Home PublicationsJRTEPast IssuesVolume 28 Number 5

Edited by Diane McGrath

Volume 28 Number 5 Summer 1996

A Qualitative Evaluation of Statewide Networking Infrastructure in Education (NIE) Project, Discussion

Carol Scott Whelan, Carl Frantz, Juanita Guerin, and Sylvia Bienvenu

University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA

Discussion

Evaluation team members were impressed with the level of enthusiasm and commitment demonstrated by the teachers and others on the school teams. Everyone seemed to be excited and committed to the project, regardless of the implementation status on the various campuses. Participants seemed universally positive about the benefits of the program and cited numerous benefits along with problems and areas for improvement. Project leaders effectively mobilized and rose to the challenge presented by the project, frequently under difficult circumstances. Moreover, the $50,000 provided three of the school districts and $15,000 provided the other two were modest sums given the tasks confronting them, but the state and districts very effectively leveraged these funds with other monies from a wide array of other sources.

All of the districts have plans to include other schools in the system. In fact, one of the systems connected the offices and libraries of all of the school campuses immediately after the three pilot sites were up and running.

Successful Project Characteristics As new sites funded through Goals 2000/NIE or through other resources initiate similar connectivity projects, effectiveness and efficiency can be enhanced through knowledge gained from this first project year. Decision makers should understand what characteristics successful pilot sites have in common as they undertake projects similar to this pilot project to provide direct Internet access to schools.

Districts and schools that seemed either more successful or more likely to be successful in effectively integrating the use of Internet into their sites had strong management teams and multiple sources of funding. There was usually a single person who could be identified as the driving force behind the reform, although, as efforts progressed, others "bought in" to the idea and were also making important contributions as well. District officials, principals, and other school personnel seemed dedicated to exploring innovative sources of funding. They were committed to strategic planning, including planning to extend the project in their schools or to other schools in the district. They were also innovative in generating a high level of community support, which assisted fundraising efforts. A part of this innovation related to how they maintained a high level of community involvement and effective and continuing communication with the community. They were not reluctant to seek the help and participation of those outside the school system. There was a commitment to collaboration among partners within the district, including those at the local university, and collaboration with the LDE and others outside of education.

Additionally the evaluation team found a high degree of commitment to ongoing staff development in successful projects and schools. The principals, teachers, and other school personnel involved showed a commitment to the alignment of technology use with effective curriculum integration that calls for new roles for teachers and learners consistent with standards based reform efforts. The schools that had made the most progress also seemed to benefit from a stable faculty (i.e., a faculty with low turnover rate).

Future Steps Important steps have been taken to discover how Internet resources can be effectively integrated in schools and classrooms. For the initiative to be ultimately successful, these steps need to be extended. The process of institutionalization is as important as the content, in many cases, to secure the support needed for progress. Current sites need to expand and improve, and additional sites need to move forward utilizing the lessons learned in the first tier. Some of these lessons are listed below to supplement insights described previously.

Institutionalization: General Principles A variety of insights surfaced for the evaluation team at various levels regarding principles for institutionalizing the project. It is clear for instance that for all districts to have reasonable access to Internet resources and related technologies, an infusion of monies from the state and other possible sources would be necessary. How that should be structured and phased in is a matter for state planning and policy making.

It is also clear that inservice training on Internet usage needs to be accompanied by preservice training by teacher training institutions. As the Internet becomes more integrated into various school programs, the demand for Internet-trained teacher candidates will increase. Problems will escalate if new teachers graduate unprepared to use technology in the classroom or in other settings.

Another principle identified by the evaluation team is that districts need to structure their initiatives to be easily incorporated into the state networking system. Current pilots have begun to do this as much as possible, given the current status of state standards. The state should require participating districts to adopt state networking standards, as they are enacted.

Within districts, the state should take steps to ensure that the superintendent develops a vision for the project early and to secure his or her support. The state should already have devised a series of steps that the superintendent and the district could take once the decision is made to pursue this reform. The superintendent should take the responsibility of approaching the school board in his or her own district.

In this pilot, districts assigned district technology coordination responsibilities in different ways. It is critical to have a reasonably high-level administrator coordinating district technology responsibilities. A person with this responsibility needs the administrative clout to arrange the support necessary for the initiative to be successful. It is a good idea for this individual to coordinate rather than to direct, since forced acceptance and implementation don't work well over time.

A related issue concerns whether a district should have a technology director or technology coordinator. Various factors relate to this policy decision in each individual district. Nevertheless, based on the general experiences of the districts, it seems that a technology coordinator who sees his or her role as a facilitator rather than a director offers the best chance for long-term success.

Successful environments were built on trust and bottom-up participation, with top-down support. Successful projects were likely to be those that avoided forcing schools or teachers to use technology. Instead, they made technology available, with clarification of support that the district or school can and will provide. Successful district and school approaches also included specific expectations that schools or teachers must meet if they decide to participate.

Communication and collaboration have already been mentioned as features of successful projects. Participants in the projects have suggested that districts and schools take the time to plan, making provision for full participation. An orientation or overview of the project for district administrators, including the elementary supervisor, and math and science supervisors should be included in the project plans. As a part of this planning effort, the district or school administrators should inform the public and parents of both the challenges and the promise of the reform.

