TELEPRESENCE.......aka......VIDEO CONFERENCING

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'Telepresence' adds realism to video conferencing
Initial cost is likely too steep for schools--but it could have future implications

From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
October 26, 2006
Imagine a virtual conferencing solution so advanced that unsuspecting visitors entering the room have been unaware that not all participants were physically present.

That's what Cisco Systems has designed with its new "Cisco TelePresence" system, technology that aims to remedy the detached feel of talking to a television set that long has plagued traditional video conferences. The technology is likely to have a limited impact in education in the near term, given its initial price point. But as the cost comes down, it could have implications for schools down the road, industry watchers say.

Cisco TelePresence is a tool for orchestrating meetings between far-flung parties that will deliver a vastly more intimate experience, Cisco claims. Announced on Oct. 23, the solution is the San Jose, Calif.-based networking gear maker's first foray into the fledgling "telepresence" market.

The term is industry jargon for attempting to simulate real-time interactions between people in different locations using high-definition monitors, highly sensitive audio equipment, and integrated networking gear.

The technology aims to be so realistic as to make conference-call participants believe the person talking on the monitor is actually in the same room.

For example, picture a conference room with six chairs, three on each side of a conference table. Envision a clear glass panel running down the center of the table.

Walk into this room while a high-level parlay is under way, and you'd see six executives deep in conversation. But here's the catch: Only three of them are physically present. The three participants closest to you actually are in the room. The others are in another location, but their life-size, high-definition images are on the glass partition in the conference room.

The illusion reportedly is heightened because both locations use matching furnishings. Other elements that enhance the effect are that participants appear to make direct eye contact with one another, the streaming video is smooth and flawless, and the audio is perfectly matched to lip movement.

Several companies, including Hewlett-Packard Co., already offer telepresence products. The market is projected to grow to $300 million by 2008, according to technology research firm Gartner Inc.

Cisco, which makes the routers and switches used to link networks, is banking that large corporate clients will flock to the technology and propel it into a billion-dollar business.

One of Cisco's newest products is a high-end room that can accommodate up to 12 people around the virtual table and comes with three 65-inch plasma displays, three high-definition cameras, and the table and lighting. Price: $299,000.






The other is a single-screen version that costs $79,000 and can accommodate up to four people.

Both products are designed to run across a company's existing network, said Marthin De Beer, vice president of Cisco's Emerging Markets Technology Group.

But to take advantage of the technology, customers must have robust bandwidth; the high-end room uses about 10 megabits of bandwidth per second.

De Beer said the technology marks a dramatic improvement in reliability, ease of use, and overall realism over traditional video conferencing products and solves a lingering business dilemma.

"This has been an elusive dream for many years," he said. "With all the technologies of the past, people were never comfortable to use it for real business, to close that deal or sign that contract."

Whether the illusion of greater intimacy is important enough for schools to justify the higher price tag remains to be seen.

"Telepresence will have a very limited role in education in the near future, given the [initial] price point," said Vijay Sonty, chief information officer for Florida's Broward County Public Schools.

Sonty said Broward County is now piloting a video conferencing system that lowers the cost to about $200 per end point and reportedly works with all other major systems. He said the high-definition capabilities of the district's current system are "more than sufficient for education," including teaching, learning, and research.

David Willis, chief of research for Gartner, said the steep price and network requirements make Cisco's products irrelevant for all but the largest of customers. But he was impressed with the technology.

"It's an amazing illusion," he said. "It really pulls off the experience of a real meeting. And I hate video conferencing ... But this is like David Copperfield. This is like magic."

Cisco said the systems are already available and should begin shipping to customers in about four weeks.

Link:

Cisco TelePresence
http://www.cisco.com/telepresence







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Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) Project Granting Vehicle

DaimlerChrysler, science center offer tech education awards: The DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund and the Detroit Science Center announced that the "Closing the Technology Gap" educational awards will return for a second year and applications can be submitted immediately.

The program, which honors teachers who have challenged and stimulated students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and math, will award a total of $87,000 to Michigan public schools.

The program aims to increase student interest and participation in the sciences and ultimately provide companies such as Chrysler Group with a viable, technology oriented work force in the future.

Michigan public school teachers who teach STEM courses are invited to submit an application via mail to the Detroit Science Center or the Web site www.chryslerteacherawards.com by Dec. 31.

Winners will be announced in May.

DIGITAL Video 1.0

eSchool News presents

Creative Video Solutions

The digital age has completely transformed how video is used in schools. No longer is it necessary for teachers to order films three weeks in advance. Almost gone are the days when media-resource teachers got into their car and drove filmstrips, VHS tapes, and DVDs from school to school. Today, an increasing number of schools are reaping the benefits of video delivered over computer networks.

Whether it's called video streaming, video over IP (Internet Protocol), or video on demand, the concept is relatively the same. Video is digitized, housed on a server, and accessed via computer. Users can play the video clips directly from the internet on their computer screens, or they can download a clip and show it to the entire class via a television monitor or a digital projector beaming the images onto a large screen.

The advent of video streaming offers many advantages. With just a few seconds at the computer, teachers are able to show short snippets of video to capture students' attention at the beginning of a lesson or to reinforce what they are teaching. And beyond delivering supplemental instructional videos to classrooms, schools are sending video across their networks for other functions, too.

For example, many schools and districts are creating their own professional development videos and giving teachers access to them online at their convenience. Others are using video to reach out to parents and other stakeholders, such as streaming school board meetings, football games, or video news programs over the internet.

With the generous support of New Dimension Media (NDM), the editors of eSchool News have assembled the following collection of news stories, best practices, and other resources from the eSN archives to help you explore the many ways video streaming can be used to boost communication and enhance instruction in your own schools.--The Editors

DIGITAL Gaming for Education......getottahere....Sounds to much like FUN!

Scientists call for government to help fund video game research

10/17/2006 1:47:21 PM, by Jacqui Cheng

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) released a report (PDF) today recommending that the federal government provide funding to create more educational video games. They argue that video games teach higher-level, complex thinking skills that are used in today's workplaces, and that these skills would give American students an edge in the job market over foreign competition.

The conclusions were drawn from a summit held last year in Washington, DC and sponsored by the FAS, the Entertainment Software Association, and the National Science Foundation. The summit, composed of nearly a hundred experts ranging from the video game industry to teachers, focused on four key issues: video game features that support learning, research needed to support video games in education, market barriers, and barriers in the school system.

The panel determined that there are, in fact, skills learned by video games that are of value to today's employers, including "strategic and analytical thinking, problem solving, planning and execution, decision-making, and adaptation to rapid change." Additionally, they found that video games foster goal-setting, practice in patience, and even team building. Carefully noting that there is a difference between video games developed for entertainment versus education, the FAS's report says that an emphasis in learning in video games could greatly benefit future generations of workers.

In order to continue to foster these skills in children and young adults, more educational games need to be developed, according to the report. There are a number of barriers holding back the video game industry from doing so, however. First, there is little-to-no actual research done on how effective educational video games can be on children, making the industry unwilling to take the financial risk in developing such programs without the promise that they will take off. Secondly, without any sort of testing that measures the skills learned in video games, schools are scared to sacrifice textbook time for video game time, especially in the eyes of parents and teachers who hold a dim view of the value of gaming.

