Golden Oldie News Items (2000 to 2003)



'''This is part of the IAE-pedia material: What the Future is Bringing Us. The collection of entries are grouped by year. Click on the desired year.'''


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 * (2000 to 2003) is the page you are now viewing. Golden Oldie News Oct-December 2000 up through Jan-March 2003. These materials were moved from an old Oregon Technology Education Council (OTEC) site developed by David Moursund. Most of the links in the referenced articles no longer work.


 * (1974 to 2001) All of David Moursund's editorials published in Learning and Leading with Technology from its inception in 1974 until he retired from ISTE in 2001.



=The Year 2003=

The Demise of Cursive Handwriting (9/26/03)
Handwriting on the Wall for Cursive, Upton, Jodi. Detroit News. Oct. 24, 2003 12:00 AM. Accessed 10/26/03: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/1024cursive.html.


 * Cursive writing, once a cornerstone of American education, is becoming a cultural artifact as computers and the demands of standardized tests squeeze it out of its once lofty position.


 * Taught for more than 300 years in the United States, cursive has a storied past. But in a number of Michigan schools, it has been reduced to an independent study, an "as-we-have-time" course in second or third grade.

Comment: It will be interesting to see how long cursive handwriting remains a central component of the Language Arts. Growing numbers of people recognize that the time spent developing cursive handwriting skills could instead be used on other topics. It seems clear that eventually cursive handwriting will be an art form, like calligraphy.

Supercomputer Built Out of Macintosh Computers (9/26/03)

 * A supercomputer built by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1,100 dual-processor Macintosh G5 PCs looks likely to rank with the five fastest machines in the world, despite costing a relative pittance.


 * In preliminary performance tests carried out on 2,112 of the system's 2,200 processors, the so-called "Big Mac" cluster achieved 8.1 teraflops, or trillions of operations per second, according to figures published on Wednesday. The system is still being tuned, and final results won't be announced until next month, but the performance figure would place the Big Mac at No. 4 on the list of the world's fastest 500 supercomputers.

Accessed 9/26/03: http://news.com.com/2100-7337_3-5095026.html.

Comment: This new supercomputer shows the progress in creating supercomputers from off-the-shelf microcomputers. Notice that the microcomputers are dual-processor machines. Computer manufacturers have learned how to combine two (or more) microprocessor chips in a microcomputer, in a manner that makes effective use of the capabilities of each microprocessor chip. One path to providing computer users with a lot more compute power is now clear. It can be done by a combination of networking computers that are widely dispersed, tying together a large number of computers in a single location, and by adding more processor chips in a microcomputer. All of this is occurring during a time that microprocessor chips are getting faster.

New E-paper Could Show Moving Images Too (9/25/03)

 * LONDON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Even before the electronic ink has dried on the e-page, a new generation of electronic paper may soon be able to bring a moving image to a foldable screen near you, according to scientists in the Netherlands. Hot on the heels of the invention of a wafer-thin foldable screen that can display static type and may one day replace newspapers as it can be overwritten each day, scientists at Philips Research in Eindhoven have found a way to display high-definition moving pictures as well.


 * Using a process called electrowetting, the scientists claim to be able to manipulate coloured oils in the pixels on the page with such speed and accuracy as to be able to generate clear and accurate video displays. Accessed 9/25/03: http://www.forbes.com/home_europe/newswire/
 * 2003/09/24/rtr1090431.html

Comment: E-paper represents a potential major change in the printing and distribution of magazines, newspapers, and other traditional "recyclable" hardcopy materials.

Estimated Sales of 160 Million Microcomputers Worldwide (9/15/03)

 * Gartner has adjusted its estimate of worldwide PC shipments upward to 161 million this year, hitting a new benchmark for the industry, says Gartner analyst Kiyomi Yamada. Gartner recently rejiggered its method of accounting for unit shipments to include units previously overlooked, says Yamada. The error was revealed when Gartner noticed a discrepancy between the number of components, such as processors, and the number of finished PCs. The difference pointed to a previously unrecognized market for so-called white-box PCs -- machines that are usually assembled and sold by small companies. Gartner has since gone back and revised its PC unit shipment numbers for at least the past six years, boosting those figures accordingly. Meanwhile, IDC has predicted a 2003 unit shipment increase of 6.3% to 145 million, but analyst Roger Kay says the firm may revise those numbers upward, based on hot sales of notebook computers. (CNet News.com 14 Aug 2003) http://news.com.com/2100-1003_3-5063927.html?tag=lh (NewsScan newsscan@newsscan.com)

Comment: This is about one microcomputer for each 37 people on earth. When thinking about such numbers, it is important to realize that the average "compute power" of microcomputers is steadily increasing on a year-to-year basis. Very roughly speaking, the amount of compute power represented by the year 2003 production of microcomputers is equivalent to more than the compute power of 6 billion of the types of microcomputers being produced 10 years ago. (The population of the earth is about 6 billion.)

"Magnetic Chip" Replacement for RAM (7/14/03)
Quoting from a 7/9/03 news release at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59559,00.html


 * With both Motorola and IBM firmly lined up behind a single contender, the five-year search for a "universal RAM" technology offering a combination of non-volatility and high-speed random access appears to be all but over.


 * According to Motorola, samples of the new magnetoresistive random access memory, or MRAM, chips will be distributed to developers by the end of 2003, and cell phones and PDAs incorporating MRAM should be on sale by mid-2004.


 * Unlike conventional high-speed memory devices, MRAM uses magnetism instead of electrical charges to store data -- making it, in a sense, a back-to-the-future technology based on the same laws of physics that enabled the creation of audio and videotape recorders as well as hard drives.


 * MRAM wafers are made up of individual cells comprising two microscopic magnetic layers separated by an insulating layer. Like all magnetic substances, each of those two layers can be polarized in the same direction or opposite directions, corresponding to the binary bits 1 and 0.

Comment: The article indicates that this new memory is faster than current RAM. It cuts the energy use of a computer system and greatly speeds up start-up time. This represents a significant piece of technological progress in ICT.

Nanotechnology Breakthrough (5/2/03)

 * IBM has developed the world's smallest solid-state flashlight -- a carbon nanotube made by rolling a sheet of pure graphite into a single molecule. The light emitted by the flashlight is invisible to human eyes, but is ideal for fiber-optics cables. Although the advance is years away from any practical use, it represents a real scientific breakthrough, and chemistry professor Peidong Yang of the University of California-Berkeley calls it "a fantastic achievement." Phaedon Avouris, IBM manager's of nanoscale research, explains that the flashlight is notable because "it's very small, it's solid-state, and it's a transistor, which allows full control of its properties." (San Jose Mercury News 2 May 2003) (NewsScan Daily, 2 May 2003.)

Comment: This research is important because it is a contribution to creating optical computers as well as smaller computers. Nanotechnology is a very important area of research. At the current time, the U.S. government is funding nanotechnology research at the rate of more than $2 billion per year.

More than 75% of students have ICT access at home. (3/19/03)

 * Almost two-thirds of American children between the ages of 2 and 17 logged onto the Net last year, with a whopping 205% increase among African-American children, according to a new report from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The disparities between higher and lower income children still exist, but the study found that 58% of African-American children and 50% of Hispanic children now use the Internet from some location -- either home, school or the local library. The study, based on a series of surveys conducted last year by technology market research firm Grunwald Associates, also found that digital media use among children ages 6-17 is now approaching parity with television viewing. According to the report, children spend 3.1 hours per day watching TV and 2.9 hours a day surfing the Web, playing video games or using the computer for non-Internet activities. Among teenagers, computer use actually outstrips TV viewing -- 3.5 hours vs. 3.1 hours per day. An electronic version of the report "Connected to the Future" is available at cpb.org/ed/resources/connected. (Corporation for Public Broadcasting 19 Mar 2003)

Comment: This 8-page report points out that there are still significant "digital divide" types of issues. The report also contains some data on how much children are using computers at home versus how much time they are watching television at home. Children ages 9-12 are spending an average of 6 hours a day on the two media combined, with somewhat more than half on TV. Children ages 13-17 are spending an average of 6.6 hours a day on the two media combined, with somewhat more than half on computers. This report is important to educators because it indicates the extent to which the home environment is being changed by computer technology.

Toshiba Unveils Fuel Cell for Laptops (3/5/03)

 * Toshiba has figured out how to make a fuel cell capable of powering a laptop computer for five hours. The direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) generates between 12W and 20W of power and is electrically compatible with existing lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. Although fuel cell R&D has made great strides in recent years, producing a fuel cell battery capable of powering the GM HyWire car, for instance, the Toshiba effort is the first DMFC small enough to potentially replace laptop batteries. (The Register 5 Mar 2003) http://www.theregister.co.uk/
 * content/54/29590.html (NewsScan Daily, 5 March 2003).

Comment: It has been interesting to see how rapidly this new technology has been developed and brought to market. The future will likely see decreased prices and increased amounts of power that such a fuel cell can generate.

Instant Messaging via AOL (3/4/03)

 * About the only good news for AOL recently has been its spectacular success with its instant messaging service, the world's most popular electronic communications tool. Every day, about 2.3 billion instant messages are sent via AOL, and about 40% of all Americans aged 14-24 use the AOL IM service. The only problem is, it's free. And while AOL isn't considering charging for its IM service or burdening it with advertising, company insiders are putting together targeted pitches to capitalize on the demographics of the AOL instant messaging community. At the same time, the company is pushing IM into the workplace, where employees often use the service to exchange messages without supervision from their company's computer administrators. "This is really an enormous untapped audience online," says Stephen Kim, research director of ComScore Media Matrix. "It is a big audience, and it is really active, but it is really hard to turn that into dollars." Nevertheless, AOL plans to keep on trying: "There is a very significant effort to build new revenue streams and businesses over the next one to two years," says a high-ranking AOL official. "If we have done nothing two years from now, we will have a problem." (Washington Post 3 Mar 2003) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/
 * A30944-2003Mar2.html (NewsScan Daily, 4 March 2003)

Comment: Note that "about 40% of all Americans aged 14-24 use the AOL IM service." As a very rough estimate this means that approximately 15 million young people are generating approximately 300 million messages per day, or approximately an average of 20 messages per person. This represents a significant addition to and/or change in the nature and extent of communication among people in this age range.

Increased Aid to Schools Gets Support in Voter Poll (3/1/03)

 * A new national poll reveals that education is a top priority for American voters. Participants rated protecting and strengthening education of greater concern than health care, terrorism, national security, Social Security, and job creation, according to a national survey released today by Public Education Network and Education Week. The poll also reveals that voters believe state budget crises could slow the pace of school improvement across the nation. While many Americans favor the No Child Left Behind (NCLB), they are worried that the states cannot afford to implement it. Many voters say the federal government -- not the states -- should provide the necessary funds to implement NCLB. The poll shows voters want state and local lawmakers to know more about education, fight for more education funds, and hold schools accountable for performance. It also shows that -- by almost a two-to-one margin -- Americans would vote against lawmakers who fail to fight for adequate education funding. http://www.publiceducation.org/doc/
 * NationalPollPressRelease.doc. (PEN Weekly NewsBlast for February 28, 2003)

Comment: Year after year we see polls such as this one reporting a high level of public support for education. In recent years, many politicians have proclaimed themselves to be an "education ___" (name the office, such as president, senator, governor, etc.). At the current time, Oregon and many other states are having their education budgets cut. Cuts in the K-12 school budgets are a particular challenge to increasing the effective use of ICT in education. Hardware, software, connectivity, staff development, and technical support are all being squeezed by the tight budget situation.

U.S. Tech Companies Rank Low In Recycling Efforts (1/12/03)

 * The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) has released its annual Computer Report Card comparing the environmental records of 28 high-tech firms, and reports that most U.S. companies lag behind their Japanese competitors when it comes to recycling equipment and safe disposal of hazardous substances used in the manufacturing process. Of the companies surveyed, only Fujitsu received a passing grade. It's one of a handful of Japanese companies that has sought to eliminate toxic chemicals by developing and using lead-free products. "The leadership continues to be by and large the Japanese companies, and the U.S. companies tend to be far behind," says SVTC founder Ted Smith. "A lot of (U.S. manufacturers') initiatives are piecemeal and not really designed to address the vast majority of consumer concerns. There is still an enormous amount of computer waste being exported to China." The Computer Report Card notes that some U.S. companies use a double standard when it comes to recycling. Divisions located in Europe and Japan, where safe recycling is mandated by law, have implemented programs but their U.S. operations have not. Meanwhile, Congressman Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) has introduced a bill that would require the EPA to create grants for private and governmental organizations to develop computer recycling programs and the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative is working on a nationwide plan for recycling obsolete electronic devices. (Wired.com 10 Jan 2003) http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,57151,00.html (NewsScan Daily, 10 January 2003)

Comment: The worldwide production of computers is approximately 130 million per year. In some sense, this is the tip of the iceberg. Think about cell phones, game machines, computers built into all kinds of products, and so on. The result is a huge and steadily growing environmental problem. Part of the solution is a top down approach, with manufacturers developing more environmentally friendly products. Part is a question of who pays for it. It is now a well developed (if not too widely accepted) idea that consumers should pay a fee at the time they purchase a product, with the fee going to pay for recycling of the product. Part of the solution is consumer education. Part of the solution is a grassroots approach to recycling. This can occur at the level of a school, a school district, or a town. This type of grassroots movement can be instigated by students, their teachers, and their parents. The topic of recycling is certainly appropriate for project-based learning or problem-based learning in social studies and science courses.

Mississippi First State to Have Internet Connected Computer in Every Classroom (1/4/03)
Quoting from http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns -ap-computers-in-classrooms0102jan01 (January 2, 2003):
 * HERNANDO, Miss. -- In a milestone for student achievement and state pride, Mississippi has become the first state to have an online computer in each of its public-school classrooms, a spokesman for the governor said.


 * The state met the goal set by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove to connect Mississippi's 32,354 public classrooms to the Internet by Dec. 31, spokesman John Sewell said Wednesday.


 * The job required $40 million worth of equipment and training, but federal funding, private donations and programs that trained students to build computers meant the project cost the state just $6 million, according to Musgrove's office. Donations included $500,000 from Mississippi native and former Netscape chief executive Jim Barksdale.


 * Besides Mississippi, the state closest to filling classrooms with online computers is Delaware, according to the National Governors Association in Washington.


 * Now that the computers are in place, the schools will have to train teachers to use them and pay for maintenance, upgrades and connections, Sewell said. Some of the costs can be eased with federal education programs and by training students to fix computers, he added.

Comment: One of the key points that is touched on in the article, but that does not receive appropriate emphasis, is the difference between buying hardware, software, and connectivity, and making the necessary changes to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and teacher training so that the new technology can make a positive difference in education. Lack of adequate ICT facilities in schools continues to be a major issue and stumbling block. However, a far more difficult issue and stumbling block is the combination of appropriate technology-based teacher education (preservice and inservice), and ICT applications in curriculum, instruction, and assessment.

=The Year 2002=

Chip Could Restore Some Vision (12/10/02)

 * Researchers in the United States, including some at the University of California, are developing a microchip that has the potential to restore sight to some who have lost it. The chip is implanted in the eye using a flexible silicon that stimulates undamaged retinal cells. Those cells transmit impulses to the brain, allowing the eye to "see." Researchers have started work on what they call a second-generation implant, with many more electrodes than the prototypes. The prototypes have 16 electrodes, sufficient for patients to detect light. The next-generation implant will have 1,000 electrodes, enough to discern shapes. Successful tests have been conducted three times on dogs, and those involved in the research said a human implant could be ready within three years. BBC, 7 December 2002 (Edupage, December 09, 2002).

Comment: Computers have been mass-produced and commercially available tools for more than 50 years. You might think that computer technology is now a mature technology, and that its applications have run their course. However, we have just scratched the surface of what computer technology will brig us. We can expect continued rapid progress in developing the underlying technology. And, we can expect a very long period of developing applications that make use of this technology. Aids to the blind and deaf are examples of such progress, and these applications are still in their infancy.

IBM to Produce 100 Teraflops Computer (11/20/02)

 * NEW YORK (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. Tuesday said that it had signed a $290 million federal government contract that includes a supercomputer called ASCI Purple that is 8 times faster than its current computer used for nuclear testing.
 * The contract also includes a second supercomputer that the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Agency's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced last year, called Blue Gene/L. It will be used in weather modeling, such as simulating an entire hurricane.


 * ASCI Purple will run at 100 teraflops, or 100 trillion calculations per second, 8 times faster than its current supercomputer ASCI White and at a speed equivalent to the human brain, IBM said.

Comment: The final sentence suggests that 100 trillion floating point operations per second is a speed equivalent to the human brain. Such comparisons may not help much in terms of a person trying to comprehend the speed of 100 teraflops. Also, 100 teraflops is substantially below the "human brain speed" estimate developed by Ray Kurzweil and other researchers.

Comparing computer speeds with the speed of the human brain may not make much sense to most people. How long does it take you to do the computation 29.43 x 847.92 in your head? Probably you can't do this floating point computation in your head, while the proposed new machine can do 100 trillion such computations per second.

US Fares Well on International Comparisons on Computers in Schools (11/15/02)

 * U.S. students have better access to computers than students in virtually all other industrialized countries, according to a report from Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Five students in the United States share each school computer, on average; in other developed countries, the average is 13 students per computer. Source: CNN.com http://www.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/10/30/
 * us.education.comparison.ap/index.html (TechLearning News, November 15, 2002 - No. 22).

Comment: The figure of one computer per five students may be somewhat low, as it is probably from data that is a year or so old. Studies such as this tend to be quite superficial in determining the effectiveness of the use of such computing facilities.

Scoping Out the Future (11/9/02)

 * Yale computer scientist David Gelernter is glad that the Microsoft trial is behind us, because "operating systems are lapsing into senile irrelevance," and we need to move on to the future. And what will the future be all about? "Every piece of digital information you own or share will appear (in the near future) in one universal structure" -- one to which you'll have access from any Net-connected computer anywhere. "I have time for only one screen in my life," says Gelernter. "That screen had better give me access to everything, everywhere." The universal structure, dubbed Scopeware, will be a narrative, 3D stream of electronic documents flowing through time. "The future (where you store your calendar, reminders, plans) flows into the present (where you keep material you're working on right now) and on into the past (where every e-mail message and draft, digital photo, application, virtual Rolodex card, video and audio clip and Web bookmark is stored, in addition to all those calendar notes and reminders that used to be part of the future and have since flowed into the past to be archived forever)." (New York Times 7 Nov 2002) http://partners.nytimes.com/2002/11/07/
 * technology/circuits/07soft.html (NewsScan Daily, 7 November 2002).

