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A Framework for Implementing Computer Telecommunications in the Nation's Schools
by Griff Wigley
More and more companies and education agencies are creating online computer networks for education. Increasingly the cry for one, all-encompassing, national network is heard among telecommunicating educators at all levels as the frustration of accessing multiple networks builds. Yet no non-profit organization currently offers a comprehensive network, and many people are opposed to the idea of one
single education network run by a for-profit corporation. This paper argues for the development of a distributed educational network that can tie together both commercial services and those run by states, associations, post secondary institutions, regional education service agencies, school districts and even school buildings. A model of a healthy system (family, business, school) is used as both the philisophical framework for such a network as well as for guiding its development on a local and national basis. Recommendations for policymakers are included.
Healthy Systems
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One of the characteristics of a healthy system, i.e, one that "works" for most of the people who are members, is that it provides a sense of belongingness while allowing for individual autonomy. In other words, we like to be a part of a group which allows us to pursue our own independent agendas to varying degrees, much like a clarinet player in a jazz group.
In any system, problems can occur when members function at either extreme on this relationship scale:
| Normal |
| Rigidity | Belongingness Autonomy | Chaos |
A healthy family allows for age-appropriate independence for its children while providing the security and stability of age-appropriate rules and nurturing. Parental "smothering" or overcontrolling at one end of the spectrum are as problematic for
children as the chaos resulting from a lack of rules and nurturing at the other end.
Autonomy in Organizations
=========================
An organization such as a business or school district is generally more effective when its employees can carry out their tasks with varying degrees of autonomy and independence, while being keenly aware that their efforts are part of the overall mission of the organization. Overly rigid organizations tend to sap individual
initiative, while chaotic ones undermine the collective strength of team efforts.
Many large corporations, having centralized much of their business to save money, are now taking steps to decentralize selected operations in an attempt to improve innovation and productivity by giving employees more ownership and autonomy. The education reform/restructuring movement in the United States is pushing for
similar changes to address the overcontrolled, bureaucratic structure of schools. Educators and politicians are gradually beginning to understand that innovation and performance improvements can't happen to any significant extent until various policies and structures which empower teachers, students, and parents are in place.
Computers in a Rigid or Chaotic System
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The implementation of an innovation such as computer technology in any system will reflect its position on the scale. For example, a chaotic district might end up with five different types of computers, none of which can share software or communicate with each other. A rigid district might purchase a central mainframe serving proprietary software accessible only by its own brand of dumb terminals. The technology itself is relatively impotent to change the system, unless it is used in a therapeutic way by change agents who have the power to control how the technology is disseminated. But whatever the health of the district, the successful implementation of technology must both encourage the autonomy of innovative teachers within the stability of district-wide procedures for the common good. The
process and strategies employed may differ widely, but both needs must be thoughtfully addressed. Healthy schools would do well to follow the lead of business, where personal computers either double as terminals for a mainframe, or share files, email, and peripheral hardware on a LAN. This allows the best of both worlds: desktop-empowered individuals working in a networked and information-
accessible organization.
Telecommunications for Individual and Organizational Needs
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Computer telecommunications on a district, state or national level is best implemented with these same principles in mind. In many districts, individual teachers are discovering the power of telecommunications to enhance student learning and combat professional isolation. They like its ability to connect with
distant schools and colleagues. In other districts, administrators primarily use telecommunications for data sharing and its ability to enhance intra-district communications. But if the organizational needs of the district are given too much priority over the individual needs of the teachers, teacher resistance and/or disinterest may develop. And if the individual needs of the teachers are given too
much priority over the organizational needs of the district, expect administrative hurdles in the form of new restrictions and/or a lack of funding.
Likewise, state departments of education often create statewide computer networks for districts to send and receive administrative data with the state. Yet teachers and administrators often resist using the system for instructional and professional use once email and conferencing capabilities are added. They typically want more
capability to communicate with others outside the state, but the state may not feel any responsibility to provide this capability.
On the national level, several commercial vendors are developing and operating online networks dedicated to education. But the more services there are, the more educators must deal with the frustration of having to belong to several different networks, each with their own access procedure and software environment. While a single, comprehensive network might solve this problem, this type of
centralized system would be a swing to the other end of the scale. A better solution would be to promote the development of a distributed educational network.
Distributed Online Networks: Connected Autonomy
===============================================
A distributed educational network would mean that any organization of any size could create and operate its own host network, but would have the capacity to share selected data with other hosts of any size who agree to connect. This accommodates the need for autonomy by the local school, district or state. The individual organization has an incentive to make its local host "work" for its constituents as well as for its organizational needs. The local host retains primary
control, and therefore must be responsive to its users or suffer the consequences. Each local host can choose to provide varying degrees of information resources and "global belongingness" for its users by connecting with other hosts around the country and even the world. The local host can further increase its value to local constituents by contracting with those commercial networks willing to distribute
classroom projects and services. The commercial network attracts a wider audience through a local champion who is more closely attuned to the needs of local users and who can provide training and support at a level not otherwise feasible.
BITNET is a distributed network that exists at the higher education level, linking hundreds of colleges and universities around the nation and the world. Many other networks in turn link to BITNET. It's now feasible that this kind of network can gradually be "grown" at the K-12 level. Powerful microcomputers can now run the popular Unix operating system, whereas in the past, large mainframes were
required. The UUCP (Unix-to-Unix Copy) communications feature of Unix makes this kind of distributed networking technically easy to do.
