The Opening Statement Of Vice-Chairman Thomas E. Petri, Committee On Education And The Workforce, Washington, DC *

Statement Of Dr. James B. Thomas, Dean, School Of Information Sciences And Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania *

Statement Of Eva Cronin, Teacher, Hayes Elementary School, Marietta, Georgia *

Statement Of Janet Guge, Art And French Teacher, Franklin Public Schools, Franklin, Nebraska *

Statement Of Rhett Dawson, President, Information Technology Industry Council, Washington, D.C. *

Statement Of Claudia Mansfield Sutton, Senior Vice President, Compass Learning, San Diego, California *

Statement Of Michael Kaufman, CEO And Chairman, Tequity, Corte Madero, California *

Appendix A-The Written Statement Of Vice-Chairman Thomas E. Petri, Committee On Education And The Workforce, Washington, DC *

Appendix B-The Written Statement Of Ranking Democrat Member William Clay, Committee On Education And The Workforce, Washington, DC *

Appendix C-The Written Statement Of Dr. James B. Thomas, Dean, School Of Information Sciences And Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania *

Appendix D-The Written Statement Of Eva Cronin, Teacher, Hayes Elementary School, Marietta, Georgia *

Appendix E-The Written Statement Of Janet Guge, Art And French Teacher, Franklin Public Schools, Franklin, Nebraska *

Appendix F- ITI High-Tech Education Report *

Appendix G-The Written Statement Of Rhett Dawson, President, Information Technology Industry Council, Washington, D.C. *

Appendix H-The Written Statement Of Claudia Mansfield Sutton, Senior Vice President, Compasslearning, San Diego, California *

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 a.m., in Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas E. Petri [vice-chairman of the committee] presiding.

Present: Representatives Petri, Barrett, Isakson, and Owens.

Staff Present: Becky Campoverde, Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Planning and Communications; Linda Castleman, Office Manager; Cindy Herrle, Professional Staff Member; Patrick Lyden, Professional Staff Member; D'Arcy Philps, Professional Staff Member; Jo-Marie St. Martin, General Counsel; Bailey Wood, Legislative Assistant; Steven Solis, Legislative Fellow; and Alex Nock, Minority Legislative Associate/Education.

Mr. Petri. The committee will come to order.

We are meeting today to hear testimony on the use of technology in the classroom, and I am eager to hear from witnesses today. So I am going to limit opening statements to 5 minutes, and additional statements will be included in the record. I would ask unanimous consent for the hearing record to remain open 14 days to allow members' statements and other documents referenced during the hearing to be submitted in the official hearing record. And without objection, so ordered.

Mr. Petri. First, I would like to welcome everyone and especially all of our witnesses. Many of you I know have traveled considerable distances to attend today's hearings and we appreciate that as well as the work that went into your prepared statements and the summaries of them.

In the past we have had numerous hearings on the importance of using technology to learn. We have heard witnesses detail state and local efforts to integrate technology in the classroom. In fact, yesterday we heard from Alan Greenspan on technology and learning and some of his ideas.

Today we will hear from several teachers who are actually using technology on a daily basis to help their students learn. We will also hear from the private sector. Specifically, we will hear about their extensive efforts to ensure that all students have the technology skills to compete in today's workplace.

It is important to note that our panel of experts spans the range of all educational levels, from elementary school, high school and college, to the workplace.

Finally, it is my hope that this hearing will assist our committee in building upon the strong foundation that we have laid in the not-so-distant past by passing important legislation like the Education OPTIONS Act, which reforms the maze of current elementary and secondary education technology programs, the Teacher Empowerment Act, which emphasizes the use of technology in many areas, including the delivery of high quality professional development programs through such means as distance learning. This act also encourages the initiatives to train teachers to use technology to improve teaching and learning. The Higher Education Act amendments of 1998 which, among many other things, provides funds to partnerships between elementary and secondary schools and universities to develop models successfully integrating technology into teaching and learning.

See Appendix A For The Written Statement Of Vice-Chairman Thomas E. Petri, Committee On Education And The Workforce, Washington, DC

And we will recognize the ranking or spokesman for the minority as soon as they arrive. At this time, I would like to see if there are other opening statements.

See Appendix B For The Written Statement Of Ranking Democrat Member William Clay, Committee On Education And The Workforce, Washington, DC

Mr. Isakson.

Mr. Isakson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I won't take 5 minutes at all. But this coming week Senator Kerrey and myself, who are chair and vice chair of the Joint House-Senate Web-based Education Commission, will begin the final meetings to determine our recommendations to the next Congress and the next President on what role the Federal Government should have in Web-based education and the use of technology in the classroom as it relates to funding, as it relates to curriculum, as it relates to every aspect of schools.