Comment: Quoting from the brief news item: "I have time for only one screen in my life," says Gelernter. "That screen had better give me access to everything, everywhere." Gelernter believes that this is the direction in which connectivity can and should be headed. The goal is to make the connectivity, storage, and retrieval aspects of the field of Information and Communication Technology much easier to use and much more useful. The system Gelernter envisions will be easier to learn how to use and easier to remember how to use.

MIT, HP Unveil Digital Library (11/5/02)

 * The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Hewlett-Packard have taken the wraps off DSpace-- a new system for electronically archiving books, lecture notes and scientific data created by research institutions. MIT and HP hope that the DSpace project will lead to the creation of a virtual library that combines the collections of multiple research universities, and MIT is already in discussions with Cambridge and Cornell to link their libraries to the DSpace system. Corporations and government agencies have also been in contact with MIT, says DSpace project director Mackenzie Smith. Eventually, MIT's system, which currently can hold two terabytes of data, will contain more than a petabyte, or a quadrillion bytes of data. The project began about 18 months ago in response to the increasingly unwieldy volume of data that universities must catalog and preserve. "Part of the reason for doing this is that the faculty says, 'My stuff is too hard to find.' We began this to get some kind of territorial control over all of this research," says Smith. "If you're lucky, you can get some of it on Google, but most of the stuff we are talking about is not indexed in any way you can get it." (CNet News.com 4 Nov 2002) (NewsScan Daily, 5 November 2002)

Comment: A full-length novel is about a megabyte in length. Thus, a terabyte can store a million long novels, and a petabyte can store a billion long novels. Of course, this does not allow for pictures and other graphics in the books. A different way of looking at this is that a petabyte of storage is far more than that needed to store all of the contents of the U.S. Library of Congress, which is the world's largest library. This rapid trend toward storing "everything" presents an interesting challenge to our educational system. Students need to learn to make effective use of such massive collections of data and information.

Researchers Work to Preserve Languages (Archival Storage) (11/5/02)

 * Some have predicted that between 50 and 90 percent of the world's languages will disappear within the next hundred years. An initiative called the Rosetta Project aims to create an archive of more than 1,400 languages facing extinction. According to Doug Whalen, founder of the Endangered Language Fund, no digital technology has "a ghost of a chance of being taken as seriously archival" for the long term. The Rosetta Project will use technology created by Los Alamos Laboratories and Norsam Technologies that micro-etches text on a high-density storage disk. The disk is expected to last for 2,000 years and can be read with a 1,000 power microscope, ensuring that it will be useful and accessible for many future generations. For each language, the disk will contain vocabulary lists, grammar, numbering systems, and sample texts. Wired News, 4 November 2002 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,54345,00.html (Edupage, November 04, 2002)

Comment: Storage on magnetic media may last 5-10 years. Even storage on a CD or a DVD may only last for 20 years or so. Thus, this brief news item is particularly interesting because of its mention of archival storage that is expected to last for 2,000 years.

Smallest Computer Logic Circuit (10/25/02)

 * Although their achievement is nowhere near any kind of practical application, IBM scientists have used individual carbon monoxide particles so develop the world's smallest logic circuit, less than one trillionth of a square inch (and therefore about 260,000 times smaller than state-of-the-art silicon transistors). Donald M. Eigler, head of the IBM team, says: "It hints at what our future has in store for us." (New York Times 25 Oct 2002) http://partners.nytimes.com/2002/
 * 10/25/technology/25COMP.html (NewsScan Daily, 25 October 2002).

Comment: Some of today's palmtop computers have roughly 1/10,000 of the capability of the best supercomputers. Suppose that 20 years from now IBM and others manage to construct complete computer circuits out of the type of carbon components mentioned in the article. Then it will be possible to construct a palmtop computer that is many times as powerful as today's best supercomputer. From an education point of view, it is important to keep in mind that we are educating students for a lifetime of continued rapid progress in the field of Information and Communication Technology.

Spintronics Shrinks Data Storage to Nanoscale (7/4/02)

 * Researchers at the University at Buffalo in New York have developed a nickel-based, magnetic sensor, measuring only a few atoms in diameter, that could increase data storage capacity 1,000 times through the use of spintronics -- a field that takes advantage of electron spin as well as charge. Current technology used in data-reading sensors is based on giant magnetoresistance (GMR), where sensor resistance changes in a magnetic field. The new sensor developed at UB creates an effect called ballistic magnetoresistance (BMR), which uses an electrical conductor only a few atoms in size. Researchers say the technology could ultimately make it possible to store 50 or more DVDs on a hard drive the size of a credit card, or enable military personnel to carry supercomputers the size of a wristwatch into the field. (NewsFactor 1 Jul 2002) http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18446.html (NewsScan Daily, 2 July 2002).

Comment: One can now buy an 80 to 120 gigabytes disk storage system for $300 to $400. Roughly speaking, a megabyte is equivalent to a book, such as a novel. 100 gigabytes is thus roughly equivalent to 100,000 books. A further gain by a factor of 1,000 (suggested by the brief news item) would bring this to 100 million books. Imagine being able to store the entire US Library of Congress on your hard drive! More challenging, imagine educating students for life in a world in which such library access is routine.

AMD Says New Transistors Are Smallest Ever (9/15/2002)

 * Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) said it has developed the smallest double-gate transistor that uses industry-standard manufacturing processes. Transistors relay data in a binary mode as electrical currents are switched on and off, and the gate is the point on the transistor through which the current passes. Double-gate transistors can transmit twice the electrical current of a single-gate transistor. The size of the new transistor, according to AMD, could allow chips that currently hold 100 million transistors to hold as many as 1 billion. AMD said that the new transistors, which were developed in cooperation with researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and supported by the Semiconductor Research Corporation, are not yet ready for the market but that details of the research will be presented in December at the International Electron Devices Meeting. NewsFactor Network, 11 September 2002 http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/19370.html Pn (Edupage, September 11, 2002)

Comment: This is another example of a rate of progress that may be even faster than that predicted by Moore's Law.

Mobile Phone Replaces Photo Album for Picture Storage (8/14/2002)

 * Proud parents in Japan are just as likely to whip out their mobile phones to show you pictures of their children as fumble through their wallets for school photos. The latest generation of cell phones feature tiny cameras and full-color screens, in addition to digital zoom lenses, higher-resolution displays and enough memory to store hundreds of photos, and analysts predict that these new features will prove irresistible to American and European consumers as the 3G handsets hit the global market. "It's often said that Japanese love cameras, but Europeans and Americans in particular see family photos as something special, even putting them up in their cubicles at work," says Gartner analyst Nahoko Mitsuyama. "Theirs is a culture that puts a high value on photos, and if that can be tapped into, I think there'll be demand for these products outside Japan as well." (Reuters 13 Aug 2002) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=581&ncid=581&e=5&u=/nm/
 * 20020813 /tc_nm/column_pluggedin_dc_1. (NewsScan Daily, 14 August 2002).

Comment: This is a technology that will likely be widely adopted. The students who now have cell phones will soon have cell phones that take and store pictures. This means that students and teachers will have easy access to the "front end" of this aspect of technology in education.

Online Peer Reviews of Journals (8/13/2002)

 * Among the 25,000 peer-reviewed journals worldwide, an increasing number are abandoning the traditional, mail-based process for reviewing and editing articles, turning instead to electronic systems. According to Rick Johnson, enterprise director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, "Journals sink or swim based on whether they attract the top authors." The significant time savings from conducting the peer-review process electronically, he said, puts journals that make the change at a competitive advantage over those that do not. Money saved on postage can also be substantial. The Journal of the American College of Cardiology expects to save 80 percent of its postal budget, $60,000 to $70,000 per year, by switching to an electronic system. Other advantages include convenience and reduced risk of errors and lost mailings. New York Times, 12 August 2002 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/12/technology/
 * 12NECO.html. (Edupage, August 12, 2002)

Comment: This brief news item is interesting both because it shows increased use of Information and Communications Technology in a "traditional" surface mail environment, and because it gives the figure of 25,000 peer reviewed journals worldwide. One would have to be a really fast reader to keep up with this flow of research information!

Cell Program Promises Supercomputer on A Chip (8/11/2002)

 * IBM, Toshiba, and Sony have teamed up on a project to develop a processor reportedly 100 times faster than a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4. The project, called Cell, could lead to a single processor capable of one teraflop, or one trillion calculations per second. The Cell chip has an architecture comprising several cores--effectively having multiple processors--on the same chip, allowing it to execute data-heavy communications while running high-end media. The result is a processor that is expected to significantly improve the experience for video games, DVDs, and other processor-intense applications. Analysts said the challenge will be writing applications that can take full advantage of the flexibility and power of the new chip. NewsFactor Network, 7 August 2002 http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18921.html. (Edupage, August 07, 2002)

Comment: This is another example of the accumulating evidence that Moore's Law will continue to hold for at least another decade. Moore's Law suggests a doubling in the speed of a CPU chip over a period of 18 months. Seven doublings is a factor of 128, with Moore's law predicting that this will occur over a time period of 10.5 years.

Some Libraries Moving Away From Books (7/7/2002)

 * Many libraries, particularly those on college campuses, increasingly face the question of whether technology will replace books as their primary means of distributing information. Some institutions such as the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities have thoroughly renovated their libraries, moving stacks to the basement and installing computer labs and other technology resources in the main areas of the building. Many colleges and universities similarly are updating their libraries with network access, multimedia facilities, and wireless technology. Critics of this trend worry that a focus on technology and tools will replace genuine learning. Many defend books as being as useful and relevant as computers and information technology. Some institutions try to address the concerns of both groups, preserving a focus on books while adding technology to their facilities. Chronicle of Higher Education, 8 July 2002 http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i44/44a03101.htm (Edupage, July 08, 2002).

Comment: The Web can be considered to be a library (a Global Library). While large parts of this library are available free to users, other parts are available only to people or groups that pay for the service. The Web (Global Library) is both larger and quite a bit different than a traditional hard copy library. At the current time, traditional libraries and the Web each have some unique advantages. School, college, and university libraries face the challenge of deciding how to divide their resources between these two types of resources. Over the long run, it is clear that the Web will eventually become the dominant library resource. But, this "long run" is a long way off.

For example, consider the advantages of a hard copy library in one's home, classroom, and school in terms of actually getting a book in the hands of a student. Research strongly supports the value of students having good and easy access to books that are appropriate to their interests and reading level. We are a long long way from having high quality ebook readers that are readily available to all students and that provide good access to the full range of books.

Searching is Number 1 Net Activity (7/6/2002)

 * Internet users increasingly are focusing their computer time on finding specific information via search engine, rather than aimlessly clicking from one site to the next, according to new statistics collected by the Pew Internet Project. More than 80% of all U.S. users have employed a search engine, and 29% of respondents turn to search engines every day to locate information online. Among Internet users who've been online for three years or more, the percentage of daily search engine users rises to 40%. The only activity more popular than searching is e-mail, which 52% said they did on a daily basis. The survey results indicate that people are learning to trust the results produced by search engines, and tend to rely on them rather than scouring the Web on their own. Google ranked No. 1 in popularity, based on the average number of minutes people spend using it per month. (BBC News 5 Jul 2002) http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/
 * sci/tech/newsid_2097000/2097032.stm (NewsScan Daily, 5 July 2002)

Comment: The Web can be thought of as a Global Library. It is not easy to learn to make effective use of such a huge library. It is, of course, easy to learn to make use of a search engine. But, that is a very small part of learning to make effective use of the Web. Our current educational system is introducing almost all children to the Web and search engines. However, it is not doing a very good job of helping students gain the needed skills of a research librarian.

Worldwide Computer Sales Decline in 2001 (5/6/02)

 * Computer shipments have declined for the second time in the industry's history, though Dell Computer and the Asian market continue to expand their influences. Shipments of PCs declined 5.1 percent worldwide in 2001 compared with the previous year, according to preliminary figures released Thursday by market researcher IDC. At the same time, shipments in the United States dropped by 12.2 percent.


 * For the fourth quarter, worldwide shipments dropped 6.1 percent from the previous year and U.S. shipments dropped 8.5 percent. However, sales picked up globally and in the United States compared with the third quarter.


 * Gartner, a competing market researcher, released results Thursday that were slightly more optimistic, tallying a 4.6 percent decline in worldwide shipments to 128 million units. Meanwhile, U.S. shipments were down 11.1 percent to 44 million units, according to Gartner. The figures include shipments of desktops, notebooks and Intel-based servers. According to Gartner, 2001 marked only the second time the PC market has shrunk. The market also contracted in 1985. http://news.com.com/2100-1040-817659.html

Comment: The population of the world is about 6 billion. This means that 2001 microcomputer sales were about one per 47 people, and in 2000 about one per 45 people. This data suggests that there are close to 600 million microcomputers in the world, or about one per 10 people if they were evenly distributed. The K-12 school system in the U.S. now has about one microcomptuer per five students.

New Speed Record for a Fiber Optic (5/2/02)

 * Bell Labs, the research arm of Lucent Technologies, said on Friday that it has doubled the distance and the speed at which data can be sent over long-haul telecommunications networks.


 * The development will eventually make it cheaper for telecom service providers to send more data on fiber-optic networks over longer distances.


 * Bell Labs said that, in a demonstration, it sent a massive 2.56 terabits of data per second over a distance of 2,500 miles, the equivalent of sending the contents of 2,560,000 novels every second across the United States.


 * One terabit is a little over one trillion bits of data.


 * The previous record was 1.6 terabits per second over 1,250 miles, or half the distance. (http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-867081.html )

Comment: Such progress is part of the steady improvement of the Global Library that we call the Web. We are moving toward students (and, of course, others) having high bandwidth connectivity to this Global Library. This means that as educators we need to be figuring out needed changes in curriculum content, instructional processes, and assessment. How long will it be before students are given good access to computers and the Web while they are being assessed?

Japan Boasts World's Fastest Supercomputer (4/22/02)

 * The NEC Earth Simulator, which was designed to create a "virtual planet Earth" for climate predictions, is now touted as the world's fastest supercomputer, according to a ranking released Saturday. The NEC machine is housed at the Yokohama Institute for Earth Sciences and takes up space equal to the size of four tennis courts. Operating at a speed of 35,600 gigaflops, it's almost five times faster than last year's top machine, the IBM ASCI White, which runs at a speed of 7,226 gigaflops. A gigaflop equals a billion mathematical operations per second. (AP 20 Apr 2002) http://apnews.excite.com/article/
 * 20020421/D7J107MO0.html (NewsScan Daily, 22 April 2002)

Comment: This is an example of the "more than outstanding" rate of progress in computer technology that we have come to take for granted. A gain by a factor of five in one year. Wow! All of the new supercomputers are constructed by the use of a large number of microprocessors. Conceptually, this is an easy enough idea. A new microcomputer nowadays may well have a speed of a billion Floating Point Operations Per Second. One can imagine having many thousands of these microcomputers all working on one problem at the same time. But then, the details get fuzzy. How does one divide a problem into pieces so that each of thousands of different pieces can be worked on simultaneously? How does one combine results on the pieces that interact with each other? In special problems (such as weather forecasting) people have developed answers that work well. This progress is gradually carrying over to the types of multiprocessor microcomputers that ordinary people can afford to buy. Part of the path toward faster microcomputers is the multi-processor route. The microcomputer of the future will be a multiprocessor microcomputer.

The Photonic Revolution (3/27/02)

 * Whereas electrons are a basic component of matter, photons are a basic component of energy and make up the electromagnetic spectrum (including X-rays and ultraviolet, infrared, and radio waves, as well as visible light). The photonic revolution, though still well in the future, is expected to revolutionize technology in general and particularly computing and communications. Anthony Tether, head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), predicts: "You'll see enormous advances in optical components and devices. Miniaturization will lead to many orders-of-magnitude increases in performance. You can do a lot more in a lot less real estate." One new development is the creation of "photonic fibers" by MIT physics professor Yoel Fink, who says the fibers can deliver up to 1,000 times more photons than today's fiber-optic cables. (San Jose Mercury News 25 Mar 2002) (NewsScan Daily, 26 March 2002)

Comment: A number of the Brief News Items during the past few months have addressed the potentials for continuing rapid increases in the capabilities of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)systems. As educators, we need to look toward the future that such continual improvements will bring--and help prepare our students to deal with such change. By the time today's kindergartners finish school and begin to function as adults in our society, they will face an ICT environment that may offer 100 to 1,000 times the capabilities that are now available.

New Video-Compression Format May Speed Movies-On-Demand (3/25/02)

 * Pulsent Corp., a Silicon Valley startup, has come up with a new compression technique that it says can shrink digital video to about one-fourth the size of conventionally compressed video files. Rather than relying on what's called the "block-based approach," which uses algorithms to define "blocks" of images that remain static from frame to frame and therefore don't need to be resent, Pulsent's technique divides up and classifies an image based on visual attributes. A woman's hair, for instance, might be classified as three different objects based on highlights and shadows. Such objects can be more precisely identified and tracked from frame to frame, reducing the need for duplicate data. According to Pulsent CEO Adityo Prakash, the new technology can deliver higher quality images at less than 1.5 million bits per second -- within the speed range of most DSL phone lines -- and company plans call for marketing the new technology to phone companies that want to sell interactive multimedia over their broadband lines. (Wall Street Journal 25 Mar 2002) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB
 * 1017013334243551480.djm,00.html (sub req'd) (NewsScan Daily, 25 March 2002)

Comment: This brief article helps to illustrate two approaches to delivering video. One approach is faster (higher bandwidth) connectivity, and the other is compression. Compression makes use of substantial compute power to compress and decompress the signal. The article discusses a compression technique that is four times better that the currently widely used techniques. With continued progress in building faster chips, we are seeing that handheld video downloaded from the Web is becoming more common.

"Holodeck" Virtual Reality (3/3/02)

 * A new research center at the University of Calgary harkens back to the "Holodeck" from the Star Trek television series. Java 3D is used to create virtual models of things ranging from a whole landscape to a single cell. Scientists go into the 10 x 10 foot laboratory wearing 3D glasses to view the models that are created. Companies including pharmaceutical firms, oil companies, and meteorologists will be able to use the facility, but the primary goal is to further medical research, particularly for complex genetic diseases such as Alzheimer's and cancer. (Reuters, 28 February 2002) (Edupage, March 1, 2002)

Comment: Eventually such ICT resources will become inexpensive enough so that they are routinely used in education of school students and others.

