EB80305 Ideas for Innovative Thrusts to Get Arizona Moving on Adoption of eLearning.

Situation:

Recent studies like the Educating Arizona, Assessing our Education System (Birth – Grade 12), January 2008, by the AZ Communityi Foundation, provides the data needed to determine how much the current legacy system is not meeting political, social or economic needs, let alone individual needs. One beacon shines, the promise of effective eLearningi grows stronger on itsi capability to individualize instruction, motivate the 21^st century student and interactively support student learning. But Arizona eLearning adoption can expect no new funding from the legislature for the next couple of years.

Strategy:
Arizona has many assets over a range of communities that could be applied to K-12 (or P-20) elearning. What is needed is to identify two or more pathways that have the high current support, a high probability of success and assets are already in place.

Process:

Rough out the designs, form coalitions with civic entrepreneurial leadership around each, provide seed funding for the effort, and instigate state level polices and political bully-pulpit to enhance the playing field.

Ideas:
Horizontal: Take the operating knowledge Arizona has in virtual schools (traditional and charter) and greatly increase the statewide availability of online courses both in quantity, quality and scope. This could be build out using a virtual classroom model. Incomplete list of available assets:

UofPHx online delivery and assessment system

IDEAL’s system for teacher development and course support.

Community college system for teacher development

eLearning enterprise community for digital curriculum

Use MIT and a host of other sources for no-direct cost digital curriculum.

Military’s decade of global experience vectored from Dee Andrews at the Mesa Air Force Researchi Laboratory.

… etc.

Vertical: Take the rising support for STEM and create a K-12 pathway for adoption by schools districts. Build on the work of CRESMET and many others over the years.

Joe Tidwell (ex Boeing, now ASU Polytechnic) worked on the national level to crate the national initiative to install engineering curriculum into K-12 education, named Lead The Way. He is prototyping it in 17 schools in Arizona.

Bundle all the disparate initiatives of our technology companies (Intel, Raytheon, Boeing, into one integrated program.

Greatly expand the Jane Jackson – David Hestenes ASU summer programs for physics and chemistry teachers.

Define a hands on role for the Science Foundation Arizona

Turn STEM subjects into a mastery funding track within a traditional school system,

Fund both the eLearning costs and increased salaries for these teachers with the costs savings from accelerated learning via eLearning (see below).

Use the knowledge from the ADEi competition and implementation of the Middle School Math pilot program to guide adopting in all schools.

Rifle Shot:

Use the federal funding that Juvenile Corrections has for transforming their education system on eLearning .

Determine and track all Arizona schools that have or will be changing to 1:1 elearning. Then scrounge funding and through ADE competition fund 4 more in 2009-2010; 8 more in 2010-2011; etc.

Intellectual Infrastructure:

Change Title 15 section 9 school finance law to provide alternative of funding schools to mastery learning with in the structure of a personal learning plan as an alternative to the antiquated seat time.

Get foundation funding to create a digital curriculum institute determine how to deliver the best and most cost effective digital curriculum to Arizona’s teachers. And then provide and extension service to assure teachers have the needed support in their classrooms and schools.

Have AZ Dept of Commerce designation our 50,000 going on 65,000 teachers the most critical technology based work force in Arizona. With this new image get federal and other source to increase their professional development from the current $100 per teacher to $1000 per teacher. This professional development will focus across the entire range of teacher-student interaction from remote support and control on the virtual classroom to the elementary school classroom.

Have SFA , our eLearning enterprises and our universities and the Air Force Research Lab garner an unfair share of the eLearning research funds now flowing out of NSF.

Take the currently strong effort at ADE data system and IDEAL and grow it into a formidable formative assessmenti tool for every teacher-student nexus.