Appendix 3_____________

SELECTIVE DOCUMENTS ON NII

A TRANSFORMATION OF LEARNING : USE OF THE NII FOR EDUCATION AND LIFELONG LEARNING*

DRAFT FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

"Today, we have a dream for a different kind of superhighway that can save lives, create jobs and give every American young and old, the chance for the best education available to anyone, anywhere.

"I challenge you. . .to connect all of our classrooms, all of our libraries, and all of our hospitals and clinics by the year 2000."

Vice President Al Gore, speaking to communications industry leaders, January 11, 1994
  PART I: What Is the Application Area?

Description of Education and Lifelong Learning

Communications technology is transforming the way we live by connecting us with information and each other. The National Information Infrastructure (NII) promises every business, government agency, hospital, home, library, and school in the nation access anywhere to voice, data, full-motion video, and multimedia applications. The impact of these capabilities on learning -- for the children, for higher education students, and for lifelong learners -- will be substantial.

The way Americans teach, learn, transmit and access information remains largely unchanged from a century ago. We find the following conditions in American education and training:

• The textbook remains the basic unit of instruction. Absorption of its contents tends to be the measure of educational success.

• Teachers and instructors use "chalk and talk" to convey information. Students are often recipients of instruction rather than active participants in learning.

• School teachers work largely in isolation from their peers. Teachers interact with their colleagues only for a few moments each day. Most other professionals collaborate, exchange information and develop new skills on a daily basis.

• Although half of the nation's school teachers use passive video ma-terials for instruction, only a small fraction have access to interactive video, computer networks, or even telephones in the classroom.

• While computers are a frequent sight in America's classrooms and training sites, they are usually used simply as electronic workbooks. Interactive, high performance uses of technology, such as networked teams collaborating to solve real-world problems, retrieving informa-tion from electronic libraries, and performing scientific experiments in simulated environments, are all too uncommon.

• "U.S. schooling is a conservative institution, which adopts new practice and technology slowly. Highly regulated and financed from a limited revenue base, schools serve many educational and social purposes, subject to local consent. The use of computer technology, with its demands on teacher professional development, physical space, time in the instructional day, and budget ... has found a place in classroom practice and school organization slowly and tentatively." [See note 1]
 

 Events of the last two decades have proven that we can do better. We have found that most American children are capable of learning at dramatically higher levels -- levels of performance we now expect only of our best students. We have learned this from research in cognitive science, from the educational achievements of other countries, and from pioneering efforts in our own schools. Moreover, after 35 years of research, we have found that technology can be the key to higher levels of achievement. [See note 2]

Similarly, in the American workplace we have found that workers can achieve levels of productivity and quality equal to the best in the world. [See note 3] Well-educated, well-trained, motivated workers can produce high-quality goods and services at low cost, enhance industrial productivity and competitiveness, and sustain high living standards. High-quality education and training payoff for the individual whose skills are upgraded, for the company seeking a competitive edge, and for the nation in achieving overall productivity and competitiveness.

Our major foreign competitors place much greater emphasis on developing and maintaining workforce skills than we do. Experienced production workers at Japanese auto assembly plants, for example, receive three times as much training each year as their American counterparts. Research in our country has shown that workers who receive formal job training are 30 percent more productive than those who do not. Again, we have found that technology is the key to making training accessible and affordable -- especially for small- to medium-sized firms with few resources of their own to devote to producing and implementing the training and lifelong learning their workers need and for workers who, on their own, are attempting to improve their skills or transfer them to new areas of endeavor.

Finally, in preparing students for the workplace, we have learned that inter-active, high performance technology can produce immersive, real world instruc-tional environments. These environments can smooth longterm school-to-work transitions while helping to meet the immediate objectives of both schools and workplaces. Our efforts to develop this capability have been fragmentary and shortlived at best.

A Vision for the Use of the NII

The NII, will be the vehicle for improving education and lifelong learning throughout America in ways we now know are critically important. Our nation will become a place where students of all ages and abilities reach the highest standards of academic achievement. Teachers, engineers, business managers, and all knowledge workers will constantly be exposed to new methods, and will collaborate and share ideas with one another.

Through the NII, students of all ages will use multimedia electronic libraries and museums containing text, images, video, music, simulations, and instruc-tional software. The NII will give teachers, students, workers, and instructors access to a great variety of instructional resources and to each other. It will give educators and managers new tools for improving the operations and productivity of their institutions.

The NII will remove school walls as barriers to learning in several ways. It will provide access to the world beyond the classroom. It will also permit both teachers and students access to the tools of learning and their peers -- outside the classroom and outside the typical nine to three school day. It will enable family members to stay in contact with their children's schools. The NII will permit students, workers and instructors to converse with scientists, scholars, and experts around the globe.