So what are the recommendations? FAS recommends that the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor should work in conjunction with educators and researchers to develop a research & development schedule to evaluate learning in games.

Additionally, part of the R&D schedule should include a method by which those skills would be assessed. Also included in the recommendations are school systems working educational video games into their teaching, a feat that could take some time given the strict budgets and lesson plans that many schools already face.

*21st Century Digital Learning Environments have had seminal discussions with the Dean of Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University (MSU) regarding the co-development of such a collaborative initiative between their organization and K-12 Education.

DIGITAL WEB 2.0 Brings Wonderment!

A Day in the Life of Web 2.0 By David Warlick Oct 15, 2006 URL: http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193200296 The latest powerful online tools can be harnessed to transform and expand the learning experience. An 8th grade science teacher, Ms. S, retrieves her MP3 player from the computer-connected cradle where it's spent the night scanning the 17 podcasts she subscribes to. Having detected three new programs, the computer downloaded the files and copied them to the handheld. En route to work, Ms. S inserts the device into her dash-mounted cradle and reviews the podcasts, selecting a colleague's classroom presentation on global warming and a NASA conference lecture about interstellar space travel. As with all the teachers at her middle school, Ms. S keeps a regular blog where she writes about everything from homework assignments to reflections on course topics, with a full description posted each Monday morning on the how, what, and why of course material to be taught in the upcoming week. The teachers' blogs are all syndicated using RSS — Rich Site Summary, or the more informal and descriptive, Really Simple Syndication. With aggregation software, students, parents, administrators and other teachers can subscribe and have the freshly written blog entries immediately and automatically delivered to their desktops. Professional development, communication, cross-curricular lesson planning and articulation among grade levels are all served as educators regularly read each other's blogs and learn about topics and activities taking place in the various classrooms. The Monday reports in particular enable them to benefit by sharing strategies and materials with colleagues who teach the same subject or those in other departments. For instance, Mr. K, a health and P.E. teacher, frequently finds ways of integrating science issues covered in Ms. S's classroom with his health topics. He knows that Ms. S will focus on genetics this week, and he will be teaching about disease next week, so he arranges for them to meet and discuss a combination assignment. In preparation for the meeting, Mr. K conducts a Web search to find the most informative sites and adds the Center for Disease Control to his social bookmarks. (See the sidebar "How to Search and Tag," at bottom, right.) Meanwhile, social studies teacher Ms. L scans through sites tagged genetics in the school's social bookmark service. Her students may need quick access to them as they discuss genetic engineering current events during class. Mr. K's CDC site appears along with others that have been saved and tagged genetics. All assignments in Ms. L's class are turned in via blogs because she finds that their conversational nature encourages students to think and write in more depth than traditional formal essays or short answer assignments. Another advantage of receiving assignments in blog format is that both she and her students can subscribe, which means all of the kids' blogs appear in her aggregator, and students can reap the benefits of seeing each other's work. Ms. L crafts the blog assignments with an eye toward training students to think critically and to post informed, well-considered opinions. A common classroom activity, for instance, is to have students read the blogged entries of others and write persuasive reactions — one in agreement, another in disagreement — and post these writings as comments to their classmates' blogs. Initially, the students struggled with the task, but they eventually learned the goal was not necessarily to find an idea with which they personally disagreed but to find another side to an idea and write persuasively from that perspective. For the genetics assignment, students assume a range of positions — some that discourage work in genetic manipulation based on security, cost, and ethics, and others that support it based on the potential cure for disease, life extension, and increased food production. In response to these blogged assignments, Ms. L posts assessments in the form of comments. A few doors down the hall, veteran English teacher Mr. P is reviewing a new batch of student wikis. In an effort to help the students become better communicators, he never provides study guides for tests, instead relying on students to construct their own study resources using their team wikis. He rewards teams that create the most useful/popular study guides. How to Search and Tag To create a combination science/health lesson, Mr. K goes to Google News and searches for diseases that are in the news, cross-referencing them with the words genetics and mutation. The search engine returns references to about 10,000 articles from news sources from around the world. He sees several references to bird flu, so he right-clicks on the term and selects Search Google. A second browser window appears that reports 57.1 million hits, starting with a list of the top 10. The Web pages at the top are those most linked to by other pages — ranking by recommendation. Among the top links are sites from the Center for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, MSNBC, and the National Institute of Health. After selecting a facts page from the CDC, the health teacher clicks a link in the linksbar of his Web browser, adding the site in view to his online social bookmarks, what Mr. K calls his "personal digital library." In the page that follows, the health teacher selects from a list of tags to attach to the CDC Web page. These tags serve to categorize the Web page, enabling him to assign several categories (or tags) to a single page. He selects and clicks disease, genetics, health, Mr. K, and charlestonmiddle school. Because his online bookmarks are syndicated by tag, the site he has just added automatically appears on his Disease Unit Web page. Mr. P uses a wiki tool installed on the school's network. He devotes one part of the wiki site to general information and resources that he and the most accomplished students can edit. This part of the site serves as the class textbook. He also maintains other parts of the site for class teams, usually four students per team. These sections have their own passwords, and team members can log in to their wikis and enter text, images, links to audio and video files, and format their content in a variety of ways. Mr. P is able to track the number of unique views for each page so that he can measure and reward teams for producing the most useful communications. Earlier in the day, Student A had left Mr. P's room in a jubilant mood because she'd just learned that her team produced the most useful study guide for yesterday's test, which earned them 10 points toward level three in the class. Level three will give the team much more editing access to the class wiki and more opportunities to contribute to the class literary Web site and the literary book the students will publish at the end of the school year. Mr. P begins adjusting the volume on the microphone that hangs from his classroom ceiling. Today's discussion about The Grapes of Wrath will be recorded and posted in an audio file as a class podcast, as are all significant class presentations and discussions. Students, parents, community members, and other educators subscribe to his podcast programs. In fact, on the other side of town, Mrs. B, the parent of one of Mr. P's students, is listening to a podcast classroom conversation about a science fiction short story the students recently read. She and other parents subscribe to the podcasts so they can more easily engage their children in conversations about school. Page 2 At about the same time Mrs. B is listening to the lively classroom discussion, her son, Student B, is keying a text message from his school desk to his social studies class team. He briefly describes an idea for putting together a video as part of their current class project on rural cultures. The video idea had occurred to him a few days earlier while he and his mother were talking about one of the lesson recordings she'd listened to. Student C happens to be in study hall when she receives Student B's message and is excited about using a video in their presentation. She immediately accesses the school's social bookmarks, looking for sites that have been submitted by their science teacher, Ms. S, tagged with soil and plantgrowth. She identifies two sites, one from the Discovery Channel and the other from the USDA, called Ask a Worm. The idea is to create a video animation illustrating how soil quality affects cultures. As Student C tags the sites for her team, school librarian Ms. J is conducting research on behalf of a new math teacher. She and the school tech facilitator both subscribe to all of the teachers' Monday report blogs. With access to these weekly updates, they can use a shared spreadsheet to maintain an ongoing curriculum map of what's being taught in the school. The librarian and tech educator use the map to support teachers, finding and identifying resources and strategies related to what they are teaching. Ms. J is using a blogging search engine to find some serious Weblogs about mathematics so that the new teacher can include more practical applications in her current unit on real-world math. She finds several blogs: Galileo's Dilemma (math, physics, and chemistry), Dr. Katte's Blog (engineering), and BizImpresario (entrepreneurship). The librarian then adds the three blogs to