Professional Development

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Per the attached comments:

I think everyone would agree that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 will be a
waste of time and money if teachers do not receive professional development on
how to use the technology, but more important, how to integrate all the newly
available resources into the curriculum.

Having agreed on that, it is then a question of funds - where will the
additional $$ for professional development come from.  As stated elsewhere in
these discussions, the split of $$ is probably 1/3 for telecommunications (this
is actually probably high), 1/3 for professional development, and 1/3 for
content.  Some estimates for the telecommunication services covered by US is
between $20B and $~$47B depending what is included - just for telecommunication
services.  Now double that if you want to include professional development.
Now develop a surcharge to cover this and you are probably looking at a ~20%
-25% surcharge on people's phone bills once you include residential universal
service also - will the FCC support such a tax??

Putting that aside, nothing in the legislation talks about US covering
professional development.

Steve Kohn
notes.skohn@nynex.com

> As I think about the issues surrounding universal access to
> telecommunications by libraries and schools, I find myself struggling to
> visualize what the role of professional development might be as an integral
> part of any plan.  My conclusion is that high-quality training must be
> included.  It doesn't matter how much high-tech equipment is in schools if
> people don't have the knowledge or vision necessary for making it an
> important tool for teaching and learning.  We have seen it before -- schools
> buy high-tech equipment which ends up collecting dust in some corner or is
> underutilized until it becomes obsolete. Teachers' plates are full and
> unless we include high-quality training as well as time to experiment and
> practice, I fear that this initiative might not reach its full potential.
> 
> Who should provide the professional development?  I agree that there will be
> some exciting opportunities to form partnerships with service providers and
> business.  These organizations can provide tips on the use of the equipment
> and some contexts for using it as an effective learning tool.  We also need
> to identify groups of information technology using educators who will be
> available to offer some vision for innovative use by students of all ages.
> This could be made up of trainers in several regions so that local issues
> will be considered.

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