Workplaces will become lifelong learning environments, supporting larger numbers of high skill, high wage jobs. Printed books made the content of great instruction widely and inexpensively available in the 18th Century. The inter-active capabilities of the NII will make both the content and interactions of great teaching universally and inexpensively available in the 21st Century.

Education and Lifelong Learning Applications for the NII

The NII will provide the backbone for a lifelong learning society. Education and training communities will better accommodate an enormous diversity of learners in an equally diverse variety of settings. In addition to schools and work places, interconnected, high-performance applications will extend interactive learning to community centers, libraries, and homes. Education, training, and lifelong learning applications available from the NII may include:

• Multimedia interactive learning programs delivered to homes to im-migrant children and their parents to collaborate on learning English as a second language.

• Troubleshooting and operating applications that access the computer-assisted-design (CAD) databases used to design workplace technology and to integrate the CAD data with instructional and job-aiding capabilities to provide just-in-time training and maintenance assistance.

• Comprehensive interconnectivity for students that allows them to re-ceive and complete assignments, collaborate with students in distant locations on school projects, and interact with teachers and outside experts to receive help, hints, and critiques.

• Simulated learning activities such as laboratory experiments and archeological digs.

• Universal access interfaces for computers and telecommunications devices for students, workers and others with disabilities to allow access to the NII.

• Affordable, portable personal learning assistance that tap into the NII from any location at any time and provide multimedia access to any NII information resource.

• Immersive, realistic interactive simulations that allow emergency teams made up of geographically dispersed members to practice toge-ther on infrequently used procedures that may be urgently needed to meet local exigencies.

 The Educational Benefits of Technology

Evidence from research, schools, and workplaces around the country tells us that communications technologies are powerful tools in reaching the highest levels of educational performance.

• Students with disabilities, who previously had at best limited access to most educational and reference materials, will have fuller access and will have the ability to participate in the learning experience with their peers.

• A 1993 survey of studies on the effectiveness of technology in schools concluded that "courses for which computer-based networks were used increased student-student and student-teacher interaction, in-creased student-teacher interaction with lower-performing students, and did not decrease the traditional forms of communications used." [See note 4]

• Research on the costs of instruction delivered via distance learning, videotape, teleconferencing, and computer software indicates that savings are often achieved with no loss of effectiveness. Distance learning vastly broadens the learning environment, often providing teaching resources simply not available heretofore. Technology-based methods have a positive impact on learner motivation and frequently save instructional time. Savings in training time produce benefits both by reducing training costs and by shortening the time required to become and remain productive in the workplace.

• A review of computer-based instruction used in military training found that students reach similar levels of achievement in 30% less time than they need using more standard approaches to training. [See note 5]

• A Congressionally mandated review covering 47 comparisons of multimedia instruction with more conventional approaches to instruc-tion found time savings of 30%, improved achievement, cost savings of 30-40%, and a direct, positive link between amount of interactivity provided and instructional effectiveness. [See note 6]

• A comparison of peer tutoring, adult tutoring, reducing class size, increasing the length of the school day, and computer-based instruc-tion found computer-based instruction to be the least expensive instructional approach for raising mathematics scores by a given amount. [See note 7]

• A landmark study of the use of technology for persons with disabili-ties found that "almost three-quarters of school-age children were able to remain in a classroom, and 45 percent were able to reduce school-related services." [See note 8]

  Of course, these benefits depend upon several contextual factors, including the instructional methods used, the quality of the applications, the availability of professional development for educators, accessibility of instructional materials, the presence of school technology support staff, and family involvement. [See note 9] We must learn through experience how best to ensure that the benefits we intend to obtain from NII-based applications become routinely realized in practice.

Telecommunications networks provide a range of resources to students and educators that were never before available or affordable. Students and workers can now gain access to mentoring, advice, and assistance from scientists, engi-neers, researchers, business leaders, technicians, and local experts around the globe through the Internet, using a level of access and connectivity that was previously unimaginable. High school students in West Virginia, for example, can now study Russian via satellite and telephone with a teacher hundreds of miles away. Few West Virginia school districts could afford to offer such a course any other way.

Less well understood are changes in the types of learning that occur with the use of certain technologies. Current evidence suggests that some technology applications are more effective than traditional instructional methods in building complex problem solving capabilities for synthesizing information and in impro-ving writing quality. The effects are achieved in part by permitting alternate methods of "reaching" and motivating learners.

