Digital Discourse / Education Policies

SIIA hosts ed-tech summit; Committee passes patent bill

April 19, 2011 By

The U.S. Congress is on recess this week, following a budget dominated week that featured a shutdown-avoiding final FY2011 appropriations act, and a House-passed FY2012 budget proposal that cut trillions of entitlement spending over the next decade. The budget is likely to dominate the federal legislative calendar throughout the year.

Ed-Tech Government Forum held in Washington, DC
The averted government shutdown ensured that SIIA’s annual Ed Tech Government Forum took place as planned. SIIA brought more than 100 education division members to Washington, DC for discussions with key education leaders about the impact of public policies on the school software market. Attendees networked with more than 150 local and national education leaders, and took advocacy visits to dozens of Congressional offices.

Among the highlights were remarks by Senator Patty Murray, FCC Commissioner Clyburn and U.S. Education Secretary Duncan’s Chief of Staff Joanne Weiss. Session presentations and session summaries will be archived. While education (and education technology) was being cut, SIIA and Senator Patty Murray helped release a report profiling how federal school technology grants helped transform and improve education.

ICANN releases new Guidebook
In other news, ICANN released a new version of the Draft Applicant Guidebook yesterday, continuing the debate over the rollout of new generic top level domains (gTLDs). The Guidebook can be found here. The public comment period runs from April 15 to May 15, and SIIA is working on comments through its constituency group, the Coalition for Online Accountability.

Administration releases NSTIC
On Friday, April 15, the Administration released its National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). This “private sector-led effort to create a new infrastructure for the Internet, built on interoperable, privacy-enhancing, and secure identity credentials,” was released in conjunction with an event at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The lead Administration agency is the National Institute for Standards and Technology, which announced at the same time that it will be moving forward with a series of workshops on Trusted ID in the coming months.

Web Tracking and User Privacy Workshop to be held
On April 28 and 29, W3C will hold a workshop on Web Tracking and User Privacy at Princeton, New Jersey. Experts from academia, industry, civil society and government will discuss the role of anti-tracking technology to preserve use privacy on the Internet. The agenda can be found here. SIIA’s Director of Public Policy, David Leduc, will join a panel of experts on the first day of the workshop discussing the mechanisms that could be used to implement such a proposal. His submitted paper can be found here. 

House Judiciary Commitee passes patent bill
On patent reform, last week the House Judiciary Committee passed H.R. 1249, the America Invents Act.

Share|
Filed Under: Anti-Piracy, Copyright, Digital Policy Roundup, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Government, Patent, Policy, Software Tagged With: , , ,

Pending Federal Budget Cuts Would Stall Technology-Based Education Innovation

March 18, 2011 By

The use of technology and digital learning in education has reached a tipping point — the conversation has shifted from “if” to “how,” and education leaders are touting digital learning’s power to improve productivity, personalize learning, and expand learning opportunities. Yet, just as the nation’s education system is poised to accelerate technology-based innovation and improvement, a critical U.S. Department of Education program is on the chopping block. House-passed and Senate-proposed bills would zero out funding for the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT; NCLB II-D) program for Fiscal Year 2011 (i.e., 2011-2012 school year).

Advocates are mobilizing to respond, contacting their Members of Congress by e-mail and phone and advocating in-person April 13 (at SIIA’s Ed Tech Government Forum, which will also include speakers on government programs and policies of interest to digital learning providers).

SIIA and several education groups (ISTE, CoSN and SETDA) expressed strong concern in a recent statement: “We are deeply disappointed that despite many Members’ understanding of the vital role technology plays in K-12 education in their states and districts, Congress is on the verge of eliminating funding for this critical program. Elimination of the program also is the surest way to devalue the billions of dollars invested over the last two years on improving broadband access to K‐12 schools and directly undercuts ongoing state and federal efforts to deploy education data systems, implement new college and areer‐ready standards and assessments, and address the well-documented STEM crisis. Our educators and students deserve better, and we urge Congress to reverse course and fully fund the EETT program.”

[3/22/11 Update: 14 U.S. Senators called on the Appropriations Committee to restore funding for the EETT program to the FY10 $100 million level. See their letter, along with a supporting statement from education groups including NEA and NSBA.]

EETT is the only federal education program designed to leverage innovation and technology to adequately prepare all of the nation’s children for the competitive 21st century global economy. Integrating technology among all programs is necessary, but not sufficient, while public R&D supoort is needed but not an alternative for directly supporting schools. This targeted investment is needed to provide leadership and professional development, and to increase the capacity of educators to redesign education to further personalize learning and engage students.

Spread the word to educators and colleagues! Contact your Member of Congress now!

Share|
Filed Under: Ed Tech Government Forum, Education Policies, Education Policy, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Balancing Technology Standardization and Innovation in Race to the Top Assessments

January 31, 2011 By

The U.S. K-12 public education system continues to lag in both adoption of technology and related innovation as well as in leveraging technology and digital resources through interoperability standards. The two are closely connected: technology standards provide a base for cost-effective, value-added innovation; but if carried too far or adopted too early, such technical standardization can also inhibit desired innovation and competition. 

Their appropriate balance is therefore critical to advancing both important goals. The challenges in finding this delicate equilibrium point are being tested (pun intended) now as the U.S. Department of Education and its two Race to the Top Assessment (RTTA) grantee consortia — SBAC and PARCC – consider the scope and form of their deliverables and technology (interoperability) standards.