Building on First Tier Sites. Educators who participated in the first round of the state NIE project were highly motivated to continue and were interested in steps that would be taken to help ensure that they could continue to progress. A number of steps should be considered. These include continuing training for those who have already participated in the Internet class and extending training to those teachers who were not in the first round from the pioneering schools. Steps might involve support stipends, consultant fees or substitute pay. Ideally, districts should build Internet training into their ongoing inservice programs.

Schools need intensive technical assistance when they first link to the Internet. It is unlikely that the same intensive technical help that was provided to the campuses in the project the first year can be provided to larger numbers of campuses. As districts expand the project to include other campuses, they might consider rotational assignment of a technical person to assist on other campuses as installation proceeds. The schools that get connected earlier could rely more heavily on trained on-site staff. Possibly the district could provide a portable telephone "help desk" that teachers and other personnel can call to resolve technical problems.

The issue of time must also be recognized and addressed. Schools cannot continue to add more to the curriculum and teacher workloads without seeking creative ways tp provide time for them. Administrators at the school, district, and state levels need to approach this problem and seek solutions that are in accordance with standards-based reform.

A new Challenge Grant of $4.3 million was awarded in the fall of 1995 by the U.S. Department of Education. This grant builds on the work of the pilot sites and provides underserved students access to technology and telecommunications. Its goal is to increase communications among all community stakeholders by using learning technologies to provide educational opportunities for students and parents at more convenient times and places. For more information about this project visit the state Challenge Grant Home Page at http://www.challenge.state.la.us.

Expanding to Second Tier Sites. As planning reaches an appropriate stage, the state could require funding for a systemwide long-range technology plan that is consistent with and supports the state technology plan. As part of this plan, each district needs to focus on how it will help ensure equitable student access to Internet tools.

A follow-up Internet course should be designed and the project teams should complete it in the second year. The focus of this course should be instruction using Internet resources. Applicants should also consider providing locally facilitated sessions to assist team members with course projects and review, and to present new instructional tools and resources to their entire staff.

Conclusion

Although the resources for the statewide networking pilot project were limited, the project has demonstrated state leadership in uniting essential stakeholders for effective systemic reform. Outcomes of the planning project have exceeded the original vision. Through local contributions and assistance from the statewide Systemic Initiatives Program, the number of pilot sites was increased from three o five). The involvement of university faculty, district administrators, and classsroom teachers at each of the levels (K-4, 5-8, and 9-12) has strengthened the local infrastructure of each district to a degree that surpassed expectations. The 42-hr professional development course that was taught at each of the sites was developed through a collaborative effort of classroom teachers, district personnel, and university faculty. The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education allocated $32,967 for tuition for the participants at each of the sites (principals, librarians, counselors, and teachers). Each of the five districts in the pilot project provided a one-semester educational sabbatical for a teacher to serve as team leader to the local participants. Building on the work of the pilot sites, the state has received a $4.3 million Challenge Grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education ( http://www.ed.gov/Technology/challenge/) to continue to develop expand the pilot sites and to develop transferable models for providing underserved students and community members access to technology at more convenient times and more accessible places (Whelan, 1996). To learn more about the five sites involved in this study, visit the Louisiana Challege Grant Web site at http://www.challenge.state.la.us.

References

Bienvenu, S. (1995). Analysis of LaNIE Case Studies and Pre- and Post- Surveys and of Participants. Unpublished evaluation report.

Cooper, K. (1995, May 5). Lessons learned from the LaNIE project. Report submitted for publication.

Davidson, K. (1994). Perspective from the project director. LaSIP Nexus (7).

Davidson, K. (1995a, Autumn). USDE awards $4.3 million challenge grant to Louisiana. Challenge Grant Newsletter [Online serial]. Available: http://www.challenge.state.la.us/welcome.html.

Davidson, K. (1995b, November 14). Goals 2000/LaNIE Louisiana Networking Infrastructure in Education Report Unpublished report.

Enhancing science and mathematics instruction with the Internet: Lesson plans from Goals 2000/LaNIE. (1996, February). K. Cooper (Ed.). Monroe, LA: Northeast Louisiana University.

Frantz, C. D., Thomas, L. J., Friske, J., Knezek, D., and Andrepont, B. (1995). Goals 2000/LaNIE Site Visit Evaluation Report. Unpublished evaluation report.

Guerin, J. (1995). Goals 2000/LaNIE: Louisiana networking infrastructure in education: Rebirth of learning for learning's sake. Louisiana Educational Technology Review, 4(1). [Online serial]. No longer available online (7/99).

National Center for Education Statistics. (1994). Advanced telecommunications in U.S. public schools, K-12. [Online document]. 1994 report is not currently available.

Thomas, L. (1996, September 11). Statewide plan for K-14 educational technology [Online document].

Vantilburg, M., Cardwell, D.T. (1995). Goals 2000/LaNIE pilot sites: Educational technology: Pathways to the 21st century. [Videotape]. Baton Folsom, LADnA Creative Services.