The Administration's National Information Infrastructure initiative can trigger a transformation of education, training, and lifelong learning by making new tools available to educators, instructors, students, and workers and help them reach dramatically higher levels of performance and productivity. The impact of this transformation in teaching and learning is in-estimable, but clearly enor-mous. Knowledge drives today's global marketplace. The NII will permit us to take learning beyond the limitations of traditional school buildings. It will take our educators and learners to worldwide resources. Learning will be our way of life.

PART II: Where Are We Now?

Today, compelling teaching and learning applications are the exception, not the rule. Several federal agencies provide services that meet specific, focused needs, while hundreds of state and local networks and private service providers have begun to address the technology needs of education. Current uses, while expand-ing rapidly, reach only a small number of technologically-literate school commu-nities.

Current application of NII capabilities to work place training is more exten-sive and technologically advanced than educational applications, yet it lags well behind what is needed and available. The story of workplace training seems to be a case of the haves receiving more and the have-nots remaining neglected. Small firms, those with 100 employees or less, provide about 35 percent of total U.S. employment, but they lack the expertise to provide in-house training, the resources to pay for outside training, and sufficient numbers of people who need training at any one time to justify focused training efforts. Larger firms are more likely to provide training than smaller ones, but the training they provide is most-ly limited to college-educated technicians and managers. The lower the level of skills possessed, the less likely the worker is to receive training from any source. Transportable, quality controlled training and lifelong learning could be made readily and inexpensively accessible using the NII and will have a major impact on improving worker skills and workplace productivity.

While much remains to be done, the opportunities offered by the NII put many of the needed capabilities within reach of schools, homes, and the work-place.

Current Uses of Telecommunications for Education

The existing telecommunications infrastructure is composed of telephone, broad-cast, cable, and electronic networks. It is used for education, training, and life-long learning in five basic ways: 1) instructing with video; 2) gathering informa-tion from remote libraries and databases; 3) communicating using two-way asynchronous capabilities such as e-mail and information bulletin boards; 4) distance learning; and 5) electronic transfer of instructional software and simu-lations.

• Instructional video. Seventy-five percent of America's schools have cable television, and half of its teachers use video material in their courses. [See note 10] The Stars Schools program is reaching 200,000 students in 48 states with advanced placement courses in mathematics, science, and foreign language instruction using fiber optics, computers, and satellites. [See note 11] Cassette videotapes for instruction are widely used in schools and work places, and the development of these videotapes for both education and training has become a vigorous industry.

• Information collection. This activity includes location and retrieval of documents such as lesson plans and research reports, but it also includes newer data sources such as CAD databases for workplace technologies and equipment, and multimedia information retrieval from digital libraries that can be accessed by students, workers, or people in homes, libraries, and museums. Over 60,000 electronic bulletin boards are used by more than 12 million Americans every day. [See note 12] The annual rate of Gopher traffic on the Internet, which directly represents an effort to use NII facilities to gather information, is growing at an annual rate of approximately 1000% [See note 13] The Department of Education has a Gopher server which points to or contains educational research information, such as the AskERIC service and information from sources such as CNN, Academy One, and the Educational Testing Service. NASA Space-link makes lesson plans on space flight and related science topics available on the Internet.

• Two-way communication. This includes communication via elec-tronic mail and conferencing among teachers, students, workers, men-tors, technicians, and subject matter experts of every sort. Approxi-mately one-quarter of the teachers in Texas regularly sign on to the Texas Education Network, or TENET, to share information, exchange mail, and find resources. A professor at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University teaches a writing course entirely online. Stu-dents swap writing projects and discuss their assignments online. In the workplace, electronic mail is used by more than 12 million workers, increasing to over 27 million workers by 1995. Just less than a sixth of U.S. homes now have at least one computer connected to a modem, and this percentage is growing rapidly. [See note 14] As of July, 1993, there were four Internet hosts for every 1000 people in the United States. There are now 60 countries on the Internet. About 137 countries can now be reached by electronic mail. [See note 15]

• Distance learning. Hundreds of thousands of students in schools, community colleges, and universities now take courses via one-and two-way video and two-way audio communication. In South Caro-lina, high school students across the state study with a teacher of Russia based in Columbia through South Carolina Educational Television. Boise State University offers a masters degree program conducted entirely over networked computers to students all over the country. The Department of Defense is investing well over $1 billion in the development and implementation of networked distributed interactive simulation. This technology, which allows dispersed learners to engage in collaborative problem solving activities in real time, is now ready for transfer to schools and workplaces outside of the defense sector.

• Transfer of instructional software and simulations. Instructional programs, simulations, materials, and databases can all be accessed over the NII and delivered to schools, homes, libraries, and work-places wherever and whenever it is desirable to do so. Currently, there are massive exchanges of software, databases, and files using the Internet, but relatively little of this activity occurs in the service of education, training, and lifelong learning.