the school's social bookmarks and tags them for the meeting that she has just noted on the school's collaborative social calendar. Meanwhile, the principal is also looking at the school calendar. She is finishing up a weekly blog entry that describes happenings at the school for the next seven days, including two class podcasts, a band concert (also to be podcasted), a guest speaker, an interesting lesson about ancient civilizations, and the PTO meeting. The administrator subscribes to and scans all of the teachers' Monday report blogs for material to include in her weekly report. She always posts the blog entry by the end of the day on Monday, which is read not only by parents but also by other schools, district leadership, and people from other parts of the community and country. Early that evening the district superintendent reads the principal's recently posted blog. He also subscribes to the teachers' Monday report blogs, finding that their writing gives him a bank of ideas for promoting the district and its efforts toward continued improvement. After he finishes the reading, he briefly accesses the wiki site where he and a committee of educators and community members are collaborating to develop a district improvement plan. He jots down a couple of ideas that occurred to him while reading the digital conversations that have come to define the middle school. He moves on to publish the wiki version of the improvement plan, inviting interested community members to edit the improvement plan within the wiki and insert their reflections and ideas through attached comments. This superintendent truly believes that, "It takes a village..." David Warlick is a blogger, podcaster, author, programmer, and public speaker. Podcast A syndicated audio (or video) program produced by traditional media such as radio and television but also by individuals including educators, hobbyists, students, or anyone passionate about a topic. Podcast Directories Education Podcast Network http://epnweb.org iTunes www.itunes.com Podcast.Net www.podcast.net Podcast Directory www.podcastdirectory.com Podcasting News www.podcastingnews.com Page 3 Blog Weblog, or chronological, online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often links to other Web sites provided by the writer. Others may subscribe to a person's blog, which allows them to read it and write comments in response. Blogging Software EduBlog http://edublogs.org Elgg http://elgg.org WordPress http://wordpress.org RSS Rich Site Summary (or Really Simple Syndication), a format for aggregating Web content in one place. Say you're a social studies teacher and you've found 20 or 30 Weblogs and media sites consistently publishing relevant information. Finding the time to visit those sites on a regular basis would be nearly impossible. A type of software called an aggregator or feed collector checks the feeds you subscribe to, usually every hour, and collects all the new content from those sites and sends it to your desktop. In other words, you check one site instead of 30. (See "The ABCs of RSS," on www.techlearning.com) Aggregators Bloglines http://bloglines.com Netvibes http://netvibes.com Social Bookmarking A Web-based service where shared lists of user-created Internet bookmarks are displayed. Social bookmarking sites are an increasingly popular way to locate, classify, rank, and share Internet resources through the practice of tagging and inferences drawn from grouping and analysis of tags. Some social bookmarking services let users list other users who have bookmarked the same Web sites. (Definition courtesy in part of Wikipedia.) Social Bookmarking Services Del.icio.us http://del.icio.us Furl http://furl.net Social Calendar Online schedules that allow more than one user to read and enter data. A team of workers can use the services as a collaborative scheduler to manage projects and business operations. Google Calendar http://calendar.google.com Yahoo Calendar http://calendar.yahoo.com Wiki A type of Web site that allows visitors to easily add, remove, or otherwise edit and change some available content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. For information about creating wiki student guides, go to http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=191801354. (Definition courtesy of Wikipedia) Wiki Tools MediaWiki http://mediawiki.org Peanut Butter Wiki http://pbwiki.com PMWiki http://pmwiki.com Wikispaces http://wikispaces.com Techlearning blog October 18, 2006 Gap Analysis (The REST of the Story) A TRUE DIGITAL DIVIDE! I truly enjoyed reading David Warlick’s recent article at Techlearning.org about A Day in the life of Web 2.0. David enthusiastically and creatively paints a picture we’d all like to see; a picture where technology does make a difference in how teachers teach and how kids learn. Blogs, wikis, RSS, everything Web 2.0 is integrated in a seamless and transparent fashion (get out those bingo cards…). I’ve got my own take, and it’s meant to provide a point of reference to David’s vision-to illustrate a gap, if you will. It will not be a pleasant vision and I considered not writing it. You probably should read David's article first to understand the next four paragraphs. A 9th grade English Teacher, Mrs. A, is preparing to go to school after a marathon essay grading session, where she was up to 1 a.m. because quarter grades are due in two days. Sleepy from staying up late and getting up at 5:30, she pulls into the drive thru of a local coffee shop to get a triple caramel macchiato latte to get her morning started. Mr. J., the school's IT Coordinator, who is in line behind her, wonders why she can’t just order a black coffee. Anyway, as she waits, she turns on a soft jazz station and wonders what she’ll teach today…oh, and she remembers she has that curriculum meeting after school today. Great… Mr. Q, an 8th grade science teacher, is three years from retirement. He’s teaching DNA structure today and he plans on trotting out his killer DNA building assignment out (duplicated weeks ago) where kids cut out DNA components and glue them together to make a long DNA chain. He’s not quite sure they get it, but they like doing it, it’s better than lecturing, and his room will have nice decorations for several weeks…. Mr R. is a second year teacher, who works with Mr. Q. Mr. R has found several great DNA animations online at the Dolan DNA Learning Center at Cold Spring Harbor. He has also found an interview with Dr. James Watson, one of the discovers of DNA that he plans on having the kids read before tackling the structure of the molecule collaboratively in groups using the school’s wireless computer lab, which is generally always available. Mr. R offers his resources to Mr. Q, who politely declines, saying the lesson he has planned works for him, and has for twenty years. Mr. R is frustrated, as other members of his department are also disinterested in working with him, saying they know what works, rookie. Mr. R, who has, even after one year been recognized as a quality teacher by parents and students, wonders what his employment options outside of education are. This isn’t working…he doesn’t like the isolation that is the standard in his school. Mrs. P is the principal, who, to put it mildly, struggles with technology. The school newsletter just gives her fits and she is truly mystified by Microsoft Word’s auto format feature, but then again, Mrs. P is not alone. At the moment however, she’s much more concerned with getting the two subgroups who have failed repeatedly to meet AYP on track. If they fail two more years in a row, Mrs. P’s school will be taken over by the state board of education, and she’s out of her sweet six figure salary. Technology will have to wait… I could go on, but I think you get it. Is the school situation described here typical? Unfortunately, I think it’s more typical than not. Most schools continue to educate kids in the way they always have, most teachers continue to teach in the ways they always have, and most administrators remain in their offices focusing on the things they focus on. There is a gap between what is and what should be-and that gap needs to be reduced, and quickly. But if you are a teacher, why change? Seriously! Why? Will you make more money? You are already grading papers, coaching sports, serving on committees, and chaperoning the freshman dance-you can’t do more. And you really aren't that interested in doing things differently. Will you get more respect from your kids, your peers, your parents and your administrators if you do? Unlikely. The obvious answer is that the kids will learn in a new way and will probably be better prepared, but many teachers have been pretty successful for a number of years, so what does working harder with poorly understood tools and little support actually buy them? Would you? If you are an administrator, the pressure is on. NCLB, AYP, DOPA, you name it. Throw in school violence issues, budget cuts, and the recent fake teacher MySpace account some kid created that you have to investigate, and you are at your limit. Develop programs to change the way instruction takes place-well yes, that is indeed something that needs to happen-because the kids better pass the test….and perhaps more prescriptive instruction is appropriate. There is a great line at the beginning of the movie SeaBiscuit. The line goes, “it was the beginning and the end of imagination, all at the same time.” That’s today. That’s the danger we face in our schools if we don't act, if we fail to see that something new is necessary.... The tools of technology, and those especially of Web 2.0, have captured the imagination of some and in those classrooms, learning is what it should be. But there is a huge gap between what is and what could be for most-that’s why events such as the K-12 Online Conference are so critical and help build toward a tipping point. Unfortunately, in most of our schools, it will be a hazardous and steep climb from the base as I have described it, as the status quo is what is important, perhaps what is even desired and sought, and while a few will accomplish so much, many will accomplish little, and the window for imagination and boldness will be lost, perhaps forever. Posted by David Jakes at 10:15 PM

