Educational Policy Recommendations
NEA Special Committee on Telecommunications
Clearly we are on the verge of significant growth in educational telecommunications. The participants in the wave of change are the federal government, state and local governments, the cable companies, the phone companies, computer companies, manufacturers of telecommunications equipment, school districts and institutions of higher education, to name some of the most visible. Many of us will soon find ourselves in the position of participating in and evaluating telecommunications-based projects.
Issues and Conclusions
In spite of its potential, the advent of telecommunication as an educational tool poses an array of issues that confront practitioners, their organizations and the education community. The Special Committee on Telecommunications identified issues in several areas and reached conclusions in the form of policy positions and/or recommendations on those issues.
General Principles
Role of Education Employees. Education employees play critical roles with respect to the introduction and use of telecommunications technology in schools (the term schools is intended to include institutions of higher education as well as K-12 schools). They are planners, problem solvers, designers, coordinators, technicians, researchers and evaluators. Most important, they are among the primary users of every existing telecommunications system. Their perspectives, insights, support and commitment to the use of the technology are vital for the successful implementation of telecommunications technology.
Conclusion: Education employees should be represented on committees and in groups making decisions with respect to telecommunications. The local education association should be an active participant in the decision making process. Education employees are essential in the success of any telecommunications project.
Curriculum Enhancement. A growing number of schools in the United States and overseas use telecommunications technology in instruction. The uses to which telecommunications technology have been put have led to the creation of new learning environments with new demands on teachers and students, the development of alternative teaching and learning strategies, and the growth of new communities of learners (geographically separated but electronically connected). The technology is both a new tool for teachers and a means by which scarce educational resources can be shared.
Conclusion: Telecommunications technology is an effective tool to enhance the curriculum and support the restructuring of schools.
Choice of Telecommunications: There is a wide variety of possible uses for telecommunications technology. There is also a wide variety of delivery systems. The particular use to which the equipment is put and the type of delivery system chosen should be driven by the specific educational needs of the school, the resources to which it has access, and its financial capacity. Many systems are hybrids of several delivery systems. The best system is one that meets a school's or school system's needs, is affordable and allows room for change and growth.
Conclusion: No one best model exists for the use of telecommunications technology. Schools must choose the system that is most appropriate for them.
Equity Issues
Access to Enrichment Opportunities: It is often not possible for geographically isolated or small districts to afford the array of educational courses and programs available to larger or wealthier districts. Using telecommunications technologies, school districts have been able to provide courses and enrichment programs to students who would otherwise be denied access. In recognition of the problems of many smaller, geographically remote districts, the federal government's Star Schools program has explicitly focused on the provision of courses in mathematics, science, and foreign languages to small or remote schools through satellite and other distance learning technologies.
Even within districts, educational opportunities can vary considerably. In Prince George's County, MD, the school district operates an interactive television network that brings advanced placement courses to six schools with predominantly minority populations. Minority enrollment in advanced placement courses on the interactive television network is 86 percent of total advanced placement enrollment, compared to 38 percent minority enrollment in advanced placement courses system wide. According to the system's director, many of the students taking classes over the interactive television network would not have access to the courses through other means.
Conclusion: Telecommunications technology has the capacity to reduce educational inequities within and among schools and school districts.
Funding Equity: Telecommunications technology can connect schools and classrooms with a dizzying array of on-line databases, educational courses and programs, professional development opportunities, and potential partners for collaborative educational projects. The inequity that exists when one school has newer or better textbooks than another is magnified many times in the case of telecommunications haves and have-nots.
Conclusion: The NEA should encourage the development of public and private funding to allow schools to purchase, maintain and upgrade telecommunications systems and connections.
Process Issues
Employee Involvement: Employee involvement in planning ensures that, first, the distance education effort is educationally appropriate for the needs of the school and school district. Second, employee involvement contributes to the determination of realistic staffing practices relative to the distance education effort. A distance education effort which places onerous demands upon its staff risks certain failure. Third, employee involvement leads to the development of effective instructional strategies for distance education. Finally, employee involvement in a project's planning phase is more likely to generate the buy-in of the staff as a whole. Larry Cuban in "Teachers and Machines" points out that teachers act as gatekeepers with respect to what comes into the classroom and how available learning resources are used (Cubana,1986). Without the buy-in of the staff, distance learning efforts are not likely to take hold within schools. In support of the need for a staff to buy into distance education, Dr. Linda Robers (formerly of the Office of Technology Assessment's) told the committee that one of the characteristics of a successful program is a cooperative effort among all interested parties (Roberts 1991).