  Nonetheless, compelling applications that will become indispensable to teachers, students, and workers are not yet available. All the capabilities of computer-based instruction and multimedia instruction can be distributed using NII facilities to schools, workplaces, homes, libraries, museums, community centers, store fronts -- wherever and whenever people wish to learn. Yet the infrastructure and applications to support this level of accessibility for education, training, and lifelong learning uses have yet to be developed. Until compelling applications are available, educations will not realize the potential of the NII.

Efforts to Build the NII for Education and Lifelong Learning: Roles of the Private, Nonprofit, and Public Sectors

Successful implementation of the NII to serve the nation's education and lifelong learning needs will require significant contributions by the private sector, state and local governments, the federal government, and the non-profit sector.

• The private sector's role in providing telecommunications services and applications for education and lifelong learning has been expanding rapidly in recent years, and should continue to do so. The private sector will build the telecommunications infrastructure and must also make 75% to 95% of the nation's investments in applications develop-ment for education and lifelong learning. The private sector also supports the bulk of job training costs. On the telecommunications side, Pacific Bell has committed to providing data links for all California schools, colleges, and universities. On the applications side, the Software Publishers Association reports that education is its fastest-growing product category, with over 700 firms currently producing educational software.

• State and local governments provide 93% of the nation's investment in elementary and secondary education and provide a large percentage of the investment in higher education. Accordingly, most of the spend-ing on hardware, software, professional development and support ser-vices will come from state and local public funds. In addition, states are in the position to remove regulatory and tariff barriers to NII access in the local communities.

• The federal government has three principal responsibilities. It facili-tates the private sector investment in infrastructure and applications for education and lifelong learning by creating incentives, removing regulatory barriers, establishing standards, supporting research, eva-luation and prototype development, developing visionary "bench-mark" applications, and providing assistance to the education and training communities. It communicates a vision for the education, training, and lifelong learning uses of the NII. And, most importantly, it promotes access for all learners to the resources of the NII.

• Thousands of private nonprofit organizations, ranging from large national industry associations to small, informal groups serving Inter-net users with specialized interests, now serve critical roles as provi-ders of information, technical assistance, and valuable applications.

 Key Federal Agencies

While almost every Federal agency supports instructional activities that involve telecommunications technology, eleven agencies actively support the develop-ment of instructional uses of the future NII.

The Department of Agriculture collaborates with land-grant colleges and universities to make an array of information and expertise available on-line and to provide distance learning opportunities to urban and rural communities.

The Department of Commerce provides support and direct funding for tele-communications infrastructure planning and development, and plans to support improvements in workplace training using the NII. Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology supports standards development. The Department of Defense provides lifelong education and training to hundreds of thousands of military personnel. It supports R&D for education and training and is expected to transfer knowledge and software to schools and non-Defense workplaces under its Dual-Use and Technology Reinvestment programs. The Department of Defense Dependents Schools are expected to serve as a testbed for new applications.

The Department of Education advocates for the needs of all learners in the development of the NII. The Department is the principal source of Federal support for distance learning, via the Star Schools Program. In FY 1995, the Department will also support applications and programming development, pilot projects, teacher networks, research, and planning grants to states and districts.

The Department of Energy is in the forefront in the development and use of information technologies, such as high performance computing, high speed net-working, data storage and data bases, and other information services and system integration technology. The Department is developing K-12 computing and communication applications that support a new learning paradigm and take advantage of the regional presence and capabilities of the Department's labora-tories. Emphasis is placed on reaching a broad range of students, including women and underrepresented minorities. The Department will initiate pilot projects that have scalability as an important characteristic so that schools can bridge the period until network and system costs decline to the point that the education establishment can take over this support. Another key technology initiative is the development of digital libraries that will enable users speedy and economical access to Energy information over an electronic data highway.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has undertaken an initiative to develop the capability to provide training to HUD employees and clients by linking trainers to students who may be thousands of miles apart. This distance learning network makes use of computer, interactive video, satellite, and telecommunications technologies, and will be implemented under the auspices of the recently established HUD Training Academy.

The Department of the Interior has several activities underway to implement the NII within the Department. One of these is the National Biological Informa-tion Infrastructure, which will allow users to access, manipulate, organize, and use biological data and information from a variety of sources.

The Department of Labor has direct and indirect interaction with employers, workers, business and labor organizations, and other government entities and administers most Federal training programs. The Department hopes to use the NII to enhance the skills, education and training of the American workforce.

