Volume 6, No. 1, Winter 2002

Perspective

Technology in Support of Equity

by Robert Tinker

While the debate over the digital divide continues, many educators are convinced that the most crucial gap is really the digital learning divide. This has more to do with inequities in the way technology is used. While some students use computers for drill-and-practice, others are exploring models of scientific phenomena or exploiting online resources. At the Concord Consortium we are addressing the learning gap by breaking down barriers to the use of technology and creating new, low-cost mechanisms for disseminating technology-based solutions. This issue of @CONCORD describes several of these efforts.

Breaking Down Barriers

The best uses of educational technology require curriculum redesign and renewal. Few schools can undertake this from a cold start. A long-term strategy is needed that meets the current curriculum goals with better, technology-enhanced materials. For example, we are developing substitution units using computer-based models and tools in our Modeling Across the Curriculum project. We will implement at least one substitution unit per semester for three years of standard secondary science courses in a dozen schools. By monitoring student learning closely with our Pedagogica technology, we hope to demonstrate the power of this model-based learning strategy. Modeling Across the Curriculum is our massive, long-term study of this implementation strategy.

Hardware will never be free, but there is much that can be done to improve its benefit/cost ratios. One under-utilized strategy is to use the less-expensive handheld computers we have termed "equity computers." Currently under $200 and soon to be below $100, they are actually better in many contexts than desktop computers. Two ways in which handhelds excel are described in this issue: field work and collaboration.

Probeware, the use of sensor-equipped computers for real-time data acquisition and analysis, is one of the most powerful applications of computers in mathematics and science. The latest results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that probeware is associated with better student performance in science. High school seniors who reported using probes (even less frequently than once a month) had significantly higher scores on average than those who never used probes. There was an even higher jump in the scores of students who used probes one to two times per month (see the NCES Nation's Report Card, 2000). In this issue we describe our current efforts to reduce the barriers to wider use of this technology, an approach that involves using handhelds, new probeware, and open source software.

Making Software Free

We think that government-funded materials like ours should be free. The prevailing view is that such materials should be licensed to commercial distributors who will generate enough income from sales to maintain the materials. This strategy may work for some materials, but not for sophisticated tools and materials, which commercial developers find too costly to produce profitably.

An exciting precedent for making powerful software available comes from the experience of the GNU/Linux operating system and applications based on it. The lesson is clear: make it free and if it is good enough, a self-appointed community will support and improve the software. We are convinced that this is how larger educational applications should be distributed. We are so certain of this that we are launching the Open Source Library of Educational Tools (OSLET). This experiment in free distribution of educational technology contains an impressive group of tools and models as well as supporting curricula in the form of Pedagogica scripts.

By providing free software, a project like OSLET could be a boon to educators serving poorer communities. We encourage all developers to improve the software and materials in OSLET and to contribute their own developments. Developers planning new projects should start by looking at OSLET because there are free components there that can reduce the cost of new software development. The resulting code must be contributed to OSLET, adding to its ability to improve education worldwide.

Organizing for Impact

The Concord Consortium exists to improve education and equity of access through innovations in technology. We want our advances to be used and have an impact, not to gather dust on a shelf as so often happens in research. A small group like ours, however, can easily be overwhelmed by attempting to serve even a tiny fraction of the colleges and schools that would like to implement our innovations. Furthermore, the institutional structure required for innovative research and development is incompatible with a service-oriented dissemination effort.

How do we balance the need to support innovative research and development with dissemination, service, and outreach? We have come up with a strategy borrowed from the for-profit sector: create alliances. We are in the process of creating the CC Group, a collection of affiliated companies that provides specialized dissemination services.

CC Group

KidSolve
Offers teacher professional development and curricula in science.
Metacourse
Provides online course design consultation.
Metacursos
Presents metacourses in Spanish.
OnLine Learning International(OLLI)
Offers consulting for online training to businesses.
Virtual High School, Inc. (VHS)
Operating independently since October 2001, VHS offers online courses to high schools worldwide.
EdTech Exchange (ETX)
When complete, this Web site will disseminate developments from CC research so that they are more immediately useful to educators.

Technology has much to offer schools that serve poor communities. No one questions that there is a divide in access to powerful desktop computers. However, the low-cost resources discussed above could easily be made available to even the most financially strapped schools, enabling them to take advantage of the best learning opportunities that technology has to offer.

Two keys to this will be educational solutions based on tools and models that are supported with online teacher professional development. We believe that these strategies and tools hold the key to revolutionizing education. Teachers who want to address the digital learning divide will find innovative, valuable, affordable resources within the CC Group.

Robert Tinker (bob@concord.org) is president of the Concord Consortium.

The projects described in this newsletter are supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the Noyce Foundation and others. All opinions, findings, and recommendations expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. Mention of trade names, commercial products or organizations does not imply endorsement.

Our Newsletter
Our newsletter, @Concord, is published twice annually.