Employee involvement in evaluation of the system is also important. While the educational benefits of distance education are perhaps the most critical aspect of the evaluation effort, problems resulting from staffing levels, logistical problems and specific design issues that staff would be aware of might be over looked if they were excluded from the evaluative effort.
Because a number of the issues that are likely to be generated in connection with a distance education effort concern contractual provisions, at least some of the employee representatives involved in the planning and evaluation processes should be appointed by the local association.
Conclusion: Education employers, including representatives of the local association, must be involved in all aspects of telecommunications projects.
Assignment of Staff: A number of the individuals who made presentations to the committee identified the characteristics of good teachers in a telecommunications environment. Beyond good teaching skills in conventional classrooms, teachers in environments rich in telecommunications technology must be flexible and willing to experiment. In the case of interactive television courses, teachers need to have a strong presence on camera.
In addition, participation should be voluntary. Telecommunications projects may make additional demands on teachers and on the staff involved in the effort. If staff members are not interested and willing participants, the extra demands will not be met.
Conclusion: Participants in projects involving telecommunications technologies should be recruited on the basis of skills identified as necessary for success as well as seniority. Participation should be voluntary.
Professional Issues
Licensure of Distance Learning Teachers. According to Noreen Huante, TI-IN's Manager of Program Services, 18 states (Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont) require that the distance learning teachers be licensed/certified only in the state in which the programming originates. Florida, Oklahoma, and Oregon approve the curriculum, not the teachers (personal communication, October 1991).
Many state licensing agencies have no specific policies for distance learning because they do not know what it is or have not considered it as a special problem. Therefore distance learning teachers must follow the same path for licensure that regular classroom teachers follow. This has created a number of interesting situations.
California, Washington, Nevada and Colorado require distance educators to have fingerprint checks. California and Washington require criminal history checks in addition to the fingerprint checks. Distance education networks must pay the extra fees for the fingerprint and criminal history checks above the fees required for the state license. Some states require that distance educators take special courses in, for example, exceptional learning or human relations. New York requires a child abuse course. In Arizona, Wyoming and Nevada, all teachers (including distance educators) must take an examination on the state constitution, which is administered by the states themselves (and almost always administered only within the states themselves).
TI-IN is the only national network to seek to license its teachers in the states to which it broadcasts its courses. Other networks have handled the licensure problem in other ways. The Midlands Consortium (A Star Schools grantee, which has now ceased to exist as a functioning unit), whose courses were broadcast from Oklahoma State University, had nonlicensed instructors teaching courses and classroom teachers, who were licensed (but not necessarily in the subject being broadcast), serving as facilitators. The Satellite Education Resources Consortium (SERC) which broadcasts in 23 states, has persuaded the chief state school officers in those states to recognize the credentials of the educators that the network uses. The officers, in turn, have secured permission from the state boards of education to accept the credentials of these teachers (Welch 1991).
To reduce the need for emergency certificates and other expedient solutions, states or groups of states might consider the adoption of specific policies for licensing distance education. One of the problems here is that state licensing agencies have had only limited reason in the past to talk with one another about licensing requirements. Distance education highlights the insularity in which licensing requirements have historically been determined. As distance education continues to grow, there will be mounting pressure on states to adopt criteria that will make licenses more portable; however, the educational requirements for licensure should not be compromised.
In addition, because distance education requirements typically involve new competencies not now considered in granting teaching licenses, the committee believes that the NEA should encourage the licensing agencies of states involved in distance education and experts in the field to establish competency standards in the field. These standards could then be shared with school districts to be used as a basis for the selection of distance educators.
Conclusion: States should be encouraged to develop specific policies for licensing teachers involved in distance education.