The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and foreign telecommunications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The FCC is responsible for the orderly development and operation of broadcast services and the provision of rapid efficient nationwide telephone and telegraph services at reasonable rates.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration continues to build on its HPCC program, its aeronautics and space science research and engineering missions, and its existing education outreach infrastructure to facilitate the general development of the NII to support mathematics, science, and engineering education in K-12 education. This program consists of pilot projects at 7 NASA Centers involving many of their local schools and school districts. The goal of the K-12 effort will be to produce and distribute curriculum materials to a very broad user community over the Internet. A video is in production in cooperation with the Department of Education to provide guidance on appropriate steps for implementing Internet access and utilization in the classroom. NASA continues to operate and improve its "Spacelink" computer information system for the education community, principally teachers and students.

The National Science Foundation supports research on digital libraries for capturing, categorizing, and organizing data of all forms (text, images, sound, speech) in electronic form to allow utilization of networked databases distributed around the nation and the world. A networking infrastructure for education program will establish test beds and implement prototypes that explore the role of electronic networks in support of reformed education. The NSF will also support the development of national facilities and centers such as NSFNET, High Perfor-mance Computing and Communications Centers and National Challenge Centers needed to support the research, education and training activities required to broaden the impact of the NII.

In addition, the High-Performance Computing and Communications initiative, an interagency effort under the aegis of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, includes several components that directly support the development of NII uses for education, training, and lifelong learning. These include:

• The National Research and Education Network (NREN). The NREN will establish a very fast communications infrastructure for research and educational use. NREN efforts include increasing the availability of advanced network products and services at affordable cost to research and education communities.

• Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications (IITA). This component supports the development of software, interfaces, and tools necessary for the educational use of the NII, including access to digital libraries.

 State and Local Agencies

States and local communities have initiatives to provide Internet access and high speed access to the NII for education and lifelong learning.

More than half the states sponsor broad educational networking. In some states, the state government has led the effort, in others, regional or local organi-zations have taken the initiative as illustrated in the examples that follow.

• The Iowa Communications Network (ICN) currently includes over 2,600 miles of fiber optic cable that links together fifteen regional centers, three regent universities, and Iowa Public Television. Current uses include 63 semester-long distance learning courses offered in the fall of 1993, workshops and seminars for educators, and town meet-ings. Ultimately, ICN will link up every college and high school in the state. The state has invested over $100 million in ICN so far. [See note 16]

• In May, 1993, North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt announced the North Carolina Information Highway, an effort to link educational, medical, economic development, and public safety organizations statewide. In January, 1994, Governor Hunt announced the first 106 sites to be linked up to the information highway, most of which are educational institutions. The state legislature created a school tech-nology commission to examine the technology needs of the state's schools. The legislature is scheduled to vote on a $350 million pro-posal to fund educational technology in late 1994.

• In Ohio, a number of local and statewide organizations are now work-ing to increase access to networks for educational use. These include the State of Ohio Network for Integrated Communications, which provides connectivity for all state agencies; the Ohio Educa-tional Computer Network, charged with developing K-12 educational links; Cleveland FreeNet, a regional network; and the Ohio Academic Resources Network, linking up colleges and universities. Compara-tively little state money has been spent to build these networks. [See note 17]

 Use of Telecommunications Technologies in Schools

While computers and some communications capabilities are present in American schools, high speed communications technology is limited to very few class-rooms. Substantial local infrastructure investments will be necessary to realize the promise of NII applications. The installed base of computers, modems, networks, and video technology indicates that growth has been, at best, uneven. Since education and training application development has not kept pace with other grand challenges types of NII applications, most schools, communities, and state and local governing bodies have neither recognized nor acted on the need to build the technological capability to access the information superhighway. A key but not well understood requirement is for technical expertise to install and maintain high speed connections to the NII. Once the high speed communica-tions linkages of the NII are brought to the schoolhouse door, the challenge is to build the internal high speed linkages within the building to connect the user hardware.

The installed base of computers in American elementary and secondary schools is largely incapable of supporting multimedia graphical applications because of obsolete or obsolescent hardware. Eighty percent of the base includes 55% Apple IIs and 24% IBM PCs, XTs, ATs or similar class machines, with limited modern graphic or multimedia capabilities; the part of the base made of 10% Apple Macintoshes and 8% IBM compatible 386s or 486s is capable of supporting high level applications. The number of computers in the schools, 2.5 million, is equivalent to one per classroom. [See note 18] In a 1993 survey of NEA members, only 4% of teachers reported having a modem in their classroom, while 38% reported having access to a modem somewhere in the school building. [See note 19] Another survey found that among 550 educators who are actively involved in using telecommunications, less than half have access to the Internet. They use the Internet services twice as often for professional activities as for student learning activities. [See note 20]

Use of Telecommunications Technologies in the Workplace

Well-designed technology-based training can provide greater mastery of material in less time and with higher employee satisfaction than the average classroom lecture, yet classroom instruction remains the most common formal training method in the United States. [See note 21] Most corporate trainers have insuffi-cient experience with technology to use it confidently or to design courses around it. Although 35 million adults have difficulties with common literacy tasks, no more than 15 percent of literacy providers use them regularly for instruction, and many do not use them at all. [See note 22] Despite the explosion of cable, public, and commercial television channels, there are only a few instructional television programs that target adult literacy. This situation remains despite the privacy and accessibility that technology and the NII offer adult learners.