IBM Announces World's Fastest Integrated Circuit (2/25/02)

 * IBM has set another benchmark with the debut of what it's saying is the world's fastest integrated circuit. The new chip, which will be marketed to makers of high-speed fiber optic switches and other networking devices, runs at more than 110 gigahertz, and is capable of handling 40 billion bits of information a second. The chip, which is based on the silicon germanium technology pioneered by IBM, is exceptional for its high-speed and lower power requirements. Power consumption has become a significant factor in the highly competitive chip market because, "Surprisingly, power has become a limitation," on making faster devices, says Bernard Myerson, the IBM who has led the R&D work on silicon germanium technology. (Wall Street Journal 25 Feb 2002) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1014588380
 * 197933680.djm,00.html (sub req'd) (NewsScan Daily, 25 February 2002)

Comment: Moore's "Law" has helped people to make predictions about microcomputer speeds well into the future. During the past decade, progress in fiber optics has been at a faster pace than progress in the speed of microcomputers. This IBM announcement is indicative of continued rapid progress in telecommunications.

Women in Computing: Declining Numbers (2/13/02)

 * A recent study by computer scientist Tracy Camp reports that the percentage of women who earned undergraduate computer science degrees has dropped from 37% of total in 1984 to less than 20% in 1999. Anita Borg, founder of the Institute for Women and Technology at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, has this explanation of the problem: "Part of the image of working on computers is working to create gadgets -- techie stuff having nothing to do with people's lives. Young women want to have a positive impact on people. If we can get across that there are powerful ways to have a hugely positive impact on people, then maybe we can turn that image around... Women are not there filling the slots, and the companies are too shortsighted to go out of their way to recruit them. Even when human resources people ask, 'How do we get the women? How do we bring in the minority people?' they only want to know how to get them this week. They are unwilling to consider their environment and their advertising." (San Jose Mercury News 11 Feb 2002) http://www.siliconvalley.com/
 * mld/siliconvalley/2651855.htm (NewsScan Daily, 12 February 2002).

Comment: The percentage of computer science majors who are women is, of course, but one measure of the level of participation of women in the information and communications technology field. However, it is an important indicator and suggests that efforts to encourage more women to major in computer and information science are not being very successful. For more information about women in computing, see http://otec.uoregon.edu/women_and_computing.htm

Faster Chips for Handheld Devices (2/13/02)

 * Intel has announced a new family of microprocessors for use in a variety of handheld and wireless devices. The PXA 210, capable of running at speeds up to 200 megahertz, will be used in cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other handheld devices. The PXA250 processor will run at speeds up to 400 megahertz and will be used on high-end handheld devices. The technology used for the microprocessors is called XScale and is based on the StrongARM architecture that Intel acquired in 1997 as part of a settlement with the Digital Equipment Corporation. (AP/USA Today 11 Feb 2002) http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/
 * tech/2002/02/11/intel-new-chips.htm (NewsScan Daily, 12 February 2002).

Comment: Although I don't have precise data available, I would guess that well over half of the computers in our schools run at 400 megsaahertz or slower. In past years I have used a variety of laptop computers, each serving my needs at the time, and each being extremely useful. Up until my most recent purchase, all of my laptops have had speeds well under 400 megahertz.

Faster, Faster: No Slowdown in Moore's Law" (2/5/02)

 * Moore's Law"--the remarkably accurate 1965 prediction by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a chip would double about every 18 months (thereby also roughly doubling the chip's computing speed)--is truer than ever, with new evidence suggesting that the computer industry will be able to further shrink one dimension of modern processors (the "physical gate length," or the space between two key components in a solid-state transistor). The result will be even-faster chips a few years from now, and one example of the new chip making environment is Intel's announcement of a chip that has performed at up to 10 gigahertz speeds at room temperature, the fastest performance yet for any microprocessor. (New York Times 4 Feb 2002) http://partners.nytimes.com/2002/02/04/technology/04CHIP.html (NewsScan Daily, 4 February 2002)

Comment: Faster microprocessors mean faster microcomputers and supercomputers. For people and organizations who use computers to address complex and large problems, greater speed means greater ability to address the problems. But. . . what are the educational implications? To a very large extent, our educational systems do not take advantage of the current capabilities of computers. Students are not learning to use computers to address complex and large problems. Indeed, many educators lack insight into what constitutes a complex and/or large problem within the disciplines that they teach.

To test yourself, think about your area(s) of subject matter expertise. Name some problems within this area that cannot be adequately addressed by a 1-gigahertz machine, but that can be adequately addressed by a 10-gigahertz (or 100-gigahertz, or 1,000-gigahertz) machine. What should students be learning about posing, representing, and solving problems within the areas that you teach, in light of the continued rapid improvements in computer speed?

Majority of U.S. Population Now On the Internet (2/4/02)

 * New numbers from the U.S. Commerce Department indicate that in 2001, the number of Americans who use the Web passed the 50% mark for the first time. The report found that 143 million Americans, or 54% of the population, were using the Internet as of September, up from 26% a year earlier. E-mail continues to be the favorite activity, regularly used by 45% of the population (up from 35% in 2000). The figures for young people aged 5-17 are especially noteworthy, with 90% now using computers. The study also indicated that the so-called "digital divide" is narrowing, with Internet use among the poorest citizens -- those earning less than $15,000 per household -- up 25%, while growth among the richest households is up only 11%. (Wall Street Journal 4 Feb 2002) http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1012
 * 789793162132080.djm,00.html (NewsScan Daily, 4 February 2002)

Comment: This brief news item does not tell us what percentage of various groups have Internet access from home. However, a significant fraction of K-12 students have relatively good computer access and connectivity access from home. Teachers and schools vary tremendously in how they make use of this resource. For example, some schools and school districts provide email accounts for students, while others do not. It is increasingly clear that schools have a responsibility to help all students learn to make effective use of Internet connectivity. One aspect of effective use is found in the routine, everyday (and often, all day) use that is typical of many adults. This type of use is certainly not being taught in schools that merely send their students to a computer lab a couple of times a week. Computers need to be in the classrooms.

Implanted Electrodes Help Paralyzed Man Walk Again (2/4/02)

 * A quadriplegic man who was paralyzed four years ago in an automobile accident has been able to walk a distance of three hundred yards after electrodes were implanted on his spinal cord to stimulate the neuro circuit, which coordinates leg muscles. If the therapy can be made to work on a large scale, it could benefit tens of thousands of other people who, though paralyzed, still have some feelings in their legs and are able to exert some control of their leg muscles. (San Jose Mercury News 1 Feb 2002) http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/walk020102.htm (NewsScan Daily, 1 February 2002)

Comment: This is another important step in developing replacements for human body parts. Through Information and Communications Technology, hearing has been restored to quite a few people, and sight has been restored to a few people. And, of course, we have had electronic pacemakers for many years, and brain implants are being used to help deal with some cases of epilepsy. What do you and your students think about this type of use of computer technology? Select one of the areas, such as a cochlear implant, and think about the possibility of somewhat similar technology providing a person with a direct computer feed into his/her brain. The computer might well be thought of as an auxiliary or supplementary brain. How would this affect education? Would it be cheating for a person to draw upon this computer when taking a test? Might some people who have normal hearing find it desiralbe to also have a cochlear implant?

Digital Equity Toolkit (2/2/02)

 * Digital Equity Toolkit [Online]. Accessed 2/2/02: http://www.nici-mc2.org/de_toolkit/. Quoting from the Website:
 * Edited by Joy Wallace, Senior Associate, National Institute for Community Innovations, and developed as a free resource for educators, professional developers, and teacher-education faculty by the National Institute for Community Innovations and made possible in part through funding from the U.S. Department of Education's PT3 (Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to use Technology) and Technology Innovation Challenge Grant programs, this Digital Equity Toolkit is committed to continually enhancing the Toolkit's contents.

Voice Input of Teacher's Lecture (1/28/02)

 * Stanford University is taking part in a pilot program to test a system that improves the odds of students with learning disabilities performing well in college. Test results of students who participated in the Liberated Learning Project (LLP) found that they no longer had to take notes at lectures where LLP was used. LLP uses voice-activated software, which immediately translates the instructor's words into print that flashes onto a large screen. Students with or without learning disabilities can get a copy of the lecture online, as can visually impaired students, who can have the notes translated into Braille. Hearing impaired students especially stand to benefit from the system. LLP has been tested at colleges and universities in Canada, Britain, and Australia. (Chronicle of Higher Education Online, 24 January 2002) (Edupage, January 25, 2002)

Comment: Voice input--indeed, voice input with translation into various languages--has been used in presentations at conferences. The ease of use and the quality of the results from voice input continue to become more effective through improvements in the hardware and software.

Managing the Memories: The Shoah Foundation (1/21/02)

 * The Shoah Foundation, dedicated to recording the remembrances of Holocaust survivors, is cataloging and distributing thousands of videotaped survivor testaments through digital asset management. The survivor videos are broken into segments with a customized back-end database; each segment is assigned one of 21,000 topic keywords, and then the testimonies are cataloged with lists of keywords, photos of survivors and their families, related documentaries, and textual descriptions. Roughly 5,000 out of more than 51,000 tapes have been cataloged thus far. In October, the National Science Foundation awarded the foundation $7.5 million to support a voice-recognition technology initiative. The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the University of Maryland in College Park, and IBM are subcontractors on the project. (Computerworld, 14 January 2002) (Edupage, January 18, 2002)

Comment: This project is attacking the problem of making thousands of hours of videotape materials available online, via the Web and other searchable databases. Other organizations, such as TV broadcasters, are also attacking this problem.

Steadily Increasing Amounts of Distance Learning in Higher Ed (1/21/02)

 * UMass Lowell Online Learning claims to be New England's largest provider of online courses. The program now offers an online graduate certificate in photonics and optoelectronics. The certificate provides an introduction to electro-optics and fiber optics, and students can specialize in medical optics, device physics, remote sensing/image processing, and fiber-optics, according to school officials. An undergraduate certificate program in the discipline is also available. UMass Lowell Online Learning offers more than 90 courses each semester on a variety of subjects and is part of the Division of Continuing Studies, Corporate, and Distance Education. Online degrees can be earned in educational administration, information technology, and liberal arts. (Optically Networked, 16 January 2002) (Edupage, January 18, 2002)

Comment: We are in the midst of a revolutionary change in the delivery of education. It is interesting to see individual initiative and entrepreneurship make the local decisions that lead to schools, school districts, higher educational institutions, states, and companies making the decision to increase their involvement in Distance Learning. This will gradually lead to:


 * Increased convenience for students.
 * Changes in the nature of the job of being a teacher.
 * Increased competition among institutions to recruit students.
 * A useful alternative learning environment for students.

It is not yet clear whether the statement "Bad money drives out good money" will also apply to the realm of Distance Learning. The quality of the courses and programs of study available through DL vary tremendously.

=The Year 2001=

IT in Education Spending for 2001-02 (12/24/01)
The following is quoted from Accessed 12/24/01: http://hellerreports.com/dte/lead3.html.


 * QED's new School Market Trends: District Technology Forecast 2001-2002 report, based on its Technology Purchasing Forecast series, projects total technology spending among U.S. public school districts at an estimated $7.0 billion for the 2000-2001 school year and projects expenditures of $7.05 billion (plus or minus 12%) in the subsequent (2001-2002) school year.
 * Over the last decade, the school technology market has shown steady increases. At first glance, QED's projections show district technology spending to be relatively flat for the 2001-2002 school year. However, the hard figures don't take into consideration the innovative new ways districts are finding to fund their technology purchases such as new extended-payment contracts with vendors and one-time grants from various government agencies to improve technology infrastructure and student-to-computer ratios. "The school technology market is more robust -- and becoming more predictable -- than other technology sectors; it is a market that technology companies should not ignore," said Andy Lacy, General Manager, QED.

Comment: The data suggest that the K-12 educational system is spending approximately two-percent of its budget on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). A significant fraction of this funding is coming from the U.S. Federal government eRate, and additional funding is coming from various states. This level of funding is woefully inadequate! For more about Moursund's thoughts on this topic see http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/ dave/three_editorials.htm

Supercomputer To Forecast Weather (12/23/01)

 * IBM will build the world's fastest supercomputer for weather prediction. The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) will be able to make four-day weather forecasts as accurate as three-day forecasts, according to European experts. IBM said the computer, dubbed Blue Storm, will be 1,700 times as fast as Deep Blue and will be capable of processing 7 trillion calculations per second when it debuts next year. By 2004, that peak rate will have surged to 20 trillion. ECMWF needs such formidable computing power in order to handle data gathered from 21 million grid points, as well as satellite imagery with higher resolution. ECMWF director David Burridge expects forecasting improvements to be gradual; the aim is to lengthen the forecast period by one day every decade. University of Oklahoma's Kelvin Droegemeier said efforts to use computers to predict the weather have been ongoing since the dawn of the Manhattan Project during the 1940s. (USA Today, 21 December 2001) (Edupage, December 21, 2001)

Comment: Weather forecasting is a good example of a discipline or professional field that has been significantly changed by Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The discipline and ICT are interwoven. For many years, the various weather bureaus throughout the world have made extensive use of the fastest computers currently available. Improvements in data gathering, computer modeling, underlying weather forecasting theory, and computer capabilities have contributed to improved forecasts.

Telesurgery (12/23/01)

 * In a discussion of "the telesurgery revolution" in The Futurist magazine, surgeon Jacques Marescau, a professor at the European Institute of Telesurgery, offers the following description of the success of the remotely performed surgical procedure as the beginning of a "third revolution" in surgery within the last decade: "The first was the arrival of minimally invasive surgery, enabling procedures to be performed with guidance by a camera, meaning that the abdomen and thorax do not have to be opened. The second was the introduction of computer-assisted surgery, where sophisticated software algorithms enhance the safety of the surgeon's movements during a procedure, rendering them more accurate, while introducing the concept of distance between the surgeon and the patient. It was thus a natural extrapolation to imagine that this distance--currently several meters in the operating room--could potentially be up to several thousand kilometers." A high-speed fiber optic connection between New York and France makes it possible to achieve an average time delay of only 150 milliseconds. "I felt as comfortable operating on my patient as if I had been in the room," says Marescaux. (The Futurist, Jan/Feb 2002) (NewsScan Daily, 20 December 2001)

Comment: This brief article discusses three major changes in surgery that have begun during the past decade, and that were made possible by progress in Information and Communication Technology(ICT). These are examples of ICT becoming a significant component of the field of medicine. Each area of human intellectual endeavor is being significantly changed by ICT. As educators, we should be implementing changes in curriculum content, instructional processes, assessment, and our own professional work to appropriately reflect the continuing rapid pace of change that ICT is bringing to all of the areas that we teach. Unfortunately, our rate of progress in these endeavors is lagging behind the pace of change of ICT.

Moving Toward a Huge Increase in Internet Addresses (12/6/01)

 * Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is being integrated into new routing equipment and polished by groups such as the Internet Engineering Task Force. The current standard, IPv4, only allows for 4.3 billion individual Internet addresses, which is fast becoming a problem as developing countries come online and the number of connected devices grows, since each Internet-connected device requires its own address. IPv6, in development since 1994, will allow many trillions of computing devices to be connected to the Internet. The standard is being ironed out so that it works seamlessly with the current IPv4 standard, and it will contain greater security features, said Juniper Networks' Kevin Dillon. Dillion said that IPv6 will allow "every car, every toaster, and every TV" in the world as well as every person to have an IP address, making them all accessible on the Internet. (Investor's Business Daily, 4 December 2001) (Edupage, December 5, 2001)

Comment: Think about the last sentence in this brief news item. We are moving rapidly toward connectivity of people and machines throughout the world. Increasingly, "ordinary people" will tell their machines what to do (that is, program their machines) and will be able to query their machines as to the current status on what they are doing. This suggests that our educational system should be giving more thought to helping students learn to "program" machines.

Are You "Future Ready?" (12/6/01)

 * When Darwin magazine asked John Sculley, the Pepsi Cola marketing genius who replaced Steve Jobs (and was himself eventually replaced) as CEO of Apple Computer, "What's the most important lesson that people can learn from technology?" he answered: "They can learn to be future-ready. That means they have to adapt to probably the biggest power shift since the introduction by Henry Ford 100 years ago. They have to adapt to a shift from producers in control of important business decisions to a new world where customers are in control of everything and customers are defining what brands they want. And the customers will be extremely demanding. They will want the best quality, the best service, the cheapest prices customized exactly the way they want it and they will want it right away. The question is, how does a company make money when customers have so much control over so many things?" (Darwin 15 Nov 2001) http://www.darwinmag.com/read/thoughts/ (NewsScan Daily, 5 December 2001)

Comment: This brief news item is aimed at business people. We (educators) are in the business of helping students learn. Education is a very large business. It is quite interesting and challenging to think about the educational system implications of John Scully's statement. Are you "future-ready?"

While educators have a strong focus on students, they do not tend to have a focus on the full range of "customers" in education, and the needs/desires of these customers. For example, we now have a relatively strong Federal law in the area of special education. The "special education" group of customers was not satisfied with how our educational system was treating them. They chose a Feder legal route to improving the situation.

The improved communication with and availability to information made possible by the Internet and the Web is gradually empowering students, parents, and other educationally-oriented stakeholder groups. Distance Learning via the Internet is adding a new dimension to the educational system. Our Federal government is continuing to put significant funds into supporting the Charter School movement.

In essence, what is happening is that there is growing competition with our traditional, public school system of education. This system will gradually lose customers if it does not appropriately respond to the growing competition.

IBM Says Two Transistor Gates Are Better Than One (12/3/01)

 * IBM has made another chip technology breakthrough, announcing the development of a transistor with two gates instead of one -- an advance that will block the flow of electrons more securely, preventing the leakage that can occur as transistors get ever smaller. VP Bijan Davari says the double-gate approach significantly lowers a transistor's energy usage, thus reducing the heat given off by the processor (which can melt the transistor) and solving another problem that has threatened the continuance of Moore's Law, which postulates that semiconductors will continue to double in performance every 18 months. This latest development probably won't be introduced until 2007, says Davari, because a recently announced innovation called strained silicon is providing better-than-expected results, postponing the need to introduce another technology. (Wall Street Journal 3 Dec 2001) http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1007337759524046600.htm (NewsScan Daily, 3 December 2001)

Comment: One might ask why there has been so much emphasis (in these Brief News Items) on giving examples of technological progress during the past few months. If further progress in computer speed ceased, it would be many, many years before the software began to catch up to the software. However, in some sense the increased speed, storage capacity, and connectivity of computers is giving us the "easy" part of progress in ICT. If this progress continues, it tends to make it easier to bring technology into everyday life and everyday education. For example, we are just now getting the compute power to have voice input to a handheld machine. We do not yet have the compute power (nor the knowledge) to do good translation of voice input from one language to another. We do not yet have the compute power needed to study the protein folding that goes on as the body develops proteins. There are many problems that scientists want to study that require far more compute power than is currently avail;able. Thus, progress in computer technology is still very important.