The $350 million RTTA initiative promises to bring important technology-enabled innovation to assessment — including many long available but not often implemented by states — through the online delivery of more robust (i.e., comprehensive, authentic, timely and adaptive) measurement of student knowledge and skills to inform teaching, learning and accountability. Leveraging this innovation will require changes to teaching and learning, technology investment, interoperability development and adoption, and limits on the scope of RTTA development.

In response to an important RFI by the Department regarding the technology standards to be employed by the RTTA consortia, SIIA supported the requirement that RTTA grantees “maximize the interoperability of assessments across technology platforms and the ability for States to switch their assessments from one technology platform to another.” RTTA could provide the tipping point to K-12 education’s adoption of data and content interoperability standards (see SIIA Primer) that would, for example, enable and maximize our ability to personalize learning.

But these benefits will only be realized if interoperability is properly implemented, and if standardization is balanced with innovation. SIIA’s recommendations to USED (and the RTTA consortia) elaborated on both points. [Read more...]

Share|
Filed Under: Ed Tech Government Forum, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Policy Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Digital Learning Now!

December 1, 2010 By

SIIA is pleased to be a part of today’s announcement of the Digital Learning Now! campaign led by former Governors Jeb Bush (R-FL) and Bob Wise (D-WV) to advocate for state policies aligned with 10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning. The 10 elements were identified by a Digital Learning Council of education leaders, including SIIA’s Mark Schneiderman and senior executives of several SIIA member high-tech companies.

Announced Bush and Wise: “We are grateful to the council members for forging a path for education’s historic shift from print to digital, from age groups to individuals and from seat time to competency. . . . Digital learning can transform education. Technology has the power and scalability to customize education so each and every student learns in their own style at their own pace, which maximizes their chances for success in school. It offers teachers an effective way to overcome challenges and better educate students of all learning needs. Digital learning is the great equalizer. It holds the promise of extending access to rigorous high quality instruction to every student across America, regardless of language, zip code, income levels, or special needs.”

The 10 policy recommendations include both access to technology infrastructure, digital content and online courses as well regulatory reforms to shift from seat-time to competency-based learning and remove many policy barriers to online learning. They focus on the opportunity to personalize learning through technology and include among key resources the SIIA-ASCD-CCSSO report on Education System Redesign for Personalized Learning. And they call for enhanced support for digital-age teaching through data systems, online assessment and professional development. As such, Digital Learning Now is perhaps the most comprehensive set of such policy recommendations in recent times, and represents a growing recognition among education leaders and stakeholders that transformational systemic change through technology is needed, including in light of the nation’s educational funding, teacher and performance shortages.

SIIA appreciates the leadership of Governors Bush and Wise, and the opportunity to be part of this important effort. We look forward to supporting the campaign’s next steps of helping states benchmark against these 10 elements and make changes to state policies and practices needed to advance this comprehensive vision for digital learning.

Share|
Filed Under: Ed Tech Government Forum, Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Personalized Learning, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Education Leaders Identify Top 10 Components of Systemic Redesign to Personalize Learning

November 15, 2010 By

The nation’s education stakeholders increasingly recognize that the fundamental redesign of our preK-12 system around the student is required for our future success. Calls for (e.g., Secretary Duncan) and examples of (e.g., Kansas City) innovative, personalized learning models are growing.

To help give voice and support to this movement, SIIA – in collaboration with ASCD and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) – released “Innovate to Educate: System [Re]Design for Personalized Learning,” based upon the insights and recommendations of some 150 education leaders convened at an August Symposium in Boston, MA (See archive of presentations, summaries and videos). The report provides a primer on personalized learning with definitions and examples and identifies the following essential practices and policies as voted on by Symposium attendees: [Read more...]

Share|
Filed Under: Education, Education Policies, Education Policy, Personalized Learning, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,

Race to Redesign Education for Personalized Learning

June 9, 2010 By

While much of the national education attention has been focused on Race to the Top (RttT), a growing movement is focused on the race to redesign our education system before it becomes too outdated to meet our students’ and nation’s needs in today’s digital society and knowledge economy. The reforms in RttT are necessary, but most would agree are not sufficient. We must educate to innovate, but just as importantly, we must innovate to educate. In response, SIIA, in collaboration with ASCD and the Council of Chief State School Officers, is convening 150 education leaders for the invitation-only “Innovate to Educate: A Symposium on [Re]Design for Personalized Learning.”

Leading foundations (e.g., Nellie Mae), associations (e.g., CCSSO) and non-profits (e.g., RISC) are challenging our long-standing notions of education, while local (e.g., Adams 50 School District, CO) and state education leaders are accepting the challenge. Recognition that our assembly-line, agrarian-calendar based model (symbolized by a classrooom of students in rows of desks) is unchanged since the industrial age a century ago and calls for anytime, anywhere, anypace personalized learning are not new. What has changed? As the new U.S. Department of Education Report “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology” recognizes, what has changed is our ability to respond with an ever more sophisticated arsenal of research, alternative models and technologies. A number of initiatives are leading the way, but as is often the case in education, they are too often isolated and not at scale.

The SIIA-ASCD-CCSSO Symposium will bring together SIIA members with national, state and local education leaders. They will develop a common vision, share models and practices, identify key policy and systems change enablers, and spec the technology, curriculum and human resources needed to power this student-centered customized learning system. Perhaps more importantly, they will continue building a community of practice needed to further develop the vision, models and tools and an action network to drive the change of policy and practice.

Share|
Filed Under: Education, Education Events, Education Policies, Education Policy, Events, Personalized Learning Tagged With: , , , , ,
Newer Posts »