The issue is not limited to the literacy training adults need to obtain and keep employment. Even among those who are prepared to benefit from them, the immersing, tutorial interactions of instruction and especially instructional simula-tions that are now available from high-performance technology are rarely found in the workplace. Even the capabilities of just-in-time and just-enough training and job performance aiding are rarely employed to their useful limits.

Equity and Access

Computer technology is unevenly distributed in our schools today when mea-sured by computer density, the ratio of computers to students. Those schools in the top quintile have nine times as many computers as those schools in the bottom quintile. Computer density in the schools is not strongly correlated with socio-economic, racial, or ethnic patterns, however. Lower than average compu-ter densities are found in large schools, urban schools, both private and parochial schools, and schools with large numbers of Hispanic students. Because the installed base is 80% obsolete, it is not a significant indicator of utilization of modern technology.

Distribution of video technologies such as distance learning equipment, VCRs, and cable TV is more evenly distributed. Schools in rural and poor areas actually have higher densities of these types of equipment. For instance, every school in West Virginia, regardless of its location, has a satellite receive-only dish providing ready access to televised courses.

Dramatic disparities appear in the area of computer networking. Instructional networks are most prevalent in the Northeast, in suburban schools, in schools whose parents' education is "said to be above average," and also in elementary schools receiving Chapter l support, a reasonable measure of poverty.

Although most schools' use of technology is far below what they desire, be-cause the technology is not affordable, a small number of schools have made substantial investments in technology. Such schools achieve greater "high end" technology usage. Higher socioeconomic level schools also are more likely to be high-end technology users.

A disparity in technology investments between small and large firms is noted, small firms can make only limited investments in training, with or without NII support. When such investments are made, they appear to pay off. A Canadian study found that successful companies innovate and spend more on technology than those that are less successful. [See note 23] However, entry level training to facilitate school-to-work transitions remains everyone's stepchild. Some of the entry level training needs are being met by electronic home learning. In fact, education software sales for the first three quarters of 1993 were up 46% from the same period in 1992. [See note 24] Nonetheless, the situated apprenticeship training and basic skills training that forms the foundation for entry level training that could be provided through the NII remains to be developed. Without acces-sibility to such workplace training technical capabilities, intractable inequities are likely to remain.

PART III: Where Do We Want to Be?

The goal of the Administration -- as stated by Vice President Al Gore -- is for all citizens to use the NII from every home, library, workplace, community center and classroom in the nation. The NII will support lifelong learning opportunities for an enormously diverse community of learners.

This goal implies nothing short of a complete transformation of American education and lifelong learning. The NII will enable education to become a lifelong enterprise for all Americans, integrating and substantially enhancing school, community, and workplace learning and providing opportunities accessi-ble to all.

Immediate Objectives

We propose the following objectives as goals for the near term:

• Schools, libraries, workplaces, and other learning sites will have high speed access to the NII, capable of supporting interactive, multimedia applications.

• Interactive, multimedia, high-quality educational applications for stu-dents in the basic learning areas and at different skills levels will be affordable and readily available in the marketplace.

• Schools will have internal networking capabilities and hardware capa-ble of supporting high-quality applications.

• High-quality basic skills training that provides every motivated worker with the verbal and quantitative skills needed to learn and perform job-relevant tasks will be available in every workplace.
 

 The following conditions should exist in support of the these goals: • Educators and the public will understand the potential of the NII to support high-performing learning environments, and they will be able to use NII resources effectively. Examples of the effective use of the NII for education, training, and lifelong learning, and evidence of concrete instructional benefits, will be widely available.

• All states, and a majority of school districts, will have comprehensive plans in place for the integration of technology into education and lifelong learning, that are linked to systemic education improvement plans, and will have begun implementation of these plans. At a mini-mum, these plans will address the challenges of diminished budgets while meeting requirements for increased investments in technology, professional development, maintenance, and technical support; provi-sion for access by users with disabilities; provide broadband access to classrooms and other learning sites; and make changes in regulatory structures to facilitate infrastructure and applications investments.