Getting There on a District Level
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How can a school district implement policies and procedures which accommodate both ends of the belonging-autonomy scale? It may realistically take the form of a pendulum, swinging from one end to the other, in a chaotic path (an oxymoron clearly not destined to join George Carlin's list, including the infamous "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence.")
For example, a teacher might get approval to have a phone installed in a classroom. The district might want the next phone line installed in the building's library to equalize access. As more teachers request classroom phone lines, the district might install modems servers on the building LAN, a more cost effective means for sharing modems and phone lines. Teachers might request more accounts on several national networks. The district might insist that intra-district email be installed first, with connections to the state department's network to follow. Teachers might then press for access to the LAN from their homes, or even the ability to have students and parents access portions of the network from their homes. Once again, if the pendulum gets stuck at the organizational end, teacher resistance will likely develop. If it gets stuck at the individual end, administrative hurdles will likely appear.
Getting There on a National Level
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Policymakers at all levels can promote the long term development of a national distributed network through the same seemingly disorganized approach. In other words, there should be both experimentation with guidelines and policies while simultaneously offering incentives for adding further ingredients to the primordial soup. We must be willing to tolerate this necessary evolutionary chaos if there is to be a comprehensive structure more satisfying to everyone.
For example, individual teachers who are considered innovators and early adopters of innovations should be able to connect directly to national networks until state or local networks are in place to make this more cost effective. A school district host in Alaska might want to connect with another district host in Florida for their own defined project. A university hosting it's own network for reaching out to schools in its region connects with another university in a distant state doing the same. A state department may develop a hostthat in turn serves district and regional hosts for professional development, and then wish to expand the project to other states. A group of national associations may each decide to operate their own hosts but wish to provide distributed email among themselves to encourage cross-disciplinary sharing among their members.
Not only are the types of connections limitless but they are constantly changing. After a year or two, any these sample projects may terminate, as different needs and agendas emerge. Educators who operate any of these local hosts may tire of trying to provide the necessary content needed to keep a system alive and stimulating, choosing to supplement their systems with content from a commercial network. Or just as likely, once a local organization becomes experienced through using the services of a commercial network, theymay decide to operate their own host.
The following diagram illustrates what a distributed network might look at any moment in time:
(Imagine a graphic of a collection of computer network "nodes," some of which are connected to each other by lines... sort of a random matrix.)
Connection paths would be ever-changing. For example, a teacher maybe dissatisfied with only having a connection to a closed district or state host one year and choose to connect directly to a national host. The following year, the district or state host might themselves connect to a national host, thereby eliminating the teacher's need for his or her own connection to the national host. The key is flexibility. Everyone, both individual educators and various organizations, should be able to continually choose the degree of connectivity appropriate for them.
Offering Incentives While Developing Guidelines ===============================================
Federal agencies and national foundations should continue to fund telecommunication networks and projects at the local, regional, state and national levels. But any funding should require the recipients to use host software which has the built-in capability to connect with other networks in a distributed fashion, should the recipients choose to do so at some time. An increasing number of host software packages now offer both distributed email and conferencing capabilities, as communications "standards" begin to emerge. Funding agencies should help promote the development and acceptance of these standards by wielding their funding clout with this criteria in mind.
Funding agencies should also require grant recipients to have a continuation plan for migrating their users to other networks, if and when the local host discontinues operation. It is extremely counterproductive for local users to be cut off from the electronic world, with no way to maintain recently developed skills, relationships, and the all-important "habit" of using telecommunications in their daily life. If the host has been part of a distributed network, this transition will be far easier to make.
Funding agencies should be reluctant to fund the creation of new host networks in areas where alternatives clearly exist. The expense andeffort to develop and operate an effective host system can often be better channeled into content development, promotion and training. While "having our own online community" may be cited as important tothe goals of the project, the advent of small but powerful computersmakes it possible for many systems to host multiple networks that appear separate but in reality run on the same computer.
State departments of education and education associations should resist affiliating with commercial networks who do not offer this distributed capability. Business and industry have long called for this type of connectivity from national and international email vendors, and are finally getting their way as several of the major vendors are now providing transparent email access to one another. It's time for education agencies to make the same demands.
National Coordination
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Would it be worthwhile for representatives from the Department of Education, the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), or any number of agencies involved with this technology to form a National Commission on Educational Telecommunications? Some might suggest that this would create an unnecessary addition to the education bureacracy, an idea hatched bythe Department of Redundancy Department. Yet in the absence of one central education authority, leadership from such a group might prove critical to the success of a distributed network.
Tasks of the commission might include "certifying" educational networks as meeting certain standards that it deems important to thedevelopment of the medium, offering annual awards to those networks that exhibit exemplary service and innovation, seeking financial support from business and industry for the funding of grants to educators seeking to implement this technology in innovative ways, and lobbying policymakers at the state and national level on legislation of importance to the effective use of telecommunicationsin education.
Summary
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Computer telecommunications can enable educators in states, associations, and districts to be more cohesive, teachers to become more empowered, parents to become more involved, and students to become more engaged in learning. A distributed national education network will most effectively realize the potential of the medium.
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author's note: Griff Wigley is the former director of MIX, the McGraw-Hill Information Exchange for education. He is currently theDirector of Iris - The Network for Teachers and Shools. Contact himat P.O. Box 382, Northfield, MN 55057. Phone (507) 645-9347