The DIGITAL TRAIN is about to Leave the Station. ALL ABOARD!

Human and Community Development

Digital Media, Learning & Education

Grantmaking in education seeks primarily to gain a better understanding of how digital technologies are changing how young people learn, play, socialize, exercise judgment, and engage in civic life.

Grantmaking also is exploring how learning environments – peers, family and social institutions (such as schools) – may be changing as well.

Through answers to these questions, and the policy responses to them, the Foundation seeks to help build the interdisciplinary, cross-sector field of digital media and learning.

To learn more about this initaitive, visit the Digital Media and Learning website, or engage with grantees on the Spotlight blog.

An effort also continues to improve schools in Chicago neighborhoods where other Foundation-funded community revitalization activities are underway.

From the Field MacArthur Launches New Digital Media and Learning Initative On October 19, the MacArthur Foundation announced plans to build the emerging field of digital media and learning, committing $50 million over five years to the effort. The Foundation will fund research and innovative projects focused on understanding the impact of the widespread use of digital media on our youth and how they learn. Watch the webcast. Watch the video. Read the press release.

Did YOU Know?

The Fischbowl

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2006/08/did-you-know.html

Please check-out the PowerPointe Slideshow.........geared to "stretch" your mind and imagination!

WE refer to it as "The URGENCY of the DIGITAL EMERGENCY!"

Your thoughts, comments, etc. would be most enlightening.

FRAMING the Contextual 21st Century Digital Broadband Revolution K-12 Education On-Line Experience Conversation

LINK: Compliments of Paul Briercheck

Michgian Merit Curriculum On-Line Experience

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Online10.06_final_175750_7.pdf

How should WE join this conversation?

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October 21, 2006

Op-Ed Contributor

Spreading the Broadband Revolution

By WILLIAM E. KENNARD

WASHINGTON

LAST week, Google announced that it would pay $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube, a video-sharing Web site started only 20 months ago. At the same time, CBS announced a content-sharing arrangement with YouTube. This is the new world of interactive television, all made possible by fast broadband connections streaming video over the Internet.

Television is becoming a two-way, interactive experience that offers viewers the digital agility of the computer, the display quality of a movie theater and content that can be summoned on demand. It will take us from what an F.C.C. chairman, Newton Minow, referred to 45 years ago as a “vast wasteland” to a vast interactive world of limitless content — a long way from our couch-potato past.

Any serious discussion of the future of the Internet should start with a basic fact: broadband is transforming every facet of communications, from entertainment and telephone services to delivery of vital services like health care. But this also means that the digital divide, once defined as the chasm separating those who had access to narrowband dial-up Internet and those who didn’t, has become a broadband digital divide.

The nation should have a full-scale policy debate about the direction of the broadband Internet, especially about how to make sure that all Americans get access to broadband connections.

Unfortunately, the current debate in Washington is over “net neutrality” — that is, should network providers be able to charge some companies special fees for faster bandwidth. This is essentially a battle between the extremely wealthy (Google, Amazon and other high-tech giants, which oppose such a move) and the merely rich (the telephone and cable industries). In the past year, collectively they have spent $50 million on lobbying and advertising, effectively preventing Congress and the public from dealing with more pressing issues.

As chairman of the F.C.C., I put into place many policies to bridge the narrowband digital divide. The broadband revolution poses similar challenges for policymakers. America should be a world leader in broadband technology and deployment, and we must ensure that no group or region in America is denied access to high-speed connections.

We are falling short in both areas. Since 2000, the United States has slipped from second to 19th in the world in broadband penetration, with Slovenia threatening to push us into 20th. Studies by the federal government conclude that our rural and low-income areas trail urban and high-income areas in the rate of broadband use. Indeed, this year the Government Accountability Office found that 42 percent of households have either no computer or a computer with no Internet connection.

Two promising policies in particular would significantly expand broadband access.

First, to ensure that broadband reaches into rural, low income and other underserved communities, Congress should reform the Universal Service Fund, the federal subsidy paid to companies that provide telephone service to rural areas. For decades, the fund has been financed by a federal fee or surcharge that consumers pay on interstate phone calls. But the fund in its current form is not an effective way to support expanded broadband access. It is not fair to expect telephone consumers to bear the sole burden of the subsidy, and the decline in revenue from traditional long-distance calling is shrinking the base for contributions to the fund.

We must find a new source of revenue for the fund that does not exclusively tax users of the phone network. And we should adopt a much more efficient way to distribute precious fund dollars. All communications companies — telephone, cable TV or wireless network operators — that want government financing to provide broadband services to specific underserved communities should submit competitive bids to the fund. The F.C.C.’s chairman, Kevin Martin, has opened the debate on this proposal, called a reverse auction, which would ensure that only the most efficient companies would be granted subsidies to provide service to rural areas. This is a step in the right direction.

Second, Congress should put all broadband providers on a level playing field. Both the cable and telephone industries are racing to provide a bundle of services to consumers. Each wants to be the consumer’s one-stop shop for video, voice and data services. Unfortunately, the legacy of historic regulation puts the telephone companies at a serious regulatory disadvantage in quickly deploying video services.

Both industries could benefit from national franchising legislation that would streamline the franchising process and promote innovation and competition. (Disclosure: Some companies in which I invest at The Carlyle Group could also benefit from the wave of investment that would result from such legislation.)

Congress punted on both of these issues this year in large part because of the polarizing net neutrality debate. Now the combatants are set to throw millions more dollars into the fray when Congress revisits new telecommunications legislation. Policymakers should rise above the net neutrality debate and focus on what America truly requires from the Internet: getting affordable broadband access to those who need it.

William E. Kennard, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1997 to 2001, is on the board of The New York Times.

DIGITAL: Is it "LIVE" or "MEMOREX?"

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October 20, 2006

C. J. Gunther for The New York Times

Katherine Lantz, a high school junior in Peterborough, N.H., dissecting a pig on the Web. Her school does not offer zoology, so she takes it online.

No Test Tubes? Debate on Virtual Science Classes

By SAM DILLON

When the Internet was just beginning to shake up American education, a chemistry professor photographed thousands of test tubes holding molecular solutions and, working with video game designers, created a simulated laboratory that allowed students to mix chemicals in virtual beakers and watch the reactions.