Whelan, C. (1995). Louisiana Goals 2000/LaNIE: Narrowing the gap between technology and education. Louisiana Educational Technology Review, 4(1). [Online serial], 3(4).

Whelan, C. (1996). A conversation with Dr. Kerry Davidson: Networking the underserved communities in Louisiana. Louisiana Educational Technology Review, 2(1). [Online serial].

Contributors

Carol Whelan

Dr. Carol Scott Whelan received her Ph.D. from the University of New Orleans, specializing in Educational Administration and Evaluation. She is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the Educational Technology Review Center at the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Her research interests include the impact of telecommunications on K-12 education. Since this article was published, Dr. Whelan has taken a position as head of the educational technology office for the Louisiana Department of Education in Baton Rouge. (E-mail address: cwhelan@mail.doe.state.la.us).

Carl Frantz

Dr. Carl Frantz received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in Education. He is currently working as the evaluation coordinator for the Louisiana Systemic Initiatives Program and the Louisiana Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers. (Address: USL Box 42051, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA 70504-2051. E-mail: cfrantz@usl.edu).

Sylvia Bienvenu

Ms. Sylvia Bienvenu received her Education Specialist degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana and is currently a telecommunications curriculum specialist for the Challenge Grant. She was an evaluator for the LaNIE project. (Address: USL Box 42051, University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette, LA 70504-2051. E-mail: ssb1221@usl.edu).

Design Team

William J. Rust

Mingsheng Dai

At the time of this project Mingsheng Dai was doing a postdoctoral masters degree with an emphasis in Educational Computing, Design, and Telecommunications in the Department of Foundations and Adult Education at Kansas State University. She is from China. Since that time Dr. Dai has taken a position at Hutchinson Community College. E-mail: daim@hutchcc.edu.

Glossary/Links

Archie

An information system offering an electronic directory service for locating information in the Internet that is automatically updated. The best known use of archie is for scanning a database of the contents of more than 1000 Anonymous FTP sites around the world with more than 2,100,000 file names.

Browser

A program that enables you to access information on the Internet through the World Wide Web.

CD-ROM

Compact Disk, Read-Only Memory. A type of storage device that looks just like an audio CD and stores as much data as a large hard disk (600 MB), making it a popular means of distributing fonts, photos, electronic encyclopedias, games, and multimedia offerings.

E-mail

Electronic Mail. Private messages sent between users on different computers, either over a network or via a modem connection to on-line services or BBS.

Ethernet system

An IEEE 802.3 standard data link layer which can operate over several different media including fiber optic, coaxial cable and twisted-pair cable. This 10 million-bit-per-second networking scheme is widely used on campus because it can network a wide variety of computers; it is not proprietary; and components are widely available from many commercial sources.

File server

A computer that shares its resources, such as printers and files, with other computers on the network. An example of this is a Novell NetWare Server which shares its disk space with a workstation that does not have a disk drive of its own.

Freenet

A local or regional public-access computer network, accessible by modem, that provides a variety of computing resources as a community service. Generally provided by public library systems, freenets sometimes offer Internet access without charges.

FTP

File Transfer Protocol. The Internet standard high-level protocol for transferring files from one computer to another across the network.

Gopher

A consistent user interface and gateway into many on-line white pages and other address databases.

Hardware

A computer and the associated physical equipment directly involved in the performance of communications or data-processing functions.

Internet

The Internet is the largest internet in the world. It is a three level hierarchy composed of backbone networks (e.g., NSFNET, MILNET), mid-level networks, and stub networks. The Internet is a multiprotocol internet.

Internet Yellow Pages

Internet yellow pages are a way of finding organizations on the Internet. The name is taken from the telephone yellow pages and serves a similar purpose.

Local Area Networks (LANs)

A network of directly-connected machines (located in close proximity), providing high speed communication over physical media such as fiber optics, coaxial cable, or twisted pair wiring.

List servers

A distribution list management package whose primary function is to operate mailing lists. It allows groups of computer users with a common interest to communicate among themselves.

Modem

A device which converts digital signals into analog dignals (and back) for transmission over telephone lines (modulator and demodulator).

Mosaic

Mosaic is the orginal web browser. It was developed at the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications). It has since been made into a comercial product.

Netscape

Netscape is the preeminent web browser on the market today (Apr 96). It was written by people associated with the development of Mosaic.

Newsgroup

Organized by subject matter, newsgroups are forums where anyone can ask and answer questions, debate given issues, and discuss current or past events.

Software

A set of instructions written in a computer language which performs various operations within a computer.

Telnet

The Internet standard protocol for remote login (terminal connection) service. TELNET allows a user at one site to interact with a remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's terminal were connected directly to the remote computer.

Video

A sound and motion picture medium that can be easily recorded and played.

WWW

World Wide Web or Web3 is the hypermedia document presentation system that can be accessed over the Internet using software called a Web browser.

Wide Area Networks (WANs)

Network spanning multiple geographic distances, usually connected by telephone lines, microwave, or satellite links.

Copyright © 1996, ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). All rights reserved.