
send short message ("I put the package on the train that
will arrive in two days."). Moreover, the telegraph system
lacked both reliability and broad coverage. It wasn't until
the early 1900s that it was possible to send a telegraph
message around the world. (It took about 10 minutes for a
short message to complete this long trip.)
The original Internet (now called Internet 1) was a
relatively low speed communications system. It was mainly
designed for the reliable transmission of text messages.
Messages were broken into packets . (A message might consist
of a number of packets, set over different routs.) Back in
the mid 1980s, many people were quite happy being able to do
email at 30 characters per second using a 300 baud modem.
Now, of course, many people find that a 56K baud modem is
inadequate to doing Web searches and dealing with large,
graphics intensive documents.
The need for a much faster Internet, and much faster
connectivity to the Internet, has been evident for many
years. Imagine, for example, a doctor carrying out a
delicate operation on a patient located a thousand d miles
away, with connectivity being vie two way video, two way
audio on the Internet. Of course, this connectivity needs to
be as near to "real time" as possible, and it needs to be of
very high quality. Internet 1 was not up to accomplishing
such a demanding task
The Federal Government and others have invested heavily
in developing Internet 2. Roughly speaking, it is designed
to provide a bandwidth of 1,000 times what people are able
to have when using Internet1. This is adequate to
telepresence, virtual reality, video conferencing, and other
real time applications involving people and machines working
together, perhaps separated by great distances.
Here are two FAQs from the Website referenced at the end
of this section. Note that the orientation is toward higher
education. However, already many precollege institutions are
tied in to Internet2 through their local universities that
have such connectivity.
- What do you consider to be "Internet2
Applications"?
A. These are applications that can make a
difference in how we engage in teaching, learning, and
research in higher education. Internet2 applications
require advanced networks. That is, these applications
will not run across commercial Internet connections.
Internet2 applications require enhanced networking
functionality -- such as high bandwidth, low latency
(delay), or multicast -- not available on our
commercial Internet connections.
Q. What disciplines do these applications focus
on?
A. Internet2 is about everything we do in higher
education. Therefore, we encourage and support
applications development in all disciplines from the
sciences through arts and humanities. Whether you're
in the classroom, the laboratory, the library, or the
dorm, you should be able to access Internet
applications that provide benefit.
Internet 2 [Online]. Accessed 12/21/00: http://apps.internet2.edu/.
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What do I do with old IT
equipment I need to get rid of?
The is an increasingly important question in Oregon, the
nation, and the world. In Oregon, consider contacting StRUT
(Students Recycling Used Technology).
Students Recycling Used Technology (StRUT)
[Online]. Accessed 1/21/01: http://www.open.k12.or.us/strutor/.
StRUT is a program incorporated into schools where as the
students take donated computers and computer components and
upgrade them for the use in schools. Students involved in
StRUT evaluate, repair and refurbish donated computers and
in turn donate those computers to local schools.
The Recycling/Transfer station in Salem also has an
intake station for computer equipment. The transfer station
is at the East end of Salem right off of Hwy. 22. It's
located right at the base of OCI Hill (the Correctional
Institution).
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