Intel Announces Another Technological Breakthrough (11/26/01)

 * Intel has developed a new structure and material for making transistors, enabling the chipmaker to pack more and faster circuits onto silicon chips, while reducing heat and power consumption. The new technology, dubbed "the terahertz transistor," will enable Intel to develop chips with capabilities such as real-time voice and face recognition. The company says the terahertz transistors will be as small as 15 nanometers across, compared with the 70 nanometers currently possible. Some elements of the new technology will begin appearing in Intel chips as early as 2005. (Wall Street Journal 26 Nov 2001) http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/
 * SB100672410132137880.htm (sub req'd) (NewsScan Daily, 26 November 2001)

Comment: As noted in several of the Brief News Items, various companies are continuing to make significant progress that will lead to more powerful microcomputers. Currently, "experts" seem to be predicting that Moore's Law will continue to be a good prediction of the future until sometime in the 2010 to 2015 time range. Then, one of two things will happen. The silicone technology (and similar technology) will no longer be able to produce the continued rate of improvement in transistor technology, and no replacement will have been developed. Or, replacement technology will have been developed that will lead to equal or even faster improvements in transistor technology and capabilities of Information and Communications Technology. Note that a change from 70 nanometers to 15 nanometers is a change by a factor of 70/15 = 4.67. Assuming that this ratio holds for both length and width, it portends an improvement by a factor of more than 20 in the number of transistors that fit into a given sized chip.

Army Intranet: World's Largest (11/20/01)

 * The U.S. Army has unveiled its Army Knowledge Online Portal allowing all active and retired personnel to access hundreds of Army internal sites, servers, and resources. With a storage capacity three times the size of the Library of Congress', the network will use six servers and three document management servers to provide access for the estimated 1 million to 3 million users who are expected to sign up. Information will be personalized and targeted, based on a person's rank, experience, location, and duties. Users can use everything from instant messaging to retrieving e-mails to finding relevant military information. To compensate for different types of Internet connections, the network will be integrated with software that detects the type of connection and chooses an appropriate version of a site for downloading. (Wired News, 15 November 2001) (Edupage, November 19, 2001)

Comment: This brief article provides a good example of individualization of education/information services. A good sense of direction for our educational system would be to provide a similar level of individualization for all students.

Digital Archaeology (11/8/01)

 * The field of archaeology will receive a big boost from 3D computer modeling techniques. Thanks to a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers at Columbia University are building digital tools that will enable archaeologists to examine the details of sites without having to dig or damage structures. The new 3D modeling techniques will also allow archaeologists to take virtual tours of sites. The digital tools include a mobile robot equipped with a laser scanner for taking high-detail shots above ground, and a radar sensor for taking shots deep underground. A 3D model of sites can be produced once the data is scanned into a computer. Initial tests already have been completed, but there are plans to test the digital tools at the Amheida site in the Dakhla Oasis, in the western desert of Egypt, and to put the computerized data of the site online. (InformationWeek, 29 October 2001) (Edupage, November 7, 2001)

Comment: In every area of research, IT has become an accepted and useful tool. Computer models and computer simulation are now part of each scholarly discipline--part of the way of knowing and doing or using each discipline. Our K-12 education and teacher education system is not doing well in keeping up with this major change.

George Lucas Foundation Report on Project-Based Learning (11/7/01)

 * The George Lucas Educational Foundation is an excellent source of information about IT in education. The homepage was accessed 11/7/01 at: http://glef.org/. A November 6, 2001, report from the Foundation focuses on Project-Based Learning (PBL). It contains a number of good examples of PBL at various grade levels and in various subject areas.

Comment: IT-assisted PBL is a relatively new and a quite exciting addition to our educational system. For more information about this topic see: Moursund, D.G. Workshop on IT-Assisted Project-Based [Online]. Accessed 11/7/01: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/PBL/.

Computational Neurobiology (11/7/01)

 * Synopsis of Program: The most exciting and difficult challenge facing neuroscientists is to understand the functions of complex neurobiological systems. Computational neuroscience provides a theoretical foundation and set of technological approaches that may enhance our understanding of nervous system function by providing analytical and modeling tools that describe, traverse and integrate different levels of organization, spanning vast temporal and spatial scales. Computational approaches are needed in the study of neuroscience as the requirement for comprehensive analysis and interpretation of complex data sets becomes increasingly important. Collaborations among computer scientists, cognitive scientists, engineers, theoreticians and neurobiologists are imperative to advance our understanding of the nervous system.


 * Participating Directorates of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Institutes of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (see cover list) plan to support interdisciplinary research in computational neuroscience. Both agencies recognize the need for research that focuses on integrating computational models and methods with neuroscience. This solicitation is designed to encourage new and existing collaborations at this interface.

The above is a National Science Foundation RFP [Online]. Accessed 11/7/01: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2002/ nsf02018/nsf02018.html.

Comment: In all fields of science, "computational" is now one of the ways of knowing and working in the field. This represents a major change from "theoretical" and "experimental" being the two major approaches to science disciplines. And, of course, it represents a major challenge to our educational system. Students learning science (at all grade levels) need to understand that computer modeling and simulation is one of the really important tools of a scientist today.

Comment added 2/27/2011: See http://collaborative-research-in-computational-neuroscience.idilogic.aidpage.com/collaborative-research-in-computational-neuroscience/?ShowVisitorSum=1&IVL_PageNumber=0 for a 2005 National Science Foundation followup to the 2001 document.

IBM Introduces Self-Healing Business Software Systems (10/31/01)

 * Adapting the same kind of "brute force" computing strategy of its chess-playing Deep Blue supercomputer, IBM's e-business Management Services is introducing "self-healing" business software that will allow machines to detect and work around failing parts and work overloads without requiring the intervention of onsite technicians. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, the company's vice president for technology and strategy, says: "This is really the essence of making systems behave in an intelligent manner... God knows if this means they are intelligent. But what we really like about this, and we learned a lot about this in Deep Blue, is the brute force techniques of having a lot of information and a lot of computer power is the most effective way of making systems behave in what we humans would call intelligence." (Reuters/San Jose Mercury News 31 Oct 2001) http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/
 * news/svfront/076589.htm (NewsScan Daily, 31 October 2001)

Comment: Almost all serious computer users are frustrated by the occasional and/or frequent crashes of their machines. (We certainly would not fly in airplanes or drive in cars that malfunctioned so frequently.) Hardware and software developers recognize the problem and are making some progress in addressing it. This brief article indicates progress is occurring. Apple's OS X for the Macintosh represents progress. The field has a long way to go!

Social Aspects of Distance Learning (10/22/01)

 * Typically, online college education lacks the social interaction of traditional colleges, such as football games and concerts. And that is problematic, said John Seely Brown, co-author of "The Social Life of Information." Since online universities focus mainly on educational issues, Brown argued, they do not provide the social context that makes learning meaningful. Students need to converse, argue, have discussion groups, and so on, he said. Internet courses at colleges, businesses, and other places are slowly becoming more socially interactive. Many institutions have substituted a number of social elements in their online classes. They include e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, and threaded discussion boards, which provide more intimacy among students, said John Flores of the U.S. Distance Learning Association. He added that tools such as streaming media, videoconferencing, and other multimedia technologies will help make e-learning more like campus learning. (CIO, 15 October 2001) (Edupage, October 22, 2001)

Comment: John Seely Brown has had a long and distinguished career that has touched on a variety of important topics in the field of computers in education as well as other aspects of computer and information science. For 10 years, ending in the year 2000, he was the director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). In this brief article he reminds us that education is a social endeavor. Our current educational system has had many years in which to adjust to the social needs of students. Distance Learning has a long way to go. However, steady improvements in telecommunications are contributing to significant progress in this endeavor.

Average Lifespan of Corporate PCs (10/16/01)
The following is quoted from page 84 of the October 15, 2001 issue of Business Week.


 * "…the average lifespan of a corporate PC is expected to rise to four years by 2004, from 3.3 years in 1999, according to researcher Gartner, Inc."

Comment: The quote is from the cover story article titled "Intel." The article notes that growth of sales of microcomputers has slowed. One reason is that an increasing number of people are seeing that the gain in speed and other features obtained by replacing a computer that is only three years or so old may not be worth the money. There are some types of microcomputer use that can take full advantage of state of the art microcomputers. A great many computer users, however, are well served by lesser machines.

Voice Input to Replace Use of Stylus on Handhelds (10/13/01)

 * Technologists at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and other speech recognition labs are pioneering new software that makes the handheld computer a voice-computing platform. Such computers are able to accept voice commands and reply to questions. Currently, IBM has succeeded in equipping Palm and Compaq PDAs and other handhelds with microphones, speakers, and extra processing power so that they can be operated without a stylus. This approach capitalizes on recent improvements in battery life and processing power. The strategy differs from that of Microsoft, which favors wireless connections between handhelds and central processors that translate voice data. Meanwhile, speech software company Voice Signal Technologies has succeeded in compacting its voice recognition software to about one megabyte of memory, letting handhelds process e-mail dictation. (New York Times, 11 October 2001) (Edupage, October 12, 2001)

Comment: It is fun to watch the progress of voice input technology. And, in recent years, the progress has been impressive. However, voice input has some inherent limitations. Imagine lecturing to a class in which all students are using voice input to take notes!

AMD Introduces New Chip (10/9/01)

 * Advanced Micro Devices is introducing a new line of microprocessors called the Athlon XP, each of which is packed with at least half a million transistors, and which requires only 80% of the power needed for previous generations of Athlon. AMD holds about 20% of the PC chip market (compared to Intel's 80%), and has set its prices using overall performance rather than clock speed. Athlon XP performance will be determined with verification of Andersen, the professional services firm. The AMD position is using clock speed as a performance measure is like buying a car based on how fast its pistons fire, rather than on how fast the car accelerates. (AP/Washington Post 9 Oct 2001) (NewsScan Daily, 9 October 2001)

Comment: It is interesting to compare this brief news item with Intel Wraps Up Another Chip Breakthrough. There is a limited amount of competition in the microcomputer CPU field. AMD's comment about performance is quite important. The issue is, can my microcomputer do what I want it to do? This is quite different from "What is the clock speed of my microcomputer?" Research progress is continuing on efforts to make smaller transistors. A nice summary of part of the state-of-the-art is given at http://www.bell-labs.com/ news/2001/october/17/1.html

Intel Wraps Up Another Chip Breakthrough (10/9/01)

 * Intel has developed a new "bumpless" chip packaging technology that it says will enable it to build microprocessors with more than a billion transistors, compared with the 42 million now available on its current high-end Pentium 4 chip. The bumpless technology eliminates the solder "bumps" that connect the tiny wires to a silicon chip. "The problem with the use of bumps is that as chips become ever more complex, there is a risk that they will touch each other and thus will short-circuit the device," says an Intel researcher. The technology could also be used to combine several microprocessors in an extremely thin format, creating new opportunities for different types of computer products. Intel says the bumpless packaging will not be launched in commercial products for at least three to four years. (Financial Times 8 Oct 2001) (NewsScan Daily, 8 October 2001)

Comment: This "breakthrough" represents a gain by a factor of about 24 in the number of transistors in a CPU chip. In terms of the Moore's Law prediction of component density in a CPU chip, this represents more than five years of predicted change. It suggests that microprocessors are continuing on a path of very rapid increases in capability. See the Brief News Items for July, August, September 2001 to find other examples of continued rapid progress in IT hardware.

Public Computing On A Terabyte Scale (10/5/01)

 * The world's second-most powerful computer, the Terascale Computing System (TCS), was launched this week. Capable of 6 trillion floating point operations per second, TCS will be used to conduct public scientific research that former President Clinton said would "accelerate the pace of discovery in science and engineering--allowing us to better predict tornadoes, speed up the discovery of life-saving drugs, and design more fuel-efficient engines." The National Science Foundation, which funded the system's creation and maintenance, acts as an underwriter. Over the next six months, TCS will be involved in numerous projects, including a global simulation of the magnetosphere, cosmological structures studies, and cancer drug testing. TCS is housed in the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. The center's scientific director, Mike Levine, expects testing to continue for a few more months before the system is completely operational. (Wired News, 4 October 2001) (Edupage, October 5, 2001)

Comment: This computer is perhaps 4,000 times as fast as top of the line microcomputers. Thus, it can do in one second an amount of computation that would take an hour on a modern microcomputer. Notice the range of problems that are being addressed. A very large number of researchers are working at the state of the art in in various aspects of computational approaches to some important research questions. In any academic discipline, "Computational" is now one of the ways to represent and attempt to solve challenging research questions. For the most part, this aspect of computer use is not yet being taught in our K-12 schools or in teacher education programs.

IT, Airport Security, and Privacy (10/24/01)
As an aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., security at airports is being tightened. The following two brief news items discuss potential roles of IT in this endeavor. They can be used to facilitate (heated) discussion in social studies classes.


 * FACE-RECOGNITION SYSTEM RECOMMENDED FOR AIRPORT SECURITY
 * A government committee appointed to review airport security procedures will recommend to Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta the employment of face-recognition systems that create a digital map of a person's face and translates it into mathematical formulas claimed to be as uniquely distinguishing as a fingerprint. Privacy advocates like David Sobel regard this as a "potentially invasive technology" whose use will eventually expand to other purposes and endanger the civil liberties of ordinary people. The president of FaceIt Systems, one of the best-known manufacturers of face-recognition systems, says he shares privacy concerns and asserts that the answer is to have rules governing whose photos can be included in a database of suspects or criminals for comparison with mere passers-by. (Washington Post 24 Sep 2001) (NewsScan Daily, 24 September 2001)


 * ELLISON PROPOSES NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION SYSTEM
 * Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison says that America needs to create a national identification card system, and is offering to donate Oracle's database software to make such a system possible: "We need a national ID card with our photograph and thumbprint digitized and embedded in the ID card. We need a database behind that, so when you're walking into an airport and you say that you are Larry Ellison, you take that card and put it in a reader and you put your thumb down and that system confirms that this is Larry Ellison." Asked about privacy concerns, he responded: "Well, this privacy you're concerned about is largely an illusion. All you have to give up is your illusions, not any of your privacy. Right now, you can go onto the Internet and get a credit report about your neighbor and find out where your neighbor works, how much they earn and if they had a late mortgage payment, and tons of other information. Ellison argues that shoppers now have to disclose more information to make a purchase at a shopping mall than they do to get on an airplane, and poses the following question: "Let me ask you. There are two different airlines. Airline A says before you board that airplane you prove you are who you say you are. Airline B, no problem. Anyone who has the price of a ticket, they can go on that airline. Which airplane do you get on?" (San Jose Mercury News 23 Sep 2001) (NewsScan Daily, 24 September 2001)

Fuel Cells for Laptop Computers (9/13/01)
Batteries for handheld and other small portable electronic devices are a major problem. The following brief news item suggests that we will soon have fuel cells that far outperform current batteries.


 * (September 9, 2001). The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Accessed 9/13/01: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/personal_tech_b3a95e5ee449007900fa.html.
 * Someday soon, you may own a cellular phone or laptop computer that runs on methanol, the same fuel that powers drag racers. Both NEC and Sony are working on the technology right now, using fuel cells that turn methanol into electricity. These new batteries are much more efficient than the current king-of-the-hill battery, lithium-ion. NEC claims the new batteries offer 10 times more power per weight than lithium-ion at a comparable cost. The company says it could begin production by 2002. The new batteries would let mobile phones and laptops last for weeks without recharging.

Here is material from a 1999 article that discussed progress in developing such fuel cells:


 * Parrish, Michael (December 30, 1999). Fuel Cells Power Brave New Energy World. Environmental News Network [Online]. Accessed 9/13/01: http://www.enn.com/enn-features
 * archive/1999/12/123099/featurefuel_6347.asp
 * A new, lightweight fuel cell that runs on methanol may one day power your electric car. Sooner still, the new cell may fuel smaller devices such as your weed-wacker, lap-top computer or mobile phone.
 * If they work, methanol fuel cells could be a major breakthrough in energy consumption and conservation. The brave new technology could drastically cut air pollution from auto emissions and other sources.


 * Whether they are used to run cars and buses or to make electricity for other applications, fuel cells operate by converting hydrogen to electricity without combustion. They are akin to continuously-recharging batteries. Hydrogen and oxygen are fed into a stack of plates that create electricity, with harmless water vapor as the byproduct.


 * These silent, zero-emission gadgets have long been used in NASA spacecraft. They represent the great hope of many environmentalists to power the first mass-produced electric car. While batteries alone haven't supplied the performance most drivers want, proponents believe that fuel cells, probably combined with batteries, hold the promise of performance, range and better mileage compared with today's internal combustion engines.


 * The size and weight of fuel cells have always been problems. New fuel-cell technology promises to solve those issues.


 * Fuel cells can use various sources of hydrogen, including a simple tank of compressed gas. But methanol, a liquid usually produced from natural gas, is a much more efficient way to store hydrogen. This is why the first wave of fuel cells in cars will likely use an indirect methanol fuel cell, in which the methanol passes through a mechanism called a "reformer," which extracts the hydrogen.


 * The direct method, which could be available commercially in five or six years, would use different, lighter stacks of plates that eliminate the need for a reformer. Thus, the proposed next generation of fuel cells could be smaller, lighter and more adaptable. "You could put them into consumer electronic products," says Todd Marsh, president and CEO of Los Angeles-based DTI Energy, a small technology company.


 * Marsh envisions fuel cells in lawn mowers, snow-blowers, jet skis and other mobile devices which now contribute to noise and air pollution, and which don't run well on batteries.


 * A lap-top computer, for instance, could work much longer on a tiny fuel cell than on rechargeable batteries. "Then, rather than waiting for the thing to recharge, you could simply slip in another ampoule of methanol," says Marsh.


 * Marsh is licensing the patent for a direct-methanol fuel cell developed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Comment: Notice that the prediction in December of 1999 was that it would take 5-6 years to bring the first products to market. Now, it appears that the first products will be available in about half that time. If this technology works out as projected, it could be of considerable help to "road warriors." (Although the term "road warriors" usually refers to business people who spend a lot of time traveling, it seems that it could equally well refer to many millions of students and others who are "employed" in other areas.)