In the years since, that virtual chemistry laboratory — as well as other simulations allowing students to dissect virtual animals or to peer into tidal pools in search of virtual anemone — has become a widely used science teaching tool. The virtual chemistry laboratory alone has some 150,000 students seated at computer terminals around the country to try experiments that would be too costly or dangerous to do at their local high schools. “Some kids figure out how to blow things up in half an hour,” said the professor, Brian F. Woodfield of Brigham Young University.

Now, however, a dispute with potentially far-reaching consequences has flared over how far the Internet can go in displacing the brick-and-mortar laboratory.Prompted by skeptical university professors, the College Board, one of the most powerful organizations in American education, is questioning whether Internet-based laboratories are an acceptable substitute for the hands-on culturing of gels and peering through microscopes that have long been essential ingredients of American laboratory science.

As part of a broader audit of the thousands of high school courses that display its Advanced Placement trademark, the board has recruited panels of university professors and experts in Internet-based learning to scrutinize the quality of online laboratories used in Web-based A.P. science courses.

“Professors are saying that simulations can be really good, that they use them to supplement their own lab work, but that they’d be concerned about giving credit to students who have never had any experience in a hands-on lab,” said Trevor Packer, the board’s executive director for Advanced Placement. “You could have students going straight into second-year college science courses without ever having used a Bunsen burner.”

Internet-based educators are seeking to convince the board, and the public, that their virtual laboratories are educationally sound, pointing out that their students earn high scores on the A.P. exams. They also say online laboratories are often the only way advanced science can be taught in isolated rural schools or impoverished urban ones. Online schooling, which was all but nonexistent at the elementary and secondary level a decade ago, is today one of the fastest-growing educational sectors, with some half-million course enrollments nationwide.

Twenty-five states operate public, Internet-based schools like the Florida Virtual School, the nation’s largest, which has some 40,000 students. Virtual High School, a nonprofit school based in Maynard, Mass., has 7,600 students from 30 states and many countries. Susan Patrick, a former Department of Education official who is president of the North American Council for Online Learning, estimated that 60,000 public school students were enrolled in some online science course.

John Watson, an education consultant who wrote a report last year documenting virtual education’s growth, said online schools had faced lawsuits over financing and resistance by local school boards but nothing as daunting as the College Board.

“This challenge threatens the advance of online education at the national level in a way that I don’t think there are precedents for,” Mr. Watson said.

The board signaled a tough position this year.

“Members of the College Board insist that college-level laboratory science courses not be labeled ‘A.P.’ without a physical lab,” the board said in a letter sent to online schools in April. “Online science courses can only be labeled ‘A.P.’ if the online provider” can ensure “that students have a guided, hands-on (not virtual) laboratory experience.”

But after an outcry by online schools, the board issued an apology in June, acknowledging that “there may be new developments” in online learning that could merit its endorsement.

Mr. Packer of the College Board said in an interview that the board had set up three five-member panels composed of biology, chemistry and physics professors and online educators, which are to meet in New York next month to review the online laboratories offered by Internet-based schools for A.P. courses.

The board’s rulings will determine whether high schools can apply the A.P. designation to online science courses starting next fall on the transcripts of students applying to colleges, Mr. Packer said.

In recent conversations with college science professors, the board has encountered considerable skepticism that virtual laboratories can replace hands-on experience, he said.

But educators at several prominent online schools pointed to their students’ high scores on A.P. exams.

On the 2005 administration of the A.P. biology exam, for instance, 61 percent of students nationwide earned a qualifying score of three or above on the A.P.’s five-point system. Yet 71 percent of students who took A.P. biology online through the Florida Virtual School, and 80 percent of students who took it from the Virtual High School, earned a three or higher on that test.

“The proof is in the pudding,” said Pam Birtolo, chief learning officer at the Florida Virtual School.

Still, there is tremendous variety. A 2005 guidebook, “Finding an Online High School,” compiled by Vincent Kiernan, a senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, lists 113 Internet-based secondary schools, 32 of which offered at least one A.P. science course. Online curricula are anything but standardized, and new approaches to online laboratories are emerging at a dizzying pace, said Kemi Jona, a computer science professor at Northwestern University.

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all landscape,” Dr. Jona said.

The science courses offered by some online high schools draw on multiple Internet sites that provide data, then lead students through an analysis. At one site, for instance, operated by the University of Arizona, students collect data from the cells of an onion root and use it to calculate the duration of each phase in the cells’ division.

Chemistry and other science courses at many Internet-based high schools include laboratories often characterized as “kitchen science,” in which students use household materials — ice, cooking oil, glass jars — to carry out experiments.

“ ‘Make sure we have potatoes in the house,’ my daughter told me before her last lab,” in which students studied osmosis, said Mayuri Shah, whose daughter Sonia is taking A.P. biology from the Florida Virtual School. Sonia, 16, enrolled in the online course because her high school in Lecanto, Fla., north of Tampa, does not offer it.

That is one of the most common reasons students sign up for online classes, said Ms. Patrick, the North American Council for Online Learning president.

“Thousands of schools in rural areas don’t have science labs, but they have kids who want to go to college and need that science inquiry experience,” she said. “Virtual science labs are their only option.”

ConVal High School in Peterborough, N.H., offers more than a dozen science courses, but zoology is not among them. So Katherine Lantz, a junior, is studying it online.

One recent evening she was at home, moving through a virtual pig dissection screen by screen. One image showed a pig kidney, outlined by pulsing yellow dots.

“Whoa, that’s kind of gross!” Katherine said. She clicked her mouse, causing a virtual scalpel to lay the pig’s kidney open, its internal regions highlighted by blinking labels.

“Its nice to have it enlarged because if we were dissecting this in my school lab this would be hard to see,” Katherine said. “I learn a lot online — as much as I would attending a physical class.”

But Earl W. Fleck, the biology professor who created the virtual pig dissection, believes otherwise. Dr. Fleck began working on the virtual dissection in 1997 to help his students at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., review for tests and to offer a substitute for those who, for ethical reasons, objected to working with once-living specimens.

Dr. Fleck, who is now provost at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, said students worldwide found the virtual dissection useful. But he called it “markedly inferior” to performing a real dissection.

“You don’t get the look and the feel and the smell,” he said.

10-Point "Toss-Up" Digital Practicum

Integrating Visual Literacy

By Susan McLester
Oct 15, 2006
URL: http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=193200370

Today's digital natives are driving the move toward visual information.

From its enviable perch atop a hill in San Francisco's Pacific Heights, Convent of the Sacred Heart High School for girls overlooks the city's Marina district and the encircling bay that bustles with ferries, freighters, and the occasional cruise ship. Inside the old mansion's walls, just over 200 students are interacting with technology in a way that Computer Science Chair Tracy Sena describes as "increasingly seamless and student-driven."

Internet-enabled Palm handhelds are the centerpiece of the school's four-year academic program that integrates a broad range of technologies into all curriculum areas. Incoming freshmen are each issued the latest Palm, and via a WideRay beaming station they begin their high school careers with an efficient, 21st century organization tool. Each day they download school-posted content, including homework assignments, testing schedules, sports updates, and various announcements.

