Looks like good adds. Iowa is pushing their federal ARRA Ed Tech stimulus funding in support of online learning, so Dr Barbour's BLOG will be timely for Iowa schools.

I always associated the goals of the list 1-7 above with teacher quality, not teacher retention. The boost in 2007-2008 was most likely aided by the increase in teacher pay tied to moving Iowa towards the national midpoint on beginning teacher pay. Analysis in future years will be difficult because of teacher position cuts across the nation which will hit new teachers hardest.

Sorry... had my coffee cup on my space bar last time I accessed Dangerously Irrelevant. Must of skewed the numbers. My bad.

I watch TEDTalk ( www.ted.com ) clips on a regular basis. Wouldn't that be a great format and feel for AERA to try to emulate at their conference?

It would be interesting to see the data broken down into a work window.... what do the percentages look like for the 21st century white collar job (8 to 5, M-F), and what do the percentages look like for a typical school day experience? If we take a stretch and equate digital text to print (really, what's the difference?), then I'd expect a K12 school day to be more diverse in it's information consumption compared to the professional workplace. Certainly this would be the case in any classroom taking a project based learning approach.

The question for the NEA is what is their disruptive innovation agenda? The last reauthorization of education funding at the national level was all about leveraging standardized test scores to ratchet up accountability. Now that NEA is in a more powerful position at the national level, what is their disruptive innovation? Authentic learning and assessment? The case for change invites action spun as radical (disruptive). What can the NEA pull out of their national agenda that can become the next disruptive innovation?

Looks like there is a wide variety of agendas and perspectives in the room. Good start. I'll be looking forward to seeing the future posts on this group's work. For my 2 cents worth, the centerpiece of any future vision initiative needs to be ubiquitous access to the Internet for all Iowa students, 24X7. Get the ball rolling on that and doors will open to school transformation.

How about starting the student down some bi-lingual paths by using something like Rosetta Stone?

There must be some wave of "if you can't beat them, join them" on the way. If a goal of 21st Century Skill work is to develop creativity and problem solving, then don't the commercial games offer opportunities for this? Is there room in the K-12 curriculum for 21st Century curriculum tracks that leverage high quality games to spur strategic thinking and creative problem solving?

In Iowa statewide penny funding for school infrastructure carries the same constraints for technology that the physical plant and equipment levy (PPEL) does. It would be helpful to obtain more flexibility in the PPEL language for technology expenditures. This would then allow not only PPEL funding but also SWP funding to support technology. Construction lobbies are firmly against any expansion in the PPEL language, and have effectively blocked any attempts to place more flexibility in the PPEL language. As it stands now, teacher quality funding provides a good source of funding for professional development. With good planning, PD in support of technology integration can be imbedding the teacher quality initiatives. SWP and PPEL funding potentially provides more funding for technology equipment than we've had in Iowa since the days of categorical technology funding in the late 1990s. The problem is there is no funding for technology support, and to some extent, for software (PPEL can only be used for software if it comes bundled with the hardware, which is not the case in many districts). Technology is going to only be as strong as its weakest link, and if the links are professional development, equipment, and support, then support is going to be the weak link for most Iowa districts. This link will get weaker as funding cliffs in the next couple of fiscal years require districts to cut staff, and technology support will not be left unscathed by this.

It's easy to categorize technology as a service. And this view of technology exists in schools where technology exists on the learning side of the org chart or the operations side of the org chart. And with any customer service oriented endeavor, there are going to be complaints. In the best case the complaints have a way to come to the surface and can be addressed. But unfortunately customers will often complain to strangers but not forward their complaints to someone that can actually address them. Maybe that's why you're a complaint magnet, Scott....  Of course, education technology can be more that a school service. It can be a catalyst for transformational change in education. It can be a support for learning. Districts that can devote time to these uses of technology get farther down the path of technology benefits. But these districts only get to go there if they have their customer service house in order. Technology initiatives don't get too deep if the technology doesn't work reliably. So, districts have to take care of job one, customer service, first. If they have only one shot at a technology coordinator (i.e. rural district) they are most likely not going to get a person that can do it all. So they bring in someone that can run the technology and throw them into a situation where that’s all they are going to get.