Faster, Cheaper CPU Chips (8/23/01)

 * Intel is releasing its new 2-gigahertz microprocessor, to be priced in the mid-$500 range (about half of what it charged for its fastest chips a year ago); prices on the older Pentium chips will be cut by as much as 54%, as part of a continuing price war between Intel and Advanced Micro Devices. Industry analyst Douglas Lee says, "Intel has made it very clear that they are going to rapidly push the Pentium 4 into the mainstream desktop. I don't think Intel's mission is to kill AMD. Their primary mission is to stimulate PC demand. What that does to AMD is helpful to their business, but I don't think it's the primary objective." (AP/San Jose Mercury News 23 Aug 2001) http://www.siliconvalley.com:: /docs/news/svfront/004841.htm (NewsScan Daily, 23 August 2001)

Comment: Notice that the pace of change discussed in this brief article is more than a doubling in one year. This exceeds the pace of change predicted by Moore's Law.

Possibly Much Cheaper Flat Panel Displays (8/13/01)
Page 73 of the 8/13/01 issue of Business Week contains a short article on a proposed new way of manufacturing flat panel displays. First, the article notes that the price of flat panel displays has halved during the past year. Then the article discusses a new manufacturing method that may decrease current prices by a factor of 10, while doubling the pixel density. The screens would be made of plastic and have a some flexibility, be lighter than current flat panels, and be more durable. It would be possible to manufacture very large screens. The article indicates that it will take three or more years to commercialize the technology.

Comment: If this technology proves to be commercially successful, it will represent a tremendous breakthrough in computer display technology as well as in television displays.

Mandatory Distance Learning Coursework (8/7/01)

 * E-learning will be mandatory for Fairleigh Dickinson students beginning this fall. Students will have to take at least one online course every year. Students will interact entirely through online bulletin boards, e-mails, chat rooms, and Web conferencing; books are optional. Freshmen will take a class called Global Challenge, a course on environment, culture, society, and politics. However, the first six lessons will be conducted face-to-face to help students ease into the situation, said Professor Jason Scorza. After their first year, students will be able to choose online courses from a variety offered. (New York Times--Education Life, 5 August 2001) (Edupage, August 6, 2001)

Comment: This is a very forward-looking initiative. It is clear that we are moving rapidly toward distance learning becoming a significant factor in education at all levels. Thus, it is important for students to learn how to learn in an online learning environment.

IBM Adopts "Grid Computing" Strategy (8/7/01)

 * IBM is making a major commitment to the development of "grid computing," in which any computer connected to the Internet --even a handheld device -- will have supercomputer-level processing power, as well as access to enormous databases and the use of a huge variety of application programs. The person credited with the original idea of using computer power as an electricity-like utility is the M.I.T. computer scientist J.C.R. Licklider, who suggested in a 1960 paper "Man-Machine Symbiosis" ways in which computers could augment human intelligence. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, the head of IBM's grid computing initiative, predicts that "as grids go commercial use, we think everyone will jump in." Companies that have already "jumped in" -- at least with announcements -- include Sun, Microsoft, Pfizer, Ericsson, Hitachi, BMW, Glaxo, Smith-Kline, and Unilever. Rice University professor Ken Kennedy says: "The goal is that the grid becomes the computing engine for the Internet in the way that the Web is the information engine. The real long term is that this becomes the problem-solving mechanism for society." (The New York Times 2 Aug 2001) http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/08/
 * 02/technology/02BLUE.html (NewsScan Daily, 2 August 2001)

Comment: Grid Computing is a very important concept. When taken together with the Internet, we can see the emergence of both powerful connectivity and powerful compute power being made available from quite modest devices--often hand-held and battery powered. Our educational system needs to think in terms of every student having such a device for communication, information storage and retrieval, and information processing. J.C.R. Licklider's 1960 paper is available [Online] Accessed 8/7/01: http://memex.org/licklider.pdf.

Laptop Computers for Every 7th Grade Student in Maine (8/6/01)
[Online]. Accessed 8/6/01: http://www.educationweek.org/ ew/ewstory.cfm?slug=42recap.h20#maine. Quoting from the website:


 * After considering the idea since early last year, the Maine legislature has passed a law that will guarantee putting a portable computer in the hands of each 7th grader in the state starting in fall 2002.

But lawmakers challenged Gov. Angus S. King, Jr., who proposed the program, to raise the money needed to ensure those students will continue to have a laptop with them in school until they graduate.


 * "We're really excited to hit the ground running," said Yellow Light Breen, the director of special projects for the Maine Department of Education. "This will make Maine the first state to move toward one-to-one access."


 * In the biggest education legislation of their session, the lawmakers passed a version of Gov. King's proposal to provide laptops for all schoolchildren, an idea he put forward more than a year ago. They appropriated $30 million for the project -- instead of the $50 million Mr. King had requested -- and challenged the governor to raise $15 million in private money to create an endowment so the program will be self-sustaining. They also declared that schools will own the laptops, not students, as Mr. King had proposed. "It's not their own," said Sen. Betty Lou Mitchell, a Republican and a co-chairwoman of the legislature's joint committee on education and cultural affairs. "If they need to take it home for homework, they sign it out with a library card."


 * In addition to buying new computers, the laptop fund will pay for training to help show teachers how best to use the wealth of new technology at their disposal. Mr. Breen estimates that the state will buy almost 20,000 computers annually for the program. It has enough money to last five years without additional funds from private donors, he said.


 * The education department is still determining how the program will operate in future years. It hasn't decided, for example, whether the 7th graders will keep using the laptops purchased for them as they move through middle school and high school, or will get new ones every year while students in the earlier grades use the old machines, Mr. Breen said. The state may leave the decision to local officials, he added.

Comment: Notice that some money for teacher training is included. However, it is not clear that they realize that laptops tend to have relatively high repair costs over the years. And, it is clear that some of the details of dealing with this infusion of laptops still need to be worked out. The news item is interesting in that it is representative of a trend toward every student having computer access whenever it suits their purposes.

Search Engines and Built-in Advertising (8/1/01)

 * (USA) -- Journalists who are heavy users of search engines should beware, says columnist J.D. Lasica. It turns out that the results churned out are skewed in many cases by search engines' policies of "selling" placements to the highest bidder. "The more you pay, the higher you'll appear in the search engine results," explains Lasica. The problem arises when search engines, including Lycos, HotBot, AltaVista, LookSmart, MSN.com, Netscape, iWon and Direct Hit (owned by Ask Jeeves), fail to clearly differentiate paid listings from those identified through objective search algorithms. "This is a breach of the editorial-advertising line," says Gary Ruskin, executive director of consumer watchdog Commercial Alert. "This is like one day opening your newspaper and finding it filled with nothing but ads," says Danny Sullivan, editor of Searchenginewatch. Most of the search engines dismiss the issue with assertions that users are savvy enough to know that results aren't always what they seem, but Lasica says, "Such is the arrogant, Alice-in-Wonderland, upside-down world of Internet executives." He challenges search engine companies to return results that are "clean and unsullied. Display your paid listings, too, in a separate area, but be honest and upfront about them... Don't deceive us, and don't belittle us by saying we're too shallow to care about editorial integrity." Finally, Lasica points out that there are some honest search engines out there -- Google, Yahoo and Excite either post paid listings in a separate area or don't take them at all. (Online Journalism Review 23 Jul 2001) http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.sfm?request=611 NEWS-ON-NEWS/The Ifra Trend Report: No. 105 (1 August 2001)

Comment: In the "good old days" the Card Catalog method of indexing library materials was relatively standardized. Now, we have a much larger library to index (think of the Web as a Global Library). People are highly dependent on search engines. Each search engine has its own approach to prioritizing its findings in response to a search request. The brief article indicates that advertising dollars may play a role in this prioritization in some search engines. And, one can imagine a search engine being constructed with a strong built-in bias towards certain points of view. (A frightening concept!)

Poorer Countries Get Free E-Access to Medical Journals (7/21/01)

 * (USA) -- Mirroring the drug industry's newfound commitment to make medicines for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis more widely available to Third World countries, six publishing houses recently announced they will provide free electronic access to about 1,000 medical journals to medical schools, research laboratories and government health departments in poorer countries. Piloted by the World Health Organization, the program will benefit about 600 institutions, mostly in Africa, and will include training in research techniques. Institutions in countries in which the per-capita gross national product (GNP) is less than US$1,000 a year will receive the journals free. In countries where the per-capita GNP is US$1,000 to US$3,000, there would be a minimal charge. Companies do not have to agree to give away electronic subscriptions in countries where they have substantial sales now, although some have indicated they may be willing to. The medical journals will be available through an Internet portal the WHO is creating as part of the Health InterNetwork. The portal will both guarantee security and provide necessary tools, such as engines for searching the journals, said Joan Dzenowagis, the WHO project manager for the Health InterNetwork. Participating publishers include Elsevier, Wolters Kluwer, Blackwell, Harcourt General, Springer-Verlag and John Wiley & Sons. (Washington Post 9 Jul 2001) http://www.washingtonpost.com/
 * wp-dyn/articles/A33714-2001Jul8.html (The Ifra Trend Report: No. 103. 18 July 2001)

Comment: The Web can be thought of as a Global Library. The issue is, who gets access to the library? Are there important parts of the library that are not available to people because they cannot afford the cost? This brief news item on medical journals helps to make the problem clear, and indicates one approach to dealing with part of the problem. It costs a great deal to publish medical journals. The question is, who should pay for them? In the example given above, the publishers of these journals are giving the journals away in select countries, and selling them at a reduced price in others.

Notice that the gift will be accompanied by training in the use of the facilities. This is an important aspect of the Digital Divide issue. It is not enough to provide IT hardware, connectivity, and software to people. Training (more importantly, education) is also essential.

Online Master's Degree Coming to Arizona (7/21/01)

 * Chris Herstam, member of the Arizona Board of Regents, reported that the board voted on June 29 to establish a program that allows students at Arizona Regents University to complete a master's degree in engineering online. The program integrates e-learning courses culled from all three state universities, and the regents plan to follow up the engineering degree program with similar programs in nursing and education. (Associated Press, 9 July 2001) (Edupage, July 16, 2001)

Comment: There are more and more online degree programs coming from well-established colleges and universities. Each new announcement, such as the one above, lends credibility to the online degree. Notice that the Arizona program draws upon coursework from "all three state universities." Online education is leading to an increased level of collaboration among institutions that -- in some sense -- also compete with each other.

Microcomputers: Oregon vs. South Dakota (7/16/01)
A July 3, 2001, press release from the state of South Dakota indicated that the state had funded the purchase of 16,040 microcomputers to be given to schools in time for use this fall. When added to the currently installed base, this will produce an average of one microcomputer per 2.3 students. The current networking infrastructure within the state and the schools will allow 70-percent of these machines to be online at any one time.

In this bulk purchase, Gateway microcomputers with monitors, CD-ROM, floppy drive, and connectivity cost $510 each. Apple Imac 400 Indigo units (roughly comparably equipped, but without a floppy drive) cost $474 apiece.

The press release is available [Accessed 7/16/01] http://www.distance-educator.com/dn2.phtml?id=4481.

Comment:Educators in Oregon might ask why the Oregon Legislature has been unwilling and/or unable to directly help fund microcomputers. They may also wonder why Oregon students should have computer access that is less than half as good as do the students in South Dakota. Note the prices for these machines!

Crackdown on Pirated Software in Schools (7/11/01)

 * Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a coalition of industry players, are including schools as part of their continuing efforts to smoke out pirated software. Recent targets have included the school districts of Philadelphia, where 264 schools are auditing all copies of software currently in use, and San Jose, where the BSA demanded $560,000 in reparations for between 50 and 100 illegal software copies. Although that fine was negotiated down to only $50,000, critics say Microsoft and the BSA have confused their priorities. Many of the school districts under siege barely have enough money to fund basic needs--Philadelphia, for example, has warned that it will not be able to pay its staff next year without outside help--let alone the cost of auditing entire IT departments and paying punitive damages. Microsoft and the BSA claim that they are treating schools no differently from how they would treat any other software pirate; in addition, as even some educators have pointed out, Microsoft and its allies have provided schools with assistance in developing systems to detect and prevent software piracy. (Salon.com, 10 July 2001) (Edupage, July 11, 2001)

Comment: The use of pirated software in education has been a serious and continuing problem. Those doing the pirating are able to make up all kinds of "good reasons or justifications" for their actions. Many others who are using the software may not be aware that it is pirated. Some schools and school districts do an excellent job of maintaining careful control over the software that is used on their computers. They consider that doing so is part of the cost of having computers available for student and staff use. Moreover, it helps to send a message to both students and staff that this is an important legal issue, and that the school or school district intends to be legal in its use of software.

The brief article suggests that some school districts are violating software copyright laws, and that they face significant fines. Readers of this news article and comment may want to ask themselves: "Is my school following high standards of software legality?"

Increasing Bandwidth of Fiber Optics (7/6/01)

 * Fiber-optic lines can handle up to 100 terabits of data per second, enough to transmit 2 billion phone calls or 20 billion one-page e-mails, reported scientists at Lucent Technologies' Bell Laboratories. That speed is far faster than the current rate of fiber optic transmission and 10 times faster than the top speed previously achieved in laboratory experiments. Previous attempts to identify the maximum speed possible on fiber-optic systems have been stymied by the number of variables in the technology, which depends on the behavior of light and the physical properties of glass. However, the Bell Laboratories scientists built a model of a fiber-optic system by using quantum physics and information theory. The scientists say their conclusions prove that fiber optics will be more than able to handle high-bandwidth technologies. "The fact that you know networks can be scaled in this way means optical fiber is a good way to grow your system," said physicist Partha Mitra, who led the Bell Laboratories research team. (InformationWeek.com, 28 June 2001) (Edupage, July 6, 2001)

Comment: The human mind is not well suited to understanding numbers like 100 terabits, or 100,000,000,000,000 bits. Thus, we use analogies, such as "2 billion phone calls." Even then, such a large number does not have much meaning to most people. Roughly speaking, if all of the phones in the world were simultaneously being used in voice communication, this would generate somewhat less than 100 terabits per second of data. It is fairly common for a school to be served by a T1 line that has a bandwidth of approximately 1.5 million bits per second. This allows quite a few microcomputers in a school to be simultaneously connected to the Internet and to have a fairly decent response time.

Note that 100 terabits is about 67 million times a T1 line. This is enough bandwidth to give every student, teacher, and other staff member in our K-12 school system an individual T1 line. Or, as noted in the article, it is a lot of bandwidth.

Notice also the "10 times faster" statement in the article. Wow -- a gain by a factor of 10 through one set of improvements in the technology! We have come to take such rates of progress in IT as commonplace. Our educational system is struggling to learn to make use of the computer facilities and the connectivity currently available in schools. The continued rapid pace of improvement in the technology is far exceeding our growth in understanding of how to make effective use of the technology in education.

Search Engines Fail To Keep Up with Growing Web (3/28/01)

 * Experts say search engines are having a difficult time keeping up with the amount of content on the Internet as well as the rapidly changing technology used to make that content available. There may be as many as 550 billion Web pages, experts estimate, but the most comprehensive search engines can process only a fraction of them. While it is still relatively easy to find content on a popular subject, experts say the vast catalog of business, scientific, and legal content falls under the radar of search engines. Experts call this buried content the "deep" or "invisible" Web. The problem is not simply that search engines cannot keep up with the amount of content added to the Web each day. Many sites actively work to keep search-engine software from accessing some or all of their content in order to protect their proprietary interests. Experts add that the growing amount of multimedia content available online is also problematic for search engines, which are largely geared toward text. (Reuters, 26 March 2001) (Edupage, March 28, 2001)

Comment: Google is an excellent search engine. On 3/29/01, Google indicated that their search engine was searching 1,346,966,000 Web pages. Thus, Google is accessing less than 1/4 of 1% of the total number of Web pages that the article estimates actually exist.

Fair Use in Online Education Environments (3/22/01)

 * A recently introduced Senate bill called the Technology Education and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH) would let educators using distance-learning materials in digital formats use various copyrighted material without getting permission from the content owner. The bill modernizes the Copyright Act of 1976 for the digital age, updating the fair-use distance-education provisions contained in the original legislation. TEACH would scrap the current requirement that learning must take place in a physical classroom and would ensure that the distance-learning exemption covers the temporary copies that must be created in networked file servers to transmit content over the Web. The bill would also change the current regulations to enable educators to display to students "limited" portions of "dramatic" literature, music, audiovisual, and sound recordings, as well as the total versions of non-dramatic literature and musical works. (eSchool News Online, 19 March 2001) (Edupage, March 21, 2001)


 * Education consulting firm WorldClass Strategies recently conducted a survey of 110 college and university faulty members engaged in online learning projects and studied 100 online courses. WorldClass Strategies President Lee Alley, formerly a college professor, said the study revealed that such programs have a great deal of progress to make. "We found the great majority of courses online are not very high quality pedagogically," he said. Online programs seemed to be paying more attention to how the sites looked and functioned than to how they worked as vehicles for instruction. In other words, Alley said, faculty members were being asked to be Web masters, not educators. He pointed to a number of ideas that educators must grasp if the online learning phenomenon is to grow. First, educators must accept that online learning will, for the most part, be self- directed by students. Also, educators must be willing to engage online students at a different level, treating them more as "cooperating instructors." Finally, Alley stressed the importance of piloting these types of programs before introducing them to a general audience. (Online Learning, March 2001) (Edupage, March 30, 2001)

Comment: The current copyright laws are a major barrier keeping teachers from making materials available to students vis the Web. The people creating the copyright laws developed mechanisms to allow photocopying of materials to be handed out to students. But posting something to a website intended for one's students is a different type of situation. Such materials can easily be accessed by people who are not in the class, and they can be more inexpensively copied than are photocopied materials. Revision of the copyright laws to facilitate teacher and student use of the Web is very important to our educational system.