Sena, who has been an educator for 24 years, remarks on the extent to which technology now comes naturally to students. "We handed out the Palms to the freshmen this year, and within 30 minutes, with no instruction from me, they'd configured their e-mail and were sending messages to each other." Students love the time-saving and flexible learning Palms allow, often using the graffiti option to complete written assignments from the bus on the way to a game, for example, and e-mailing them directly to their teachers.

A major influence this generation of high school digital natives has had on the curriculum is their natural focus on visuals to convey information. "The girls are very creative when it comes to film and photo," says Sena. The school makes both digital still and video cameras from Canon and Olympus available for students to checkout, but as digital age denizens, it also comes naturally for the girls to use their Palms or even individual cell phones to incorporate visuals into class projects.

In Spanish class, for instance, students enjoy writing and filming their own telenovelas, imaginative subtitled spoofs on Spanish television soap operas. They work in teams shooting on location around town, staging action scenes in a local bowling alley or cafe, for instance, or choosing a behind-the-wheel close-up of an actor confessing secrets to a camera set in the car passenger seat while driving across town.

Other video projects include original commercials for a media literacy unit, creating a game show to review vocabulary for a language class, and documenting field trips, such as one the seniors took to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland last year.

Journaling is required in almost every subject at Sacred Heart, and students quickly become adept at finding accompanying images on the Internet or while out around the city. When reading Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club in an English class, for instance, they visited Chinatown to take photos of the different shops, restaurants, and parks Tan wrote about, and then added these images to entries written in Word, AppleWorks, or other word processing programs. Many of the students use Adobe's InDesign to keep all their journals because the application makes it easier to turn them into booklets.

Sacred Heart has found that mixing the digital and traditional — sometimes in unexpected ways — can motivate and enhance quality. Sacred Heart's award-winning school newspaper, the broadview, has jazzed up its historical format via imaginative design, layout, and illustration. With a combination of InDesign, scanned pen-and-ink drawings from the art department, manipulation of color spots, and high-quality writing, of course — as Sena hastens to point out — students have created an appealing, cutting-edge product their peers are excited to read. Also central to the publishing process is e-mail, which the educator describes as a lifeline when both she and student staff are proofing last-minute drafts of the paper from home, often late at night.

Teleconferencing is also integrated into the classroom and relations among school, home, and the community. Sena is currently exploring how to use Apple's iChat conferencing application to work collaboratively with another high school's newspaper class located down the peninsula in Palo Alto. Apple's newest operating system allows for as many as four videoconferencing windows to be open simultaneously, so that if students are having problems with implementing InDesign, they can alert Sena and through the iMac's built-in cameras, she'll be able to see their screens and walk them through their problem.

The school also began using iChat's videoconferencing capability at a recent open house, where parents gathered in the school's theater for a big-screen live chat with a Sacred Heart alumna at her new college. The school simply shipped an iChat-configured laptop to the college instead of using a videoconferencing service, which comes with a hefty fee, as they had in the past.

Susan McLester is editor in chief of T&L.

Page 2

Creating a Visual Classroom

Fourteen tips about how to inject visual information into any curriculum area as excerpted from the Tech Forum handout, "Visual Literacy and 21st Century Skills." For additional information, visit www.techlearning.com/events.

1. Use single images as writing prompts for creative writing, or for image analysis. Some great sources of appropriate imagery are Flickr and the National Archives.

2. Use Google Earth or geotagged Flickr imagery as data sources for geography lessons.

3. Build VisualQuests with myprojectpages.com, with visual information contained in the online lesson representing a data source that is used to answer an essential question.

4. Have students build presentations using only visual images-no text is allowed except on the title slide.

5. Build digital stories with the latest versions of iMovie, Photo Story, Movie Maker, Pinnacle Studio, or Digital Storyteller.

6. Teach students about intellectual property rights by designing lessons that utilize Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org) licensed imagery.

7. Evaluate the authenticity of visual information.

8. Use Inspiration or an online tool such as Gliffy (www.gliffy.com) to diagram concepts or storyboard.

9. Use tools from Intel.com to promote critical thinking, such as the Seeing Reason Tool (for cause and effect) and the Visual Ranking Tool (analysis and prioritization of information).

10. Build teacher presentations in PowerPoint or at www.thumbstacks.com.

11. Use Flickr as a repository for student or school imagery and project work.

12. Analyze imagery or illustrate writing using Flickr.

13. Create virtual field trips and visual arguments in science class with Flickr.

14. Use online video editors such as eyespo and VideoEgg.

— David Jakes and Joe Brennan

Creative Digital Natives.......Any Story-Boards and Compelling Story-Lines Come to Mind?

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Published: October 17, 2006

Web Only

Science Federation Calls for More and Better Educational Video Games

By Rhea R. Borja

Washington

The U.S. departments of Education and Labor, in partnership with the National Science Foundation, should work with the video game industry to support the research and development of video games that promote learning, a report released today recommends.

Video game companies “underinvest” in the research and development of educational video games, so R&D for such games should be part of a comprehensive science and technology research program, financed in part by the federal government, suggest the authors of “Harnessing the Power of Video Games for Learning.”

For More Info

Review further resources from the Federation of American Scientists' Summit on Educational Games, including the reports, "Harnessing the Power of Video Games for Learning" and "Games, Cookies, and the Future of Education."

The Washington-based Federation of American Scientists wrote the report, which compiled advice from almost 100 experts in science, education, and the video game industry. The experts met for a national conference on video games in October 2005 to brainstorm better ideas for developing and selling video games that teach analytical, problem-solving, and other higher-order thinking skills.

“Many recent reports warning about declining U.S. competitiveness point to an urgent need to improve workforce skills and our system of education,” FAS President Henry Kelly said in a statement. “Video games are engaging and can teach higher-order skills, and they are especially attractive to today’s young digital natives.”

‘Concrete Actions’

The business community also should play a more active role in making educational video games more available in the market, the report says. Publishers of educational software, for instance, should help develop such games for home-schooled students and the growing after-school learning market. They should also produce short video games that can be downloaded from the Internet, the report says. Those games take less time and capital to develop and pose less financial risk.

“This plan outlines concrete actions we can take to put powerful tools for teaching and learning in the hands of educators and students at a time when the need for education improvement is great,” Mr. Kelly said.

PLAY determined to be Essential to LEARNING!

NEW AAP REPORT STRESSES PLAY FOR HEALTHY DEVELOPMENT

Hurried lifestyle and heavy academic, extracurricular load taking toll; balance is needed

A new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says free and unstructured play is healthy and - in fact - essential for helping children reach important social, emotional, and cognitive developmental milestones as well as helping them manage stress and become resilient.

The report, "The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds," is written in defense of play and in response to forces threatening free play and unscheduled time. These forces include changes in family structure, the increasingly competitive college admissions process, and federal education policies that have led to reduced recess and physical education in many schools.

Whereas play protects children's emotional development, a loss of free time in combination with a hurried lifestyle can be a source of stress, anxiety and may even contribute to depression for many children, the AAP report states.

The report reaffirms that the most valuable and useful character traits that will prepare children for success come not from extracurricular or academic commitments, but from a firm grounding in parental love, role modeling and guidance.