Training for Teleteachers and Facilitators
Whatever kind of distance education effort is attempted (the delivery of whole courses at a distance, computer conferencing or videoconferencing with other classes around the country or world), teleteachers will have to know how to operate the equipment they are using as well as what instructional strategies may be necessary in the new classroom environments. Stimulating group research and coordinating the exchange of information among a number of remote sites using a computer bulletin board will require new skills for a number of teachers. In delivering whole courses via satellite, cable or compressed video, teachers need to know how to generate a high degree of interactivity among receiving sites (among students and with the teacher), how to stimulate peer interaction at each of the sites, how to plan and organize a course delivered at a distance, and how to make the most effective use of the camera to communicate information. According to the seven case studies cited in "Linking for Learning" (OTA, 1989), almost two-thirds of all teachers involved in the various projects had received no training prior to teaching in their respective distance education systems.
Facilitators involved in the delivery of whole courses must also be trained in the use of the equipment procedures for distributing materials, and protocols for working with teachers. It has been stressed in the literature that a good relationship between the teacher and facilitators has beneficial effects for the class (Gilcher and Johnstone, 1988).
Conclusion: Compensated training should be provided for teachers and facilitators in the use of telecommunications equipment, the development of effective materials and appropriate instructional strategies.
Training for Prospective Teachers
The record of schools of education in training prospective teachers in the use of technology in general and telecommunications technology in particular is not encouraging. According to "Linking for Learning," only 37 percent of teacher training institutions surveyed offered instruction in the use of interactive television for instruction (OTA 1989). Only 26 percent offered similar instruction in the use of audio technologies, and fewer than 20 percent of all institutions surveyed required this instruction of its students.
Another area in which teacher preparation seems to be lacking is in the integration of telecommunications and computer technologies. Both in the delivery of whole courses and in enrichment efforts, learning can be considerably enhanced by combining telecommunications technologies with materials designed to be used with in-class personal computers. A restructuring of teacher education in this area is critical.
Conclusion: Prospective teachers should receive training in telecommunications technology and the instructional strategies to be employed in its use.
Restructuring Issues
Telecommunications and International Opportunities. While many of the most visible telecommunications projects simply expand the courses available to students, others like AT&T's Learning Network or National Geographic's Kids Network actually reconfigure relationships in the traditional classroom. Both the Learning Network and the Kids Network serve to link classrooms around the country and the world in order to facilitate joint research and writing projects. Through the use of telecommunications technologies, a single classroom can literally become part of a global learning community. These technologies make it easy for teachers to organize classroom instruction around multifaceted group projects. Teachers serve as coordinators and resources for students collecting information to be shared with other classes on the network. In fact, teachers using telecommunications technology in the classroom experience substantially the same kinds of new roles that the NEA Special Committee on Technology identified in its 1989 report: collaborator, mentor/mentee, planner, researcher and seeker of new ideas (NEA 1989).
These technologies may facilitate restructuring but do not guarantee that it will occur. Restructuring requires a conscious and committed effort on the part of classroom teachers. In the committee's investigations into telecommunication technology and restructuring, it became clear that it is not necessarily the technical sophistication of the links among classrooms that is critical to change, but the way the links are used. The computer conferencing technology used in the Learning Network or the Kids Network is not as sophisticated as the fiber optic technology used in other networks. Nevertheless, often fiber optic networks simply allow a class to be taught in the traditional way in several locations at once, whereas less sophisticated technologies such as computer conferencing may allow a class to be taught differently. For restructuring to occur, teachers have to be made aware of the possibilities that are available to them. This awareness can be further reinforced by paid training and time to experiment with the new tools.
Conclusion: Telecommunication technology should be used to enhance the roles and instructional opportunities of teachers.
Student Learning:
When teachers are placed in new roles with respect to their students, the students also have new opportunities open to them in the instructional process. Through the use of joint research and writing projects using multisite links, students have the opportunity to become active learners, collaborating with other students in remote sites to produce something that no one site could produce alone. Telecommunications can promote student roles such as researcher, coordinator and collaborator.
Conclusion: Telecommunications technology should be used to support the development of critical thinking and collaboration skills as well as to expand opportunities for students.
from "A Technical Guide to Teleconferencing and Distance Learning," 3rd edition