Distance Education in Higher Education in the U.S. (3/7/01)

 * Of the more than 4,000 two- and four-year colleges in the United States, 70 percent provided online courses last year, a 22 percent rise from 1998, reported Market Retrieval Service. American Federation of Teachers vice president Bill Scheuerman stressed the need for institutions to approach e-learning with care, saying "If you're going to do it right, it's going to cost you money." Among the criteria e-learning should meet, Scheuerman suggested training for faculty and 24-hour tech support for both faculty and students. A recent survey by the AFT revealed that Web-based e-learning is the most common form of distance education, most often used for career or science and math classes, with humanities classes next. Education and child development classes were less likely to be online, the AFT found. However, not all e-learning classes meet only online. Joe Moran, who coordinates the adult education master's program at Buffalo State College, explained that his institution's program asks students to come to the classroom once a week. Moran said this arrangement lets students interact and work on cooperative assignments, two features that can be lost in a strictly Web-based operation. (Business First of Buffalo Online, 26 February 2001) (Edupage 5 March 2001)

Comment: Like many things associated with IT, Distance Learning via the Web has come upon us rather quickly. There are now tens of thousands of Web-based or Web-enhanced Distance Learning courses in higher education. These courses are achieving widely varying levels of success. Gradually, the research and practitioner body of collected knowledge and skills is growing. Gradually, both faculty and students are learning to teach and learn in this environment. However, we have a long way to go before we reach the level of teaching and learning knowledge and skills that exist in the face-to-face classroom setting environment.

Web Access for the Blind (2/21/01)

 * ASP Interliant has worked with the American Federation for the Blind (AFB) to create a feature-rich Web site intended to make e-commerce accessible to the blind and visually impaired community. The site uses technology that can "read" graphics, among other things. AFB President Carl Augusto wanted a site that was graphically appealing to those with sight but also highly accessible to the visually impaired. Augusto says the site should create a community for the blind, their care givers, and service providers and should also offer products for purchase. Interliant attached links to the site's graphics so that a screen reader can read the graphics as though they were text. The site also has a color-change option for people with low vision, which Augusto says is important and a good example of how small changes can make any site more accessible to those with disabilities. Screen readers can translate online text into Braille or a synthetic voice but cannot handle the graphics that e-commerce sites frequently use to sell products or link to other applications. Interliant CEO Herb Hribar says that the AFB site is a prototype for public-service agencies, nonprofit organizations, and commercial sites. Augusto says that the AFB site could become a host site for agencies and schools that cannot afford their own sites. (Computer Reseller News, 12 February 2001) (Edupage 21 February 2001)

Inconsistency Plagues Net Filters (2/17/01)

 * Consumer Reports released a damning assessment of the effectiveness and reliability of Internet content filters. The study examined six software filters, as well as the parental controls feature offered by America Online, and assessed how well they filtered 86 Web sites featuring drug-related, violent, or sexual content. America Online's parental controls topped the list, filtering out 86 percent of objectionable content, followed by Norton Internet Security 2001 Family Edition (80 percent), Cybersitter 2000 (78 percent), Cyber Patrol (77 percent), Internet Guard Dog (70 percent), Net Nanny (48 percent), and Cyber Snoop (10 percent). Although AOL took the lead, it also blocked out 63 percent of legitimate Web sites, such as sites on sex education or lesbian politics. The American Library Association's Judith Krug says the study underscores the unreliability of filtering devices and the need for kids to develop better Internet skills. (USA Today, 15 February 2001) (Edupage, February 16, 2001)

Comment: The issue of keeping students from accessing inappropriate websites is a very difficult one. One of the most important goals of school is that the school is supposed to be a "safe place." The Internet is a component of education that reaches into schools, homes, places of work, and other components of the community. In some sense, "school" is a much larger institution since the advent of widespread availability and use of the Web. As the brief summary given above indicates, at the current time Net Filters are not able to provide the level of "school is a safe place" that most people would desire, in terms of students using the Web.

Three Out of Five Americans On the Web (2/15/01)

 * Sixty percent of U.S. citizens now have access to the Internet at home or at work or both, according to the latest numbers from Nielsen/NetRatings. That number is up only slightly from 56.5% in October, but Nielsen/NetRatings VP Allen Weiner says he expects penetration growth to pick up by the middle of this year, when industry developments like the merger of AOL and Time Warner lead to more options in high-speed services with video and audio components. "You have to remember that the Internet is relatively young and has gotten to this penetration much faster (than other media). To get back to double digits, a couple of things have to happen. There has to be plentiful, cheap bandwidth for people that will fuel more entertainment applications and more usage." A total of 168 million Americans are now online -- 41 million connecting from work, and 162 million connecting from home (35 million connect from both). (Reuters 14 Feb 2001) (NewsScan Daily, 15 February 2001)

Comment: Notice the statistic for the number of people accessing the Web from home. A significant percentage of students have access to the Web from home. Our educational system needs to take advantage of this at-home aid to education.

Bluetooth and its Competitors (2/1/01)

 * This year could prove critical to the wireless networking system Bluetooth, which has been struggling for recognition since its debut two years ago. Bluetooth is designed to connect virtually any short-range communications device seamlessly, and Ericsson and Motorola are expected to premier Bluetooth-equipped phones. In addition, the Wall Street Holiday Inn in New York City will soon operate a wireless check-in system that runs on Bluetooth. However, Bluetooth rivals such as HomeRF and 802.11B are challenging the technology for control of the market. For example, original Bluetooth backer Intel selected HomeRF for its new wireless Web devices because of its cheapness and availability. MobileStar chose 802.11B to deliver streaming audio and video to Microsoft PocketPC devices and laptops because "we require something very robust and graceful, and Bluetooth just isn't there yet," claims CEO Mark Goode. (Industry Standard, 12 February 2001) (Edupage, February 9, 2001)

Comment: We are moving rapidly toward the time when many students will be carrying short-range communication devices. These will be small and inexpensive. And, of course, the placement of a receiver/transmitter in a classroom, and linking it to the Internet, will provide a means for having all students in a class having easy access to the Web. Currently, few teachers know how to teach (managing curriculum, instruction, and assessment) in such an environment.

Progress in Virtual Realities (2/6/01)

 * Researchers studying immersive Web technologies at universities across the country are pioneering the future of the Internet. The hope is that within 10 to 15 years Web users will be able to see 3D images, hear full-channel sound, and even feel the texture of a fur-lined coat they plan to buy online. Jaron Lanier, chief physical scientist at Advanced Network & Services, says the real benefit will come from being able to interact with other people using the entire range of human senses. However, bandwidth and processor speeds remain barriers to refining the super-sensitive subtleties of human interaction. Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) are exploring the use of haptics, a force-feedback technology that allows people to feel digital objects. Regardless of the advance of immersive Internet capabilities, some experts doubt whether this will be the end of the line using technology to replicate real life. Jaron Lanier says human senses are so refined that, although we may be wowed by new technologies, people will soon be able to quickly distinguish between the digital and corporeal. (Los Angeles Times, 5 February 2001) (Edupage 5 February 2001)

Comment: When it comes to predicting the future, people tend to look at how things currently are, and then extrapolate -- usually in a linear fashion. But computer speed, storage capacity, and networking speeds continue to improve at an exponential rate. Extrapolations based on these exponential rates of change often sound like science fiction. If the types of changes predicted in this short article prove to be correct, the educational implications are very large. The suggestion is that in a modest number of years, the use of virtual realities will become a common educational tool.

Federal Aid to College Students Taking Online Courses (2/1/01)

 * Congress may soon have legislation before it amending a 1992 law that restricts federal aid to distance-education programs--including online schools--that conduct fewer than half of their courses in traditional settings. Federal aid could significantly boost online enrollment, as well as bolster the efforts of many online higher education programs. The University of Phoenix, which has 19,000 online students, could afford to invest even more resources into its Web initiatives if the restrictions ease, says acting president Laura Palmer Noone. Analysts predict that the elimination of the ban would bring an extra $3.5 billion in federal aid to Internet-based higher education and raise enrollment to 3 million by the end of 2002, up from 1.5 million now. Federal aid, in the form of loans and grants, already accounts for one-third of all revenue earned by universities. The U.S. Department of Education has responded to online education providers by waiving the 50 percent requirements for 15 programs each year. However, the American Federation of Teachers argues that easing restrictions would have many detrimental effects, including the proliferation of fly-by-night programs and increased tuition for online classes. (Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2001) (Edupage January 31, 2001)

Comment: At the current time there are major barriers to extensive use of Distance Learning in our formal K-20 educational system. This brief article points to the fiscal problems in higher education. Similar problems exist in K-12 education. Many schools and school districts do not want to use their budget to pay for students to take a course offered elsewhere. However, as is suggested by the article, people are addressing these fiscal problems and solutions are being developed.

Cognitive Overload of Car Drivers (1/22/00)

 * Early results from the federal government's first attempt to measure how drivers react to potential information overload from high-tech automobile gadgetry indicate one in six drivers got confused and missed their turn, and two or three of the 36 test drivers "crashed" their simulators due to sensory meltdown. The simulator used for the test included a cell phone, a forward collision-warning system, a navigation system, and an Internet-equipped computer screen. The test also included an occasional math question thrown in to test the drivers' "cognitive reserve" to determine "how much of their mental capacity is devoted to dealing with these devices and driving the car, and how much do they have left over," says Tom Granda, who oversaw the study from DOT's Office of Safety Research and Development. "What you learn very quickly is that people learn to cope, especially when it involves their lives. But just because 90% of the population can cope doesn't mean it is the right way to do it. The issue is how do you make this stuff work so that it helps and makes driving better and safer -- not worse." (AP 22 Jan 2001) (NewsScan Daily, 22 January 2001)

Comment: This example is specifically based on car drivers. Notice the use of driving simulations as part of the research methodology. In some sense, we are all faced with information overload, which is a component of Cognitive Overload. Think about what we are doing to our students!

New Law Directs Schools to Install Internet Filtering Devices (1/12/00)

 * President Clinton in December signed into law the fiscal 2001 appropriations law for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. The law includes provisions that affect schools and libraries that receive federal money for Internet connections. Although Clinton signed the new law, he had some reservations about the appropriations bill because of a proposal that requires schools and libraries to install filtering technology to block student access to pornography. Clinton did not think the filtering requirement was worth blocking the $450 billion appropriations bill, although free-speech advocates are expected to challenge the new law in court. Under the proposal, schools and libraries must devise Internet safety policies that include the use of filtering software. April 16 is the tentative deadline for drawing up the Internet safety policies, and failure to do so could result in schools' loss of federal money for technology spending. (Education Week, 10 January 2001) (Edupage, January 12, 2001)

Here is some additional information provided by the ISTE Office in Washington, D.C. on approximately 22 January 2001:


 * Expect a Formal Rulemaking on the Federal Filtering Mandate. We understand that the FCC is planning a formal rulemaking on the federal filtering mandate. They consider CIPA to apply to E-Rate program year 4, for which they are currently accepting applications, and which begins July 1, 2001. The FCC has a very short turn-around time on this, and expect to issue an NPRM in a few weeks. There will probably be 30 days for comments and 15 days to reply to comments, with an expectation that a rule will be issued by April 20, 2001. The Department of Education and the IMLS are not currently planning a NPRM. They are, however, having difficulty determining what program years are under their grantmaking processes, and hope to provide guidance for some of these issues.

Comment: Many schools and school districts have already installed filtering software, with varying levels of success and varying levels of cost. A significant fraction of students have Internet access via home computers and Internet appliances. The proportion of such students will continue to increase rapidly over the next few years. Thus, the problem of offensive Web materials faced by schools and libraries will also be faced by a very large number of individual families.

Chip Sales Up 31% in Past Year (1/6/01)

 * Computer chip industry sales rose 31% in 2000, driven by incessant demand for the semiconductors used in mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs, according to Dataquest. The research company anticipates growth in the low 20% range for this year, mostly because of slowing PC demand and some excess inventory problems, particularly with phones and networking equipment. Dataquest says the current weakness in the chip market should be viewed as a short-term problem, largely attributable to inventory glut, but cautions that first-quarter performance for the industry will be a crucial indicator the for rest of the year, especially if there is a worldwide economic slowdown that crimps spending. Meanwhile, Intel retained its dominant position in the market with a 13.4% share, down from its 15.8% share in 1999. (Wall Street Journal 2 Jan 2001) (NewsScan Daily, 2 January 2001).

Comment: The 31% growth factor is in dollar sales. If we take into consideration steadily improving "compute power" of chips (Moore's Law) this means that the total amount of compute power sold this past year was probably close to double what it was the previous year.

=The Year 2000=

Web Access for People with Disabilities (12/28/00)

 * North Carolina's government is moving ahead with efforts to make its computer systems more available to disabled users. Secretary of Administration Katie Dorsett learned that a state employee with a visual impairment was unable to use a function of Netscape Navigator. Upon further investigation, she found that several disabled employees had trouble working with North Carolina's IT. The state Information Resource Management Commission commissioned a group to study the state's IT systems and suggest changes. The commission's group said better training is one step to improving accessibility. Another step is evident on the state's new portal, North Carolina @ Your Service, which employs the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Advocates for the disabled have expressed their support for these standards, and the federal Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board referred to them when proposing its own IT standards. Among other states, New York has adopted a policy that mandates all agency Web sites provide accessibility to disabled users. Maryland, California, Texas, and Connecticut have made moves toward accessibility, but many states do not have laws enforcing state Web site accessibility for the disabled. (Government Computer News/State & Local, December 2000) (Edupage December 27, 2000)

Comment: Notice that Oregon is not on the list of states that have made progress on addressing this issue.

IT Standards for School Administrators (12/27/00)

 * A group of education associations led by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) are focusing now on developing a new set of technology standards for school administrators. University of Virginia professor Zahrl Schoeny explains that administrators "are absolutely key to accomplishing integration of technology. They provide the funding, the planning and the release time for teachers to get trained. The administrator really is key to getting the whole plan going." Therefore,though they don't have to learn everything in technology, they do "need to understand the role of technology in education. You have to have an awareness of when technology is worthwhile." (New York Times 27 Dec 2000) http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/12/27/
 * technology/27EDUCATION.html (NewScan 27 Dec. 2000)

Comment: There is strong research supporting the role of school administrators in school reform. In terms of IT in education, school administrators play an important role in moving a school toward integration of IT into the whole school's curriculum. More information about the work ISTE is doing on National Educational Technology Standards for School Administrators is available at the ISTE website http://www.iste/org/. ISTE is headquartered in Eugene, Oregon.

Executive Summary from the Web Commission (12/20/00)
The following is the Forward and Executive Summary of the report: The Power of the Internet for Learning: Moving from Promise to Practice. Report of the Web-based Education Commission to the President and Congress of the United States [Online]. Accessed 12/20/00: http://interact.hpcnet.org/ webcommission/index.htm.

Foreword


 * The Internet is a powerful new means of communication. It is global, it is fast, and it is growing rapidly. Reaching to the far corners of the earth, the Internet is making the world at once smaller and more connected, transmitting information at nearly real-time speed. An estimated 377 million people are currently using the Internet, only half of whom are in the United States. The World Wide Web is bringing rapid and radical change into our lives-from the wonderfully beneficial to the terrifyingly difficult.


 * For education, the Internet is making it possible for more individuals than ever to access knowledge and to learn in new and different ways. At the dawn of the 21st Century, the education landscape is changing. Elementary and secondary schools are experiencing growing enrollments, coping with critical shortages of teachers, facing overcrowded and decaying buildings, and responding to demands for higher standards. On college campuses, there is an influx of older, part-time students seeking the skills vital to success in an Information Age. Corporations are dealing with the shortage of skilled workers and the necessity of providing continuous training to their employees.


 * The Internet is enabling us to address these educational challenges, bringing learning to students instead of bringing students to learning. It is allowing for the creation of learning communities that defy the constraints of time and distance as it provides access to knowledge that was once difficult to obtain. This is true in the schoolhouse, on the college campus, and in corporate training rooms.


 * The power of the Internet to transform the educational experience is awe-inspiring, but it is also fraught with risk. As legislators and community leaders, we have the responsibility to develop policies and make informed decisions to ensure that new technologies will enhance, and not frustrate, learning. That is why Congress established the Web-based Education Commission.


 * For the past year we have been chairing an effort that has explored the ways in which the Internet is changing the delivery of education. Along with Senators Jeff Bingaman and Michael Enzi, Representative Chaka Fattah, and a distinguished group of education and business leaders, the Commission has heard about the tremendous power of the Internet to empower individual learners and teachers. We have also heard about the barriers that frustrate learning in this new environment. Our witnesses urged us to "think big" as we addressed the challenges of a rapidly changing educational landscape.


 * The report we are now submitting to the President, to Congress, and to the nation reflects the cumulative work of our Commission and a consensus of our findings. It is a call to action to all of those who must be involved if we are to implement real and positive change -- policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels; students and educators; parents; communities; and the private sector. No one group can bring about this change alone.


 * The Internet is a promising tool. Working together, we can realize the full potential of this tool for learning. With the will and the means, we have the power to expand the learning horizons of students of all ages.


 * Senator Bob Kerrey, Chair
 * Representative Johnny Isakson, Vice Chair

Executive Summary


 * Although web-based education is in its earliest phase, it holds extraordinary promise.


 * The bipartisan, congressional Web-based Education Commission set out to discover how the Internet is being used to enhance learning opportunity for all learners from pre-kindergarten through high school, at postsecondary colleges and universities, and in corporate training.


 * In the course of our work, we heard from hundreds of educators, policymakers, Internet pioneers, education researchers, and ordinary citizens who shared their powerful visions and showed us the promise of the Internet-


 * To center learning around the student instead of the classroom


 * To focus on the strengths and needs of individual learners


 * To make lifelong learning a practical reality


 * We heard that the Internet enables education to occur in places where there is none, extends resources where there are few, expands the learning day, and opens the learning place. We experienced how it connects people, communities, and resources to support learning. We witnessed how it adds graphics, sound, video, and interaction to give teachers and students multiple paths for understanding. We learned that the Web is a medium today's kids expect to use for expression and communication-the world into which they were born.


 * And we were told first-hand that the Internet could result in greater divisions between those with access to the opportunities of web-based learning, and those without access. We also understood that the Internet is not a panacea for every problem in education.


 * By the end of our work, we were able to identify the key barriers that are preventing the Internet from realizing its full potential for enhancing learning. The Commission was urged to help the nation better understand these barriers and offer its recommendations for addressing them.


 * Based on the findings of our work, the Commission believes a national mobilization is necessary, one that evokes a response similar in scope to other great American opportunities-or crises: Sputnik and the race to the moon; bringing electricity and phone service to all corners of the nation; finding a cure for polio.