Still, many parents are afraid to slow their pace for fear their children will fall behind. They feel like they are running on a treadmill, but worry they will not be acting as proper parents if they do not participate in a hurried lifestyle.

The report suggests that reduced time for physical activity may be contributing to the academic differences between boys and girls, as schools with sedentary learning styles become more difficult settings for some boys to navigate successfully.

Among the specific guidelines, the report suggests:

• Emphasizing the benefits of "true toys", such as blocks and dolls, in which children use their imagination fully over passive toys that require limited imagination;
• Supporting an appropriately challenging academic schedule for each child with a balance of extracurricular activities. This should be based on each child's unique needs and not on competitive community standards or need to gain college admissions;
• Helping parents evaluate claims by marketers and advertisers about products or interventions designed to produce "super-children;"
• Encouraging parents to understand that each young person does not need to excel in multiple areas to be considered successful or prepared to compete in the real world;
• Suggesting families choose childcare and early education programs that meet children's social and emotional developmental needs as well as academic preparedness.

The report recognizes that academic enrichment opportunities are vital for some children's ability to succeed academically, and that participation in organized activities promotes healthy youth development.

"The challenge for society, schools, and parents is to strike the balance that allows all children to reach their potential, without pushing them beyond their personal comfort limits, and while allowing them personal free time," the report states.

To help parents and teens develop resiliency and understand the role of stress in life, the AAP has created a Resiliency Web site.. This site features additional information on stress reduction and coping skills, as well as a stress management plan teens can personalize to fit their personalities and lifestyles. Visit www.aap.org/stress for more information.

RESEARCH DIGITAL TOOLS!

Fourier Systems Nova5000 By Mike Brown Sep 15, 2006 URL: http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192700201 Company: Fourier Systems; www.fourier-sys.com System Specifications: 400 MHz processor; 64 MB RAM; 7-inch color touch screen; weighs 2 lb.; Windows CE 5.0 operating system; Internet and e-mail features; word processing, graphing, and spreadsheet applications Price/Grade: About $600/K-12 and up Pros: High-quality screen; instant on capability; works with dozens of science probes; data logging and analysis functions built in; Internet, e-mail, student productivity software included Cons: USB Wi-Fi dongle requires external cable; battery life shorter than expected Students can connect dozens of science probes to the Nova5000, which also features spreadsheet and online capabilities. There's a new player in the burgeoning one-to-one market: the sturdy and versatile Nova5000, which seamlessly incorporates science, math, and other educational features into one tablet device. Built on Windows CE 5.0 handheld technology, it can be operated easily with a stylus using an onscreen keyboard or handwriting recognition software. It's easy to hold, has built-in connections for science probes (more on that later), and can also be connected to a regular keyboard and mouse for word processing or spreadsheet creation. The Nova5000 comes in three models: the entry-level BX, the midrange SX, and the top-of-the-line EX. I tested the EX model, which comes standard with a built-in Ethernet connection and a USB Wi-Fi dongle that allowed me to wirelessly connect to my network. At first glance, the Nova5000's 64 MB RAM and 400 MHz processor might not seem that powerful, but because its applications have smaller footprints than regular Windows software, it does more with less. (Applications include Internet Explorer 6 with Flash 6, Windows Media Player, an e-mail client, file viewers for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, and spreadsheet capabilities.) I was able to run multiple applications, all while listening to an Internet radio station and typing up a document on the word processor without performance problems. The Nova5000's 7-inch, touch-sensitive color screen is especially bright and clear, and students can use the compact flash card slot on the back to transfer files. The unit's four-hour battery will last longer with the intermittent use typical in a classroom, but its power goes more quickly when powering the wireless dongle. The Nova5000 comes with graphing calculator software that includes 18 categories of math functions and graphs that can be exported into written documents. One of the main strengths of the Nova5000 is its integration of data collection probes. More than 50 Fourier probes can be connected to the Nova5000 to create a complete lab station for collecting and analyzing experimental data. The four built-in sensor ports can simultaneously collect data from as many as eight probes, and the Multilab software allows students to collect, graph, and analyze classroom data quickly and easily. The EX includes a tempera-ture probe and a light sensor; in my science lab, the software automatically identified the type of probe connected, allowing me to quickly begin collecting temperature readings for a cooling curve experiment as well as light-intensity values for a clear versus cloudy days experiment. Fourier Systems sells an adapter that allows as many as two dozen different Vernier science probes to be connected to the Nova5000. A Fourier Systems USB dongle lets users connect to their networks wirelessly. An exciting handheld device that is packed full of features and software, the Nova5000 combines many features that often have to be purchased separately in standard computing situations. From science and math to writing, it provides teachers and students with a broad combination of tools for increasing productivity-and learning. Mike Brown is an educator and director of the Coastal Studies and Technology Center at Seaside High School in Seaside, Oregon.

CALLING ALL DIGITAL CREATORS!

Web-based video offers more choice
By Carol Wilson

Sep 25, 2006 12:00 PM

Content explosion could be disruptive.


This Halloween, teenagers won't have to flock to the theater to see the latest horror flick, they can instead sit with their laptops to watch Tara Reid in “Incubus,” a new full-length feature film AOL is distributing exclusively on the Web.

The sudden explosion of Web-based video is providing a whole new range of viewing choices and very possibly changing the entertainment world going forward. AOL is a prime proponent, as its video portal now looks like an electronic programming guide with a range of free and paid programming that includes everything from classic TV shows like “Welcome Back, Kotter” to “Chapelle's Show” to the latest in Hollywood scandals on TMZ.com, the AOL service that broke the story of Mel Gibson's post-arrest tirade this summer.

But other companies — including AT&T, with its 20 broadband channels for its DSL customers, and ABC with an online streaming service due out in October — are getting into the act, offering consumers not just more video choices but also the opportunity to create their own video programming.

VON founder Jeff Pulver built his Fall VON keynote around the video trend, chronicling a summer spent exploring the many current Web video alternatives, which are listed by the dozen on his blog.

“Video is now an application,” he said. “We are seeing change and disruption happening — TV over the Internet is changing the way we experience television. This isn't IPTV — IPTV is solely out there to empower incumbent phone companies that have fiber to compete with cable companies. Over time that will be a rather large lucrative place. But TV over IP is not IPTV — it is a world that exists when you don't have any constraints. You don't get bogged down by digital rights; you get to set the rules.”

As Pulver and AOL Vice Chairman Ted Leonsis told the VON crowd, anyone with a decent video camera and reasonably priced editing software can now make their own movies and find a place for them on the Internet.

The real challenge, however, comes in developing a business model for Web-based TV and determining how it fits into the broad scheme of video and whether it competes with traditional video services and newer IPTV offerings.

Leonsis said AOL is already seeing a new industry grow up around Web video.

“Video is allowing the birth of a new mega industry,” he said at VON. “Convergence is finally really happening. The bandwidth is there, the audience is there — we are getting 113 million customers a month and 14 million simultaneously on our servers. The ad market is exploding.”

Companies such as blip.tv have sprung up to give average consumers a platform for developing their own TV shows and delivering them over the Web. Unlike YouTube, which posts user-generated videos for maximum short-term impact, blip.tv features episodic content that attracts a regular audience and includes advertising and sponsorships.