• Investment by all levels of government in research, development, and evaluation, implementation, and technical support will increase drama-tically. The investments will include professional development and technical assistance for teachers, school administrators, instructors, and managers in the use of information technologies. Providers of profes-sional development and technical assistance will be encouraged to offer quality, easily accessible services in a variety of ways -- including access through the NII. A majority of teachers will have access to personal telecommunications devices and networking services to sup-port continuing professional growth and interchange of professional information.

• The demand for high-quality software packages and tools for educa-tion, training, and lifelong learning will grow rapidly and substantially such that the private sector will make massive new investments in the infrastructure and increase the quality and accessibility of the software packages and tools.

• Multimedia education and training packages will become portable so that they can be delivered across the NII and used when they reach their destination regardless of the hardware platform to be found there.

• Strategies and standards will be available for making at least the cur-rent generation applications accessible to users with disabilities or who are experiencing limitations due to aging.
 

 Long Term Goals

To serve the needs of the educational community in the long term, an improved NII must have the following attributes: Convenient and equitable access. Con-nection to every American classroom, public library and other learning locations will ensure that NII applications are available to all citizens as instructional tools and not available just as special, rationed services.

• Affordable workplace and home access will give all learners access to the NII resources whenever and wherever they are needed, will enable family members to be fully involved in the education of their children, and will allow workers to participate in a productive, lifelong learning society.

• High sped transmission capability. The NII will permit the inter-active transmission of voice, video, data, multimedia applications, and other digitized information at the capacities needed to support educa-tion, training, and lifelong learning.

• Easy use. User interfaces will be simple and easy to use. Networks and applications will be interoperable, to permit easy access from all hardware platforms to the widest possible array of resources. The NII will have directories and other exploration tools that allow students, teachers, and workers to make their way conveniently through the massive amounts of available information. Tools to assist users iden-tify resources will be developed.

• Technological simplification. Telecommunications hardware and software will be simplified so that connecting a computer to the NII is no more complex than connecting a telephone.

• Accessibility. User interfaces and information must accommodate users with a widespread range of abilities through built in interface options, flexibility, and compatibility with special access technologies.

• Security. The NII will accommodate security systems adequate to protect privacy, the confidentiality of sensitive information, and to safeguard intellectual property rights. The network must also accom-modate varying levels of access to resources in education and training settings.

• Content. The NII must offer information, communication, and learn-ing opportunities that meet high standards of quality and help America reach the National Education Goals.

• Portability. Interactive courseware will have the same operating interoperability -- "plug and play" -- now available in high fidelity audio systems. Investments in multimedia education and training programs will be preserved through NII delivery using inter-operability standards in the development of software and hardware.

• Instructional delivery. Instructional delivery will provide workers with a "Ph.D. in a pocket." Instruction and job performance aiding will be delivered on a device that resembles a pocket calculator. Every complex device will include sufficient embedded training and user assistance to make it easily useable.

• Instructional intelligence. Instructional intelligence will support integrated individualized tutoring that integrates goal setting, instruc-tion, job performance aiding, and decision aiding into a single package. Natural language interaction will be an essential feature of this capabi-lity.

• Institutional integration. Institutional integration will be the most difficult challenge to meet. The new instructional capabilities will first have to be integrated into the routine, daily practice of our current instructional and workplace institutions. Just-in-time and just-enough training that is universally available will not only change the ways people are treated in the workplace but the workplace itself.
 

 PART IV: How Are We Going to Get There?

Making the NII a reality for education will require significant capital investments by the private sector and commitments to meet continuing operating costs. Federal, State, and local governments need to create the conditions in which this investment can proceed, and will play a critical role in "jump starting" educa-tional applications and access to the network. The following questions are intended to focus attention on the most important issues for Federal policy.

Issues and Questions to be Addressed

Access

• How can the Federal Government facilitate the connectivity needs of schools and other learning sites? Should schools that have been traditionally underserved be given special attention with respect to network access and access to the information resources relevant to their needs? Should schools and other learning sites be given universal service to ensure the delivery of service at the same affordable rates as most American homes?

• How can the NII be made accessible in a variety of learning environments? How can the NII allow individual learners access to the resources they need when and where they want access? How can the NII provide the capability for learning on demand through education and training programs funded by the Federal Government?

• What incentives, regulatory actions, or other activities within the private sector and state and local government are needed to encourage investments to connect educational institutions and other learning sites to the NII?

• Should the FCC propose regulations that enhance the availability of advan-ced telecommunications services to all educational institutions by mechani-sms such as preferential rates for telecommunications services? Are there alternative means of achieving this public requirement?

• Should the Federal Government collect and publicly report data to monitor progress in areas such as the extent of network access in schools?
 

 Professional Development

Teachers, administrators, instructors, and others need access to professional development opportunities on a much wider scale than is now the case. How can the Federal Government facilitate access to on-site and on-line assistance? Should professional development be expanded to include the new role of the teachers and trainers as guides and mentors rather than their present role as the primary information provider in the classroom?