 * Therefore, the Commission is issuing a call to action to:


 * * Make powerful new Internet resources, especially broadband access, widely and equitably available and affordable for all learners. The promise of high quality web-based education is made possible by technological and communications trends that could lead to important educational applications over the next two to three years. These include greater bandwidth, expansion of broadband and wireless computing, opportunities provided by digital convergence, and lowering costs of connectivity. In addition, the emergence of agreement on technical standards for content development and sharing will also advance the development of web-based learning environments.
 * * Provide continuous and relevant training and support for educators and administrators at all levels. We heard that professional development-for preK-12 teachers, higher education faculty, and school administrators-is the critical ingredient for effective use of technology in the classroom. However, not enough is being done to assure that today's educators have the skills and knowledge needed for effective web-based teaching. And if teacher education programs do not address this issue at once, we will soon have lost the opportunity to enhance the performance of a whole generation of new teachers, and the students they teach.
 * * Build a new research framework of how people learn in the Internet age. A vastly expanded, revitalized, and reconfigured educational research, development, and innovation program is imperative. This program should be built on a deeper understanding of how people learn, how new tools support and assess learning gains, what kinds of organizational structures support these gains, and what is needed to keep the field of learning moving forward.
 * * Develop high quality online educational content that meets the highest standards of educational excellence. Content available for learning on the Web is variable: some of it is excellent, much is mediocre. Both content developers and educators will have to address gaps in this market, find ways to build fragmented lesson plans into full courses and assure the quality of learning in this new environment. Dazzling technology has no value unless it supports content that meets the needs of learners.
 * * Revise outdated regulations that impede innovation and replace them with approaches that embrace anytime, anywhere, any pace learning. The regulations that govern much of education today were written for an earlier model in which the teacher is the center of all instruction and all learners are expected to advance at the same rate, despite varying needs or abilities. Granting of credits, degrees, availability of funding, staffing, and educational services are governed by time-fixed and place-based models of yesteryear. The Internet allows for a learner-centered environment, but our legal and regulatory framework has not adjusted to these changes.
 * * Protect online learners and ensure their privacy. The Internet carries with it danger as well as promise. Advertising can interfere with the learning process and take advantage of a captive audience of students. Privacy can be endangered when data is collected from users of online materials. Students, especially young children, need protections from harmful or inappropriate intrusions in their learning environments.
 * * Sustain funding-via traditional and new sources-that is adequate to the challenge at hand. Technology is expensive, and web-based learning is no exception. Technology expenditures do not end with the wiring of a school or campus, the purchase of computers, or the establishment of a local area network. These costs represent just the beginning.


 * The issue before us now is how to make good on the Internet's power for learning and how to move from promise to practice.


 * The Web-based Education Commission calls upon the new Congress and Administration to embrace an "e-learning" agenda as a centerpiece of our nation's federal education policy.


 * This e-learning agenda should be aimed at assisting local communities, state education agencies, institutions of higher education, and the private sector in their efforts.


 * The moment is at hand.


 * We urge the new President and the 107th Congress to seize this opportunity and to focus on ways in which public law can be modified and changed to support, rather than undermine, the technology that is so dramatically changing education.


 * * We call on federal and state governments to make the extension of broadband access for all learners a central goal of telecommunications policy.


 * We urge federal and state officials to adopt a policy framework that will help accelerate broadband deployment in education quickly and effectively. The E-rate program, which has brought 21st Century telecommunications into the nation's schools and libraries, has provided a dramatic boost. Individual state efforts have shown promise and success. Local and state policymakers should consider complementary efforts focused on educational applications of broadband access.


 * * We call upon policymakers at all levels to work with educational institutions and the private sector to support the continuous growth of educators through the use of technology.


 * We encourage continuing federal and state support for initiatives and models that make just-in-time, just-what's-needed training and support available to educators. The reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and subsequent Higher Education Act reauthorization offer the opportunity to make this happen and to incorporate the best thinking and practices identified by this Commission. Partnerships that bring together the federal government, state and local agencies, the private sector, and educational institutions offer the best promise of assuring continuing teacher empowerment and growth with technology.


 * * We call upon the federal government to create a comprehensive research, development, and innovation framework for learning technology.


 * We recommend establishing a benchmark goal for federal research and development investment in web-based learning, consistent with similar benchmarks in other industry segments. This framework would focus on high payback targets of educational opportunity and support the creation of learning communities and tools for collaborative knowledge building and dissemination among researchers, teachers, and developers.


 * * We call upon the public and private sectors to join forces in developing high quality content and applications for online learning.


 * At the federal level, the Commission recommends that Congress articulate content development priorities, provide seed funding for high need areas, and encourage collaboration and partnerships between the public and private sectors in the development and distribution of high quality online materials. The federal government should work with all agencies and programs to adopt technical standards for the design of online courses, meta tagging of digital content, and universal design standards for access for those with disabilities.


 * The Commission recommends that the education community develop standards for high quality online courses. The current voluntary system of accrediting higher education institutions and programs should continue but with better clarity for the consumer regarding online options. The Commission recommends the convening of state and regional education accreditors and organizations to build common standards and requirements for online learning programs, courses, and certifications comparable to the standards required for onsite programs.


 * * We call upon Congress, the U.S. Department of Education, and state and regional education authorities to remove barriers that block full access to online learning resources, courses, and programs while ensuring accountability of taxpayer dollars.


 * The Commission encourages the federal government to review and, if necessary, revise the "12-hour rule," the "50 percent rule," and incentive compensation requirements that are creating barriers to students enrolling in online and distance education courses.


 * The Commission encourages national, state, and regional education policymakers to increase cross-state regulatory and administrative cooperation in web-based education. We also call upon states to develop common and appropriate policies regarding credits, faculty compensation, accreditation, licensing, articulation, student services, and programs to reach underrepresented student populations.


 * The Commission endorses the U.S. Copyright Office proposal to convene education representatives and publishers to build greater consensus and understanding of the "fair use" doctrine in its application to online learning.


 * * We call upon parents, the education community, and the private sector to develop and adopt privacy and protection safeguards to assure that learners of all ages are not exploited while participating in online learning activities.


 * The Commission believes that filtering and blocking software alone is of limited value. Instead, we recommend encouraging developers and educators to collaborate in creating noncommercial, high quality educational "safe zones" on the Web. We also recommend that schools, districts, and states develop and promote programs for the safe, wise, and ethical use of the Internet.


 * The Commission also believes some adjustments to the Children's Online Privacy and Protection Act may be necessary to allow educational exemptions for the collection of identifiable student data online with appropriate parental consent.


 * * Finally, we call upon the federal government, states, localities, and the private sector to expand funding initiatives and to develop new models to bring these policies to reality.


 * The Commission believes these initiatives could include tax incentives, additional public-private partnerships, increased state and federal appropriations, and the creation of a learning technology trust fund. The Commission encourages states and localities to aggregate their market strength as a way of bringing advanced technologies to education at a considerably lower cost.


 * The question is no longer if the Internet can be used to transform learning in new and powerful ways. The Commission has found that it can. Nor is the question should we invest the time, the energy, and the money necessary to fulfill its promise in defining and shaping new learning opportunity. The Commission believes that we should. We all have a role to play.


 * It is time we collectively move the power of the Internet for learning from promise to practice.

e-Learning: Putting a World-Class Education at the Fingertips of All Children (12/15/00)
e-Learning: Putting a World-Class Education at the Fingertips of All Children [Online]. Accessed 12/15/00: http://www.ed.gov/Technology/elearning/index.html.

The report gives a detailed state by state report on Federal spending for IT in education during 1995-2000. The state of Oregon received more than $55 million in Federal funds for such purposes during 1995-2000. While this is a huge amount of money, it is just slightly over .6% of the total funds dispersed. However, since Oregon's population is approximately 1.2% of the United States, this means that Oregon received only about half as much funding as would have been predicted based strictly on population.

As indicated in the materials quoted below, the report contains e-Learning goals developed during the past year.


 * In response to the educational opportunities made available by dramatic technological innovations in the early and mid-1990s, U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley released the nation's first educational technology plan in 1996, Getting America's Students Ready for the 21st Century: Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge. This plan presented a far-reaching vision for the effective use of technology in elementary and secondary education to help the next generation of school children to be better educated and better prepared for the evolving demands of the new American economy.


 * Due in large part to markedly increased federal, state, local and private investment in technology for education, the nation has made tremendous progress toward achieving the 1996 national educational technology goals. These investments in computers and Internet access, professional development, technical support and content have allowed many elementary and secondary school teachers and students to reap the benefits of powerful teaching and learning applications.


 * The latest research and evaluation studies demonstrate that school improvement programs that employ technology for teaching and learning yield positive results for students and teachers. Given that many schools and classrooms have only recently gained access to technology for teaching and learning, the positive outcomes of these studies suggest a future for education that could be quite bright if the nation maintains its commitment to harnessing technology for education.


 * The adoption of new and emerging technologies by schools and classrooms offers even more reason to be hopeful. With sufficient access and support, teachers will be better able to help their students comprehend difficult-to-understand concepts and engage in learning, provide their students with access to information and resources, and better meet their students' individual needs. If we take advantage of the opportunities presented to us, technology will enhance learning and improve student achievement for all students.


 * Given the tremendous progress made in integrating technology into teaching and learning and the continued advances in the affordability and capabilities of technology, the need to move beyond the 1996 goals became evident. In the fall of 1999, the U.S. Department of Education undertook a strategic review and revision of the national educational technology plan, in consultation with the full range of stakeholders: educators, researchers, policymakers, students, parents, and higher education, industry and other leaders. The outcome of this strategic review was five new national goals for technology in education.


 * Working together to achieve these goals constitutes a major leadership imperative facing those seeking widespread improvements in teaching and learning. As a nation, we should pledge to meet these new NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY GOALS:


 * Goal 1: All students and teachers will have access to information technology in their classrooms, schools, communities and homes.


 * Goal 2: All teachers will use technology effectively to help students achieve high academic standards.


 * Goal 3: All students will have technology and information literacy skills.


 * Goal 4: Research and evaluation will improve the next generation of technology applications for teaching and learning.


 * Goal 5: Digital content and networked applications will transform teaching and learning.

Comment: The Web document provides more detail interpreting the meaning of each of these goals. I find Goal 2 to be particularly interesting. "All teachers will use technology effectively…" The great majority of current teachers know that they do not use information technology effectively. The most often cited reasons for this are a lack of appropriate staff development, a lack of (teacher) time, and a lack of appropriate facilities for use by teachers and students.

A New Round of PTTT Grant Funding (12/9/00)
The following is quoted from a E-mail message sent by Talbot Bielefeldt of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), located in Eugene, Oregon.


 * At the recent PT3 (Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology) Core Group evaluators' meeting in Washington, DC, PT3 director Tom Carroll confirmed that there would be a new competition for federal grants under this program beginning December 15, with applications due February 22, 2001.


 * ISTE Research & Evaluation currently has evaluation contracts for four PT3 programs. We are interested in partnering with additional clients. Through our involvement with current grantees and our participation in high-level initiatives such as the Core Group and NETS Project, we believe we have the knowledge to help applicants prepare effective evaluation plans and to submit competitive proposals.


 * One of the PTTT grants is helping to support the development of the OTEC Website. Dr. David Moursund, the Webmaster for OTEC and recipient of one of these PTTT grants, is interested in helping other Oregon groups of educators secure a grant. He is offering free consulting. A copy of his grant proposal is available at: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/UO_PTTT_2000-03/


 * New PT3 (Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology) grant application guidelines are now available and may be downloaded from the program Website at www.ed.gov/teachtech/. You may also download a PDF version of the grant application guidelines at http://www.pt3.org/resources/
 * files/PT3_FY2001_GuideLines.pdf. Applications must be received by February 22, 2001. Awards are to be announced on or around June 1, 2001.


 * The U.S. Department of Education will award approximately 65 new Implementation grants (ranging from $200,000 to $500,000 a year and averaging $350,000 a year for three years) and approximately 15 new Catalyst grants (ranging from $500,000 to $700,000 a year and averaging $600,000 a year for three years).

Magnetic Memory Chip (12/7/00)

 * IBM and Infineon are collaborating on developing the next generation of memory chips, which the companies say would greatly expand the battery life of portable devices and could eventually replace current dynamic random access memory (DRAM) technology. Magnetic random access memory (MRAM) will use magnetic rather than electronic charges to store data, enabling the chip to store more information while using less battery power. MRAM will also allow portable devices such as laptops to retain information even when the power is shut off, and such devices could be left on standby for several years, compared to the current limit of about 12 hours. The companies expect to have commercially viable products on the market by 2004. (Financial Times 7 Dec 2000) (NewsScan Daily, 7 December 2000)

Comment: New technology such as is being discussed here would represent a significant breakthrough. We can envision a time when all students will carry a laptop that has wireless connectivity to the Internet. Battery power is a major challenge. Thus, anything that cuts power drain is very important in education.

Laptops Required at University of North Carolina (12/5/00)

 * The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill recently mandated that all incoming freshmen must own a laptop computer, becoming the first public university in the United States to set that requirement for its students. School officials say the requirement will give students the computer skills that are vital in today's high-tech business world. At UNC, students learn to build Web sites, design PowerPoint presentations, and use e-mail, instant messaging, and bulletin boards to stay in closer contact with classmates and professors. However, many educators do not yet believe that laptops actually improve a student's education. "Sure it's a fancy tool, but it's just another tool," says Edward M. Neal of UNC's Center for Teaching and Learning. Although students agree that the laptops are building their computer skills, many admit that they are more likely to use the computer for personal e-mail, games, music, or video, even during classroom time. Other educators argue that teaching responsible Internet use--for example, checking the accuracy and reliability of information found on the Web--teaches many of the same research and critical skills that students have always learned at college. (Boston Sunday Globe, 3 December 2000) (Quoted from Edupage, December 4, 2000.)

Comment: A number of higher education institutions require all of their students to have a computer. Moreover, there are a number of precollege schools that have made provisions for all of their students to have laptops. Finally, there are a number of programs within higher education in which students are required to have laptops. For example, this is the case for the Law School at the University of Oregon.

Oregon K-20 Distance Education (11/29/00)

 * (Excellent general background information about Distance Education is available on the website: Accessed 11/30/00: http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/distglan.html.)


 * The Oregon K-20 Distance Education Workgroup was created at a meeting held on 11/29/00. While a number of people attending were meeting face to face in Salem, Oregon, there were also attendees from three different remote sites in other parts of the state. The attendees represented K-12 education, Community Colleges, and the Oregon University System (OUS) in Oregon's public education system. Each of the three components of the K-20 educational system presented information about their current activities in Distance Education (DE) and their current needs.


 * Both 2-way video and Web-based forms of DE are being used at all three educational levels. It seems clear that Oregon education will see substantial growth in both modes of DE delivery during the next few years. Some DE courses make use of both modes, although most courses are designed for one mode or the other.


 * Currently a large number of 2-way video sites are being installed in high schools and ESDs throughout the state, using funding from SB 622 which was passed during the 1999 legislative session. This funding and installation process ends 31 December 2001. By that time it is likely that there will be about 250 videoconferencing classrooms connected via Oregon Access Network. For more information about the Oregon Access Network see http://www.ode.state.or.us/orAccessNet/.


 * It was obvious to all who attended that there is a need for sharing of DE courses, facilities, and staff development. For example, some high school students can benefit by taking DE courses at the community college or 4-year college level. All levels of education can benefit by a sharing of connectivity.


 * The Oregon K-20 Distance Education Workgroup will report on its progress and goals at a meeting of the Joint Boards of Education on January 19, 2001. The initial plan is that the Oregon K-20 Distance Education Workgroup will assess its progress after its first six months of activity, and then decide whether it should continue in existence.

Australia Will Gain Internet Access Speed, Interactivity (11/23/00)

 * The Southern Cross Cable Network (SCCN) opened recently, providing Australian universities with a 40 Gbps undersea cable link to the United States. With 120 times more capacity than its predecessor, the SCCN will bring Australian universities international Internet access with interactive connections to North America. The network will reduce the cost of downloads for Australian universities and will provide professors with faster access to overseas Web sites. Cable and Wireless, NCR WorldCom, and Telecom New Zealand are among the partners in the SCCN. Meanwhile, NEC says it will create a 640 Gbps fiber-optic cable network that will connect Australia to Japan, providing 500 times more capacity than the existing link. (Chronicle of Higher Education Online, 20 November 2000) (Edupage, November 22, 2000)

Comment: Notice the more than two orders of magnitude increase in band width of the connectivity talked about in this brief news item. A full-length book (just text, no pictures) is about a megabyte. A 40 Gbps connection can transmit approximately 5,000 books in one second.

Boom in IT Training Poses Challenges for Higher Education (11/8/00)

 * Clifford Adelman, a senior research analyst at the U.S. Department of Education, recently released a study on the growth of IT certification examinations and how this trend is affecting traditional colleges. Titled "A Parallel Postsecondary Universe," the study describes the more than 300 IT certification exams now in existence as a new educational industry separate from higher education. However, Adelman says certain kinds of traditional colleges could move into certification training programs, especially for computer science majors. Although Adelman says certification programs do not reduce the need for traditional degrees, he concedes that in some cases degrees are not necessary for people with IT certification. In his paper, Adelman says the number of certificate holders without a B.A. rose from 19 percent in 1996 to 37 percent in 1998. IT certification has significantly advanced the idea of competency-based testing, and traditional colleges and universities could learn from this example, Adelman says. (Chronicle of Higher Education Online, 6 November 2000) (Quoted from Edupage, November 8, 2000.)

Comment: This topic is important to educators in Oregon. In researching the topic, I came across the Web site: www.wested.org/hyper-discussions/wwwedu/1999/0115.html

The web site discusses a rather general purpose exam developed for use in Virginia. The purpose was to provide evidence to potential employers that a person has IT knowledge and skills. Although it was aimed at college-level students, it appears to me that many high school students could score well on it. In brief summary (quoting from the Web site), the exam covered:


 * It was no piece of cake. With a break for lunch, the exam took six hours, during which time students were asked to build a Web site with internal and external links, brew up a PowerPoint presentation, manipulate spreadsheets and word-processing programs, and run online searches. One essay question asked the students to ponder the ethical ramifications of a bill, like the Communications Decency Act, restricting content on the Net.

Distance Education Portals (11/6/00)

 * PC Magazine rates Embark.com (http://www.embark.com/) the best full-service portal site in its review of learning portals that allow people to pursue their full-time or part-time educational goals. Classified as an edu-commerce site, Embark received the PC Magazine Editors' Choice award. The portal is organized into sections for first-time collegians, grad students, online distance learners, and international students, and its Matchmaker wizard delivers the websites of desirable colleges. Users can apply online, and a recruiting tool allows them to add personal information.


 * PC Magazine rated MindEdge (http://www.mindedge.com/home/index.phtml) and CyberU (http://www.cyberu.com/) very good, while CollegeLearning.com (http://collegelearning.com/) and EduPoint.com (http://edupoint.com/)
 * rated in the good category.


