I've been following the thread on the use of computers in the schools, and I want to pass on some information from the technology department of the MPS about computers in the schools.
First, though, I want to address the concerns raised about the district's finances, particularly Heather's comment that all items in the budget should be examined as the district faces difficult financial times. Last winter at its board retreat, the school board expressed the same concerns that Heather was expressing, and decided that an important focus of the Superintendent's work and the board's monitoring should be on the business and financial accountability of the district. As part of this work, Supt. Dr. Carol Johnson has been working with McKinsey and Co, a national consulting firm that has provided its services to the MPS on a pro bono basis, to research and evaluate the district's spending and develop a plan for controlling it. This work is just being completed and should be ready to be presented at the December 11th school board meeting, which will be televised. Secondly, Dr. Johnson has been working with EDS (Electronic Data Systems) over the past 6 months, again, on a pro bono basis (about $250,000 worth), to do an information management assessment of the MPS, and identify ways to help MPS achieve a new level of performance and to accelerate implementation of initiatives and achieve goals. EDS will loan MPS an executive to help with the implementation of its recommendations, as well as help MPS to seek additional support in the business community for this effort. This work was discussed at this past Tuesday's board meeting, Nov. 13th, which was televised. Okay, on to the computer discussion. In general, I think that the use of computers for very young children is somewhat overrated. However, computers are an incredible benefit as adaptive technology for special education kids and also incredibly helpful as additional supplementation on basic reading and math skills, which is provided in the MPS through CCC and other online curriculum programs. In my own kids' case, when they were younger, I would say that they benefited from the computer phonics programs, which did a much better job of keeping their interest than paper worksheets. But the tremendous benefit from computer technology has really come in middle school and beyond. My older son took keyboarding the first semester of 7th grade, and has typed all of his papers since. In 8th grade, he took a computer applications class, and created a video documentary that was an award winning national history day project. The video was created with a digital camera and an ibook computer. I would like to hear from parents on this list about their children's experiences in the MPS with technology. The rest of this post is information I am forwarding from the MPS technology department regarding the use of computers in MPS. Our director of technology, Colleen Kosloski, writes, "Students K-3 use software to help with basic skills, learn pre-research skills, some intro keyboarding skills, as well as basics of media literacy and how to express themselves with words, pictures, and graphics-- even basic concept of databases and how information is organized. For older students, computers give access to the large magazines and newspaper search databases that the state has funded free for schools and libraries, as well as access to CCC and other online curriculum programs that support basic reading and math skills, an incredible amount of lesson plans K-12 for our teachers available on the internet, plus our Classroom 2000 that allows practice lessons and test for the 8th grade reading and math test. "Total instructional computers district wide are 10,804, but only 8,721 are on the network for internet and email access. Only 4,653 of those are newer computers (less than 5 years old).57% of all computers are older than 5 years. Our goal is to have the majority of computers in schools be less than 3 years old. Our district ratio of computers to students is 1 to 5 if we count all networked computers, but 1 to 10 if we count only newer computers. "In High Schools, the ratio is 1 to 6 , and most of those are newer computers ( many of these are actually donations from the Computers for Schools program that are 4-5 years old). In Middle Schools, the ratio is 1 to 4, but only 32% of those are newer computers. The ratio counting only newer computers is 1 to 11. In Elementary, the ratio is 1 to 4 counting all networked computers, but only 43% of those are newer computers. The ratio of newer computers is 1 to 7. "What some of the research says about technology and student achievement: The West Virginia Story: Achievement Gains http://www.mff.org/publications/publications.taf?page=155 Lesson learned: The top Technology School Districts in the Nation http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A3748.cfm NCREL's Research on Technology in Education http://www.ncrel.org/tech/research.htm The impact of Education Technology on Education http://www.mff.org/publications/publications.taf?page=161 Tranforming Learning Through Technology http://www.mff.org/publications/publications.taf?page=266 Does it Computer? The Relationship between Educational Technology and Student Achievement in Math ftp://ftp.ets.org/pub/res/technolog.pdf Accelerating Student Achivement and National Standards for Technology for students http://www.iste.org/research/reports/tlcu/tracking.html"; Catherine Shreves Minneapolis School Board _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