Development of Education and Training Applications

• Should the Federal Government target investments for the development of high quality applications for education, training and lifelong learning use of the NII that meet challenging content and performance standards? What incentives and guidelines should be developed to encourage software developers and other producers of education and training materials to participate in developing new technologies and applications to address the needs of diverse and special needs populations? Research and Development • What categories of research and development should be identified across the agencies of the Federal Government to ensure technology-supported learning is being pursued in conjunction with the development of the NII? Should the Federal government require evaluation of all supported projects?

• How can the teachers, trainers and other educators who are actively using the NII best be supported and their work disseminated? How can the intellectual property rights of those creating applications of the NII for learning best be protected?

 Planning • How can the Federal Government best support State and local efforts to develop and implement technology plans? Should the Federal Government ensure a coordinated approach between states? Within each state? Technical Assistance • How can technical assistance best be provided by the Federal Government in response to a general or specific request from any segment of the learn-ing community? Should the Federal Government establish specialized teams (composed of Federal staff or contractors) to assist schools, districts, state agencies? Should technical assistance networks of expert staffs be available to answer questions about NII uses for education and lifelong learning? Should planning tools be developed and disseminated, such as videotapes, planning guides, directories, resource listings and other forms of information? Partnership • What is the role of the Federal Government in developing sustained public and private partnerships to support education and training uses of the NII?

• How can the Federal Government best promote the goals of the NII and its application to education and lifelong learning with the public, with state and local governments, and with the education and training communities?

• What role should the Federal Government play in making public and private information resources available to schools, institutions of higher education, training institutions, libraries, and other institutions of learning?

• How can the Federal Government facilitate a public-private partnership for the development of interoperability standards, application quality standards, and effectiveness standards to facilitate the development of high-quality telecommunications and applications?

• How can the Federal Government best ensure collaboration among the agencies to bring together technical expertise and application development to expand the use of the NII for education and training?

• How can the Federal Government best support research and evaluation on the education and training applications of current and emerging technolo-gies to the NII?
 

 Notes 1. Melmed, Arthur (June 1993) A Learning Infrastructure for All Americans. Fairfax, VA: Institute of Public Policy, George Mason University.

2. For example, see U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. (Sep-tember 1988) Power On! New Tools for Teaching and Learning. OTA-SET-379 Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

3. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. (1990) Worker Training: Competing in the New International Economy (OTA-ITE-457). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

4. "Report on the Effectiveness of Technology in Schools 1990-1992," conduct-ed by Interactive Educational Systems Design and commissioned by the Software Publishers Association, 1993, p. 2.

5. Orlansky, J., & String, J. (1979) Cost-Effectiveness of Computer Based Instruction in Military Training (IDA Paper P-1375). Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, Virginia.

6. Fletcher, J. D. (1991) Effectiveness and cost of interactive videodisc instruc-tion. Machine Mediated Learning, 3, 361-385.

7. Fletcher, J. D., Hawley, D. E., and Piele, P. K. (1990) Costs, effects, and utility of microcomputer assisted instruction in the classroom. American Educational Research Journal, 27, 783-806.

8. National Council on Disability, "Study on the Financing of Assistive Techno-logy Devices and Services for Individuals with Disabilities: A Report to the President and the Congress of the United States," March 4, 1993.

9. Henry Jay Becker, "How Our Best Computer-Using Teachers, Differ from Other Teachers: Implications for Realizing the Benefits of Computers in Schools," Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 26 (1994).

10. Corporation for Public Broadcasting Study of School Uses of Television and Video, Spring, 1991.

11. Withrow, F. Personal Communication, 2 March 1994.

12. Investor's Business Daily, 17 February 1994.

13. Treese, Win (December 1993) "Internet Index."

14. Melmed, Arthur (June 1993) A Learning Infrastructure for All Americans. Fairfax, VA: Institute of Public Policy, George Mason University.

15. Treese, W., op. cit.

16. "lnformation Intrastates," State Government News, publication of the Council of State Governments, October 1993, p. 19.

17. ibid.

18. Melmed, A., op. cit.

19. Princeton Survey Research Associates. NEA Communications Survey, Spring 1993. Weighted sample of 1,206 NEA member teachers.

20. Honey, M. and Henriquez, A. (1993) Telecommunications and K-12 Educa-tors: Findings from a National Survey. New York, NY: Bank Street College of Education.

21. Worker Training, op. cit.

22. U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment (1993) Adult Literacy and New Technologies: Tools for a Lifetime (OTA-SET-550) Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

23. Worker Training, op. cit.

24. The Heller Report (January 1994).