“We provide the infrastructure to help people distribute these shows,” said Mike Hudack, blip.tv CEO. “They worry about the creative content, and we have the software that lets them put content on the Internet. Plus we sell the ads, sponsorships, etc.”

At VON, blip.tv announced a deal with Akimbo that will put the IP content onto TV sets as well, through Akimbo's set-top boxes. Five major television set manufacturers — Hitachi, Masushita/Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba — have formed a joint venture to develop common standards for enabling TVs to access Web video.

If Web video threatens Hollywood-created content, Pulver warned, the Web folks should expect a fight. “If you are about to disrupt a sector, be prepared for that sector to fight back.”

CREATORS: Something to think about.
WHAT would be our thematic MESSAGE and INTENTION?

Something to Ponder?

Government Technology

Digital Inclusion: Social Justice in a Communications Age

Sascha Meinrath

Sep 29, 2006

This is Part One of a 3-part series on Digital Inclusion perspectives from around the globe.

When do we recognize a shift in the fundamental social fabric of civilization? Where do we look to find better exemplars of participatory democracy? When do we realize that notions of justice have to expand to include a new ways of thinking about human rights? How do we change our institutions to support a more just and equitable world? These are the questions that thought leaders in the community and municipal wireless movement have been asking themselves more and more over the past few years.

An overarching theme that came up time and again during the interviews I conducted for this article is that we often think far too small when we talk about community networking. In a communications age, access to the resources, information, opportunities, and conversations that broadband services and community and municipal wireless networks facilitate is a vital element -- the foundation upon which the future of civil society rests.

The problem is to change the very nature of the municipal wireless debate -- incorporating a more liberatory language, more thoughtful actions, and the development and implementation of telecommunications infrastructures that directly improve the lives of users. At the heart of this debate is a tension between market economics and the "social contract" companies should be held to when providing critical resources to local communities. As Jim Baller, senior principal of the Baller Herbst Law Group, sums up, "digital inclusion is, or should be, a basic right of all Americans."

In citing the Declaration of Independence, Baller concludes that citizens have certain unalienable rights -- Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. "In the years and decades ahead, virtually everything that we do at work, in education, in public safety and homeland security, in medical care, in entertainment, in our communities, at the polls, etc., will depend increasingly on affordable access to advanced communications services and capabilities," states Baller. "No nation can lay claim to greatness without acting vigorously to ensure that none of its residents will be left out of the world."

What are the social and economic benefits of digital inclusion? Over the last few years, the importance of broadband services to communities has increased dramatically. Ben Scott, policy director for Free Press, puts it this way, "it is now beyond dispute that information and communications technologies bring advantages in education, job-training, social networking, health-care, and overall quality of life." However, accessing this critical resource is only one component of digital inclusion. As Scott relates, "Having the 'ICT trifecta' -- access to the Internet, the equipment to use it, and the skills to exploit it -- may well be the difference for many families between upward social mobility and a declining standard of living. For children especially, having access to technology is not a luxury, it is a social necessity."

The United States was founded on the notion of ubiquitous, equitable communications infrastructures. In fact, post-Independence, almost three-quarters of all federal employees worked for the Post Office. And the Post Office was built in response to the discriminatory policies prevalent at the time in the Royal Post of Great Britain. When Alexis de Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America" in 1835, he praised the Postal Service and the newspapers and other information it conveyed as greatly responsible for the America's successes and the education of its populace. In discussing the Postal Service, de Tocqueville writes, "it is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with which thought circulates...It cannot be doubted that, in the United States, the instruction of the people powerfully contributes to the support of the democratic republic."

Paralleling this analysis, Jim Snider, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, states, "Democracy requires well educated citizens. The Internet has become a necessary foundation for a well educated, economically productive citizenry for the 21st century."

John Atkinson, director of Wireless Ghana, concurs, positing that "communication and information give people hope and inspiration. You might say that communication access fosters social well-being, and that information access allows for economic potential." Dr. Arun Mehta, president of the Society for Telecommunications Empowerment, underscores the stakes for civil society, "you cannot have democratic processes that exclude a significant percentage of citizens."

The change in perspective that many wireless pioneers advocate is to look at digital inclusion as a vaccine that enhances civil society and protects against disruption. According to Harold Feld, Media Access Project's senior vice president, "leaving aside any considerations of social justice, creating permanently marginalized and technologically isolated pockets spread throughout our rural and urban areas is recipe for disaster. It imposes huge social and economic costs and creates a permanent underclass disconnected from the broader society."

And yet, leading broadband analyses support the notion that the United States has done a remarkably terrible job of connecting its citizenry over the past half-decade. Baller puts it thusly, "For the last six years, the Administration has defined America's best interests as synonymous with those of a handful of giant telephone and cable companies. During this period, trillions of dollars of investment capital have evaporated, America has plunged from 4th to 16th (some would say 19th) in global broadband penetration, and we have fallen increasingly behind the leading nations in access to high-bandwidth capacity and in cost per unit of bandwidth."

If we believe that civic participation is a central tenant of democratic society, then we need to think about Internet access as equally important. During the past half-decade, Matthew Rantanen, director of Southern California Tribal Technologies, has seen the impact of broadband services on Indian reservations he's worked with, "the people of this community have a better sense of control of their own destiny. They feel that by their own hand, they have taken control and have provided themselves with the opportunities that the majority of the rest of the country has access to."

Given the nature of broadband access, it is important to point out that the positive impacts of digital inclusion efforts do not accrue solely to those who are newly connected. As Mehta summarizes, "The value of a network goes up proportional to the square of its size." Like many "commons" (e.g., education, roads) everyone benefits as more people have access to the resource. Feld puts it this way, "The 'knowledge economy' really does benefit by having new people look at old problems in different ways or bring in wholly new considerations, ideas and tastes. In other words, digital inclusion is not about averting social catastrophe, or noblese oblige to the underprivileged, or charity. It is a calculated investment to promote our national self-interest, as sensible as any Silicon Valley VC investing in a start up."

With the class and knowledge divide growing in the United States, racism and xenophobia on the rise, and increasing concern about everything from the state of the Iraq war to woeful child poverty and healthcare coverage rates, why should we be concerning ourselves with municipal wireless? As Joshua Breitbart, principal at the Ethos Group, warns, "To the extent we digitize the public sphere, we exacerbate the racial and economic divides already prevalent in our society. It's the new Jim Crow. The Internet still offers the promise of a broader, more participatory democracy. Community wireless -- and not just civic projects, but networks with true community involvement and ownership -- is the vehicle for bringing people online and into the digitized public sphere."

Thus, when we talk about digital inclusion, it is important to think holistically about the potential impacts of this work. Michael Maranda, president of the Association for Community Networking has been forwarding what he calls "Digital Literacy, Access & Equity" for years. "Digital Inclusion is an aspect of social justice or equity," declares Maranda. "The Communications sector is both one of the most profitable and one of the most essential in the modern economy. The quality of the networks and infrastructure we have, along with the social and human capital investments in our communities, will define our quality of life and the direction our economies and societal structures will take."

This article is part of a three-part series on digital inclusion. Bellsouth declined comment for this series. Repeated e-mails and phone calls seeking comment were not returned by AT&T, Comcast, Earthlink, Insight, Qwest, and Verizon.