 * Hungry Minds (http://www.hungryminds.com/) was rated fair. The learning portal category consists of indexes and search engines that bring together the higher-education industry's buyers and sellers. Ipeds College Opportunities Online (http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/CoolHome.asp)
 * was rated excellent. Other notable sites in this category include CampusProgram.com (http://campusprogram.com/), Peterson's (http://www.petersons.com/), and College Tip (http://college-tip.com/).


 * (PC Magazine, 7 November 2000) (Quoted from Edupage, November 6, 2000)

Comment: Oregon has a CyberSchool (http://www.cyberschool.k12.or.us/) that is serving hundreds of secondary school students in Oregon and throughout the world. Oregon has a Distance Learning Executive Committee that is advisory to Stan Bunn, the Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction. The contact person is Camille Cole (Camille.Cole@odemail1.ode.state.or.us) Many of Oregon's institutions of higher education are offering distance learning programs. The Sabin Skills Center [Accessed 11/8/00]: http://sabin.nclack.k12.or.us/ makes extensive use of Distance Learning.

Microsoft's Vision for Tablet Computers (11/6/00)

 * Dick Brass, who is leading a team of 100 Microsoft designers developing wireless, keyboardless "tablet computers," has predicted that the last printed issue of The New York Times will be published in 2018, and that the jobs of executives in the paper-making industry will be made obsolete by e-books and tablet computers ("I see dead men everywhere," he told them). The high-resolution tablet computer will be an ultra-slim slate about the size and shape of a yellow notepad, and will have an all-day battery and the ability to recognize handwriting; the tablet would always turned on and always connected wirelessly to the Internet. Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates will give the first public demonstration of the device at the Comdex show November 12. (The New York Times 6 Nov 2000) http://partners.nytimes.com/
 * 2000/11/06/technology/06SOFT.html (Quoted from NewsScan Daily, 6 November 2000.)

Comment: Many people are used to carrying a notepad to classes and meetings. A variety of "Tablets" that are computer input devices are now on the market. The Tablet Computer discussed in the above article is both a computer input device and a computer output device. As an output device, it is an e-book with a screen much larger than the e-books currently on the market.

Note that one might also expect that this Tablet Computer will have voice input. See the Voice Input to Search Engines brief new item below.

Voice Input to Search Engine (11/6/00)

 * Search engine Ask Jeeves, which is known for answering questions typed in via a Web site, is enhancing its system to accommodate questions posed over the telephone, using technology from Nuance Communications and General Magic. The three companies are developing a system that responds to complete spoken sentences, rather than single-word commands or complicated voice mail-type systems. If it works, the Ask Jeeves system could help reduce the need for human operators at customer service centers, a major expense for companies worldwide. International Data Corp. estimates that companies spent $23 billion on call center services in 1998, and will spend $58.6 billion in 2003. (Wall Street Journal 6 Nov 2000) http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/
 * SB973463641664925109.htm (Quoted from NewsScan Daily, 6 November 2000.)

Comment: The Ask Jeeves search engine is available at http://www.aj.com/. It accepts general text (as distinguished from specific words to be searched on) as input. Voice input to computers is now commonplace. That is, we know that a person can speak to a computer system and have the computer system "translate" the voice pattern into written text. However, the widely used general purpose voice input systems require "training." That is, the computr software needs to be trained to recognize the way a particular individual speaks. Moreover, accuracy rates in the 90% to 95% are considered to be good.

Thus, the project discussed above faces the problem of taking voice input over the phone, accepting input from anybody, translating it into text, and then retrieving information based on the spoken request. This is a major, challenging task. The educational implications are large. Imagine elementary school students who have developed an initial level of reading fluency but little or no keyboarding skills using such a system to retrieve information. The information system that they are using might be keyed to a particular lesson or learning task they are studying.

Nobel Prize for Inventor of Transistor and Handheld Calculator (10/12/00)

 * A Nobel prize for physics has been awarded to Jack Kilby, who in 1958 invented the integrated circuit and then co-invented the pocket calculator. By replacing cumbersome transistors, the integrated circuit allowed the creation of smaller and more powerful devices and led to the computer revolution of the 1970s. Kilby said he was "shocked" by the award, because "I had thought that Nobel prizes were not given for accomplishments like mine. To some extent, my contribution was an engineering one and Mr. Nobel did not make any provisions for engineering prizes." Asked to predict the future, the 77-year-old engineer was humble and cautious: "Certainly for some time we're in for more of the same. Electronics will continue to get cheaper and there will be new applications coming along, which I don't think I've visualized very well." (Reuters/San Jose Mercury News 10 Oct 2000) http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/
 * breaking/reuters/docs/495938l.htm (Quoted from NewsScan Daily, 10 October 2000.)

Comment: The transistor was invented in 1947. An integrated circuit contains a large number of transistors and other electronic components integrated together in the manufacturing process. A very nice history of transistors is available at: http://www.pbs.org/transistor/ (Accessed 10/12/00).

Prior to the development of the transistor, electronic equipment such as radio transmitters and receivers, television, radar, and amplifiers all made use of vacuum tubes. A vacuum tube uses quite a bit of power, develops quite a bit of heat, and tends to burn out, just like a light bulb. When transistors first became commercially available in the late 1950s, they cost about the same as a vacuum tube. They were smaller, used less power, put out less heat, and had a longer life than vacuum tubes.

Integrated circuits made transistors inexpensive. Now, a little more than 40 years after the development of the first integrated circuit, some integrated circuits contain 10s of millions of transistors. The cost per transistor has gone down in price by a factor of a million or more. This has make possible inexpensive pocket calculators, powerful desktop and portable computers, cell phones, digital watches, and so on. And it has made possible a number of potentially very important changes in our educational system.

Who Owns Online Courses and Materials? (10/7/00)
If this topic interests you, you will want to read: Twigg, Carol A. (2000). Intellectual Property Policies for a New Learning Environment [Online]. Accessed 10/7/00: http://www.center.rpi.edu/PewSym/mono2.html.

Comment: We are quickly moving toward the situation in which a significant percentage of teachers at the K-12 level and in higher education put some of their instructional materials on the Web. Do these materials belong to the individual teacher who creates them or do they belong to the institution that hires the teacher? Who receives the income if these materials have commercial value and produce some income?

These are difficult questions, currently being explored through a variety of legal cases. If you are creating or intend to create Web materials that have potential monetary value, you will want to take steps to protect your intellectual property. By reading Carol Twigg's article you will likely get some ideas on what you might want to do.

Longer Battery Life for Mobile Computing (9/25/00)
Quote from http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/ breaking/ap/docs/440807l.htm:


 * SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Fujitsu Ltd. plans to announce Monday that two of its new computer laptops being introduced in Japan in early November will carry power-saving chips manufactured by Transmeta Corp.


 * The announcement by the Japanese company comes only two weeks after Sony Corp. announced that new models of the VAIO computer PictureBook -- scheduled to reach U.S. stores in October -- would be powered by Transmeta's much-hyped Crusoe microprocessor.


 * The Crusoe was unveiled in January after five years of highly secretive research and development at Transmeta, an upstart player based in Santa Clara, Calif.


 * The chip promises to double the life of batteries, and Sony and Fujitsu laptops are poised to be among the first in what appears to be a growing parade of mobile computer products taking advantage of the revolutionary microprocessor.


 * Hitachi Ltd. plans to start selling Crusoe-powered notebook computers in November [2000], while Gateway Inc. and America Online Inc. have said they plan to use Transmeta processors for their jointly developed ``Internet appliance'' products that will go on sale later this year.

Comment: Improvements in battery technology have been relatively slow, as compared to the growing power needs of portable computers. This brief news item indicates a significant breakthrough in making a portable computer that uses less power. This will be quite useful in education, as it means that it will be much easier for students to carry a laptop computer or an information appliance, and have enough battery power to last the whole school day.

Automatic Grading for Mathematical Logic Course (9/22/00)

 * Grade Grinder, a software program developed by Stanford University Professor John Etchemendy, provides real-time tutoring for students working on homework assignments in their logic classes. Etchemendy and co-developer Dave Barker-Plummer believe the software's role as a tutor distinguishes it from software that merely scores students' work, an application that Etchemendy characterizes as dangerous because it encourages only the simplest forms of pedagogy, such as multiple-choice tests. The tutoring program eliminates the need for instructors to grade their students' assignments--a tedious, impractical process in afield where a question may have several hundred correct answers. Etchemendy believes that Grade Grinder best demonstrates the potential of distance learning, alleviating unnecessary work while not completely eliminating teacher-student interaction. Although he and Plummer sometimes monitor the system seeking ways to improve it, he says it is secure, and a student's instructor will be able to view only those answers the student finally submits. The software has handled nearly 220,000 assignments since its 1998 launch. (SiliconValley.com, September 21 2000) (Quoted from Edupage September 22, 2000.)

Comment: One of the keys to learning is to have high-quality and timely feedback. That is why students who have individual tutoring generally learn more and faster than students who don't. Such individual, rapid feedback is a goal in computer-assisted learning. However, the field of Artificial Intelligence has not yet succeeded in developing programs that "understand" free-form written input well enough to carry on an intelligent conversation with the learner. As a consequence, most computer-assisted learning (CAL) materials leave much to be desired.

In certain very limited areas (such as mathematical logic, as described in the short news item) it is possible to develop software that provides a high-quality interaction with the student. Continued progress in AI and CAL will gradually lead to improvements in highly interactive CAL systems that will have many of the benefits of a personal (human) tutor.

IT in K-12 Education (9/20/00)

 * Technology is expected to transform America's schools over the next 10 years in the same way it has changed the world of business, and high-tech companies have done their part to encourage the education community to throw its support behind e-learning. Technology spending has reached [an annual spending level of] $6.2 billion. Business, and high-tech companies have done their part to encourage the education community to throw its support behind e-learning. IBM is involved with top research scientists in its Reinventing Education project, while Intel and Microsoft are training teachers to use technology. Apple Computer and America Online have joined 20 other companies to form the CEO Forum on Education & Technology, a Washington-based group developed to push the high-tech agenda. Although supporters such as futurist David Thornburg say Internet access in the classroom could have the same impact on education as the Gutenberg press, critics are skeptical. Some see the e-learning movement as dangerous if schools start accepting free products and services from high-tech companies in exchange for allowing firms to advertise on school computers. According to a 1997 presidential report, the nation needs to triple current spending on technology to $18 billion to reach all schools. (Business Week, September 25 2000) (Quoted from Edupage September 20, 2000.)

Comment: The annual rate of spending for IT in K-12 education in the U.S. is now approximately 2% of the school budget, or about $133 per student per year. The PCAST (1997) report mentioned above suggested that schools might need to spend in the range of 5% to 15% of their budgets for IT and related staff development, curriculum development, and support systems. The actual article in Business Week indicates that the current ratio of students per computer in U.S. public schools is approximately five students per computer. (This is data from the Education Department of Quality Education Data.) About two years ago, for white collar workers in the U.S., the ratio was 1.05 computers per worker. If we view a student as a "white collar worker," then we need approximately five times as many computers in schools as we currently have.

Drexel to Provide Dictation Software to All Students (9/20/00)

 * Drexel University has announced it will provide students and staff with free Lernout & Hauspie speech-recognition software that will allow them to dictate documents into their computers. Lernout & Hauspie, which owns Dragon Systems, will join Drexel representatives at the university's freshman orientation to display Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred 4.0, which will be distributed on CDs to students and staff. EDUCAUSE says no other university that it is aware of has launched a campus-wide rollout of speech-recognition software. Drexel officials say they are impressed with the software's accuracy and speed, noting that speech recognition has advanced significantly in the past several years. The new software handles continuous speech and allows users to speak with little affectation, says Drexel's Kenneth Blackney. (Philadelphia Inquirer, September 20 2000) (Quoted from Edupage, September 20, 2000.)

Comment: This type of widespread adoption of voice input at the freshman level in higher education indicates that it is now a viable and valuable educational tool. We will see this tool moving relatively quickly into K-12 education. This movement will be hastened by home use of voice input systems.

Computers in Schools May Do More Harm than Good (9/13/00)

 * The U.S. should postpone its push to move technology into classrooms until studies prove that computers help children learn, according to a report released Tuesday by the Alliance for Childhood, a group of educators, children's advocates, and doctors. The enthusiasm for technology in schools is fueled by the high-tech industry's desire to expand its markets, and parents' concern that their children will fall behind without computers in schools, the report says. The Alliance suggests that elementary school students learn through hands-on, real-world activities, and that the U.S. surgeon general should conduct studies on the emotional, developmental, and physical effects of computers on children, and on the ethical and social issues that might impact older students. The report says that computers present health risks such as eyestrain, obesity, and repetitive stress injuries; detract from human interaction, creativity, and hands-on learning; and do little to boost academic achievement. (SiliconValley.com, September 12 2000) (Quoted from Edupage, September 13, 2000.) The Web site for the materials discussed in this brief summary is: Accessed 9/27/00: http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/index.htm.

Comment: Changes (for example, technology-based changes in education) always have a plus and a minus side. Often it takes many years before the pluses and the minuses become clear. Moreover, it is often quite difficult to weigh the relative merits of the plus and the minus cases, and thus to make appropriate decisions about the continued implementation of the change.

We are all familiar with the trite statement, "Computers are here to stay." Moreover, we understand how IT empowers the user, in terms of being able to solve complex problems and accomplish difficult tasks. Finally, we know that it takes years of study and practice to gain a high level of IT knowledge and skill.

Thus, our school system is faced by a dual challenge:

1. How should IT be used to help students gain the knowledge and skills inherent to the "traditional" curriculum that existed before IT became available? One possible answer is that IT should not be used in this endeavor. That is an answer inherent to the short news item given above.

2. What should our schools be doing in terms of helping students to learn to use IT both in addressing the content areas of the traditional curriculum, and also in IT-related content areas? For example, IT is a powerful aid to writing and to doing math. Should students learn to use a word processor or graphing calculator? In addition, IT facilitates computer modeling and simulation as a powerful aid to representing and solving problems in science, engineering, social sciences, and other areas. What should students be learning about such uses of IT?

The study reported on in the news item does not attempt to answer these types of questions. Thus, it has the characteristic of "throwing out the baby with the bath water."

Some Uses of Supercomputers (9/13/00)

 * Scientists say the new Terascale Computing System (TCS), located at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, will help unravel some of the world's most complex mysteries. With 2,728 microprocessors, the TCS will process 6 trillion calculations per second, calculating as much in one day as a standard desktop computer does in 10 years. Scientists need that much power to model intricate, three-dimensional systems such as seismic movement. Other problems the new supercomputer could tackle include protein folding and the development of severe storms. However, scientist Kelvin Droegemeier says even the TCS will not have the speed necessary to provide vital information about coming storms before they hit, nor will it be able to detect the minute changes in protein folding that can lead to the development of a disease such as Alzheimer's or sickle cell anemia. Aware of this deficiency, the National Science Foundation, which is funding the construction of TCS with a $45 million grant, will ask Congress for more money to increase the capability of TCS to 20 trillion calculations per second. (USA Today, September 13 2000) (Quoted from Edupage, September 13 2000.)

Comment: In the past, there have been two main ways to "do" science: experimental and theoretical. Now a third way has emerged: computer modeling and simulation. Computer modeling of complex systems such as protein folding, weather, and seismic movements provides a new and powerful approach to dealing with some important and challenging problems.

Some of today's microcomputers are now functioning in the 1-2 billion operations per second range. The supercomputers discussed in this news article are about 10,000 times as fast as are such desktop microcomputers.

Our educational system needs to prepare students to work appropriately with modeling and simulation as a way of representing and attempting to solve complex problems. While all of the examples in the news item are drawn from the sciences, there are equally challenging problems in the social sciences and other fields that are now being addressed through use of computer modeling and simulation.

For-profit Internet-based Higher Education (8/30/00)

 * Harcourt Higher Education has joined the exclusive ranks of for-profit Internet-based providers of higher education, having received approval from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education to award two-year associate's degrees and four-year bachelor's degrees. The University of Phoenix, Nova Southeastern University in Florida, and Jones International University in Colorado are the only other for-profit entities in the Internet-based education space. The 1,000 students that are expected to enroll in the first year will apply for admission, attend classes, go to the library, take tests, participate in classroom discussions, and eventually graduate online. Each three-credit-hour course will cost $900, and revenues are projected to reach $18 million in the first year. There are expectations of breaking even in 2003, and of having an enrollment of 20,000 students by 2005, when tuition revenue should reach $45 million. (Boston Globe, August 25 2000) (Quoted from Edupage, August 30, 2000.)

Comment: Accreditation and formal, coherent programs of study are key aspects of formal education. Accreditation means that the credits earned can be transferred to other institutions and programs of study. Distance learning (especially distance learning based on use of the Internet) is bringing a new dimension and new competition into our formal educational systems.

This new dimension/competition is already proving to be a powerful change agent in higher education. Public and private colleges and universities recognize the opportunities and the challenges of distance learning. Many are developing distance learning courses and programs to serve their current and potential students. Thus, we are now at the beginning of a major change in higher education that includes competition among public institution, private non-profit institutions, and for-profit institutions of higher education.

eBook-based Newspaper (7/27/00)

 * (AUSTRALIA) -- Some of Australia's major media organizations are testing new technology designed to make the printed newspaper obsolete. Sources at News Ltd. say the company plans to begin phasing out newsprint as early as next year, moving readers over to a variety of new devices. The company has been working with prototypes of the electronic reader Softbook, which is flexible, lightweight and capable of storing more than 10,000 pages of text and graphics. It even has audio capabilities so customers can have the news read to them. The price of Softbook is expected to fall to around US$100 in 2001, and the company believes it can recoup the cost of distributing the devices free to all of its newspaper home delivery subscribers within 20 weeks. (Ifra Trend Report, trendreport@ifra.com, 26 July 2000.)

Comment: Think about the possibility that every student has a battery-powered, easily portable eBook with a very readable screen and a large storage capacity. How would this affect education? A school district (perhaps a state) would negotiate with book publishers to secure the rights to download the various books a student uses during a year. Imagine a high school student carrying the equivalent of several books for each course, with the total weight being less than a pound. Imagine a teacher assigning a couple of chapters out of a supplementary book for a course, and this quickly being downloaded to each student's eBook. Imagine that textbook companies could update their texts incrementally, rather than every six years.

Softbook is one brand of relatively small, easily portable electronic books. The Web address for the company is http://www.softbook.com/. Right now, this brand of eBook costs considerably more than $100.

=Author of this IAE-pedia Page= The content of this document was developed by David Moursund.