And today is a very important hearing for me to be able to hear from practitioners that are actually out there using technology. I have had the privilege of seeing what is happening in one of the school systems in my district in terms of the use of technology to broaden the horizons and increase the reasoning and many other critical skills in the early learning years of K through 5^th grade from one of our witnesses who I will introduce in just a little bit.

So I am delighted to be here today. I am delighted to have our panel of witnesses, and the subject we are talking about today is the next great revolution in America. The Industrial Revolution was a great one, technology is an even greater revolution, and what it can b ring to broaden the access to quality learning for children all across this country is going to be amazing. I am delighted to have practitioners here today who are already in the field doing what others are talking about.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Like my colleague, Mr. Isakson, I too have a witness here today. I am very pleased to present to the committee Ms. Janet Guge from Franklin, Nebraska, which is a small community located in my congressional district. A 20-year teaching veteran, Mrs. Guge teaches art and French at the Franklin Public Schools, and for the last several years she has been a teacher participating in the Tri-Valley Distance Education Consortium, teaching French over full motion, two-way, interactive audio-video connectivity to students in an 18-county region out in central Nebraska.

She is a recognized leader in distance learning, and through distance learning technology she has been able to offer French classes to students who are attending those small schools out in rural Nebraska where such an opportunity would certainly not be available without this technology.

So I am anxious to hear Janet's testimony as well as the testimony of all of our witnesses here today, and I especially thank those of you who have come from a long distance to be with us here today to share with the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Petri. Thank you. And Ms. Guge has been introduced. Mr. Isakson, would you like to introduce Ms. Cronin?

Mr. Isakson. I would appreciate it very much. I am very pleased to introduce from Hayes Elementary School in the Cobb County Public School System in my district, where all three of my children got a tremendous education before they went on to colleges and universities, Ms. Eva Cronin. Sitting behind her is Ms. Sue Brown. Ms. Brown, stand up if you will. Ms. Brown is the Director of Technology and Innovation Grants for the Cobb County Public School System, which is a school system of approximately 100,000 students in the northwest Atlanta suburbs and has a great track record and reputation.

Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity at the National Education Computing Conference in June in Atlanta at the World Congress Center to first see what Ms. Cronin is going to talk about: the use of technology grants and their actual use in the classroom.

What they have done is to integrate an environmental learning throughout, across the curriculum, is terrific and now they have 27 schools participating in the program. I think they are in the beginning the fourth year of the application of this program.

I am just delighted to have Ms. Cronin here today. I had a real eye-opening experience when I saw just a taste of the demonstration at that conference, and I am just delighted they took the time to fly out of some very bad weather in Atlanta, Georgia yesterday to come and be with us today.

So welcome.

Mr. Petri. Thank you. Of our distinguished panel, two who have already been introduced. The lead-off witness will be Dr. James B. Thomas, who is the Dean of Pennsylvania State University School of Information Sciences and Technology and who holds a Ph.D. in strategic management from the University of Texas in Austin, a Master's in government from Florida State University and a Bachelor's from Penn State. Along with the countless publications, books, presentations, honors, he was instrumental in establishing the School of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State University.

Ms. Eva Cronin, who has been introduced, and Ms. Janet Guge follow him. In addition, we will hear from Mr. Rhett Dawson, who serves as President of the Information Technology Industry Council. ITIC represents the interests of many of the most familiar names in the technology field. Mr. Dawson comes to us with a varied background that includes serving in the White House, Congress, the Pentagon, and business and legal arenas.

Ms. Claudia Mansfield Sutton is currently Senior Vice President for CompassLearning. CompassLearning, located in San Diego, is a leading provider of instructional software. Each year it serves nearly 14 million students. Ms. Mansfield Sutton has extensive experience in the field of education and business, having worked as a teacher administrator, a lobbyist for a major education association, and in marketing and sales for two instructional technology companies.

Finally, Mr. Michael Kaufman, who is the founder and CEO of Tequity in San Francisco, California. Tequity is a not-for-profit organization. It works with the Nation's schools and communities to provide education and training in information technologies. Throughout his career Mr. Kaufman has focused his professional energies assisting students, teachers and citizens to gain valuable understanding of technology for the future.

And, Dr. Thomas, would you like to begin?

Dr. Thomas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. I was asked to do two things here today: Brief you on the exciting new school around the information sciences and related technologies at Penn State and share how the corporate community has helped shape the design in the successful implementation of this school. I also think that you will see the kinds of thing we are doing in Web-based learning and e-learning, if you will, are also very exciting.

I guess the door . . . the sign over the door of a new school of information sciences and technology should read "building leaders for a digital-based global economy." If you went through that door, you would find some interesting things for information technology education at Penn State. You would find about 1300 students in just our second year, the beginning of our second year, across 19 campuses in the Penn State system being taught by over 70 full and part-time faculty members.

You had see hundreds of learners in IST, the Information Sciences and Technology, learning certificates, both in the classroom and online, and those range from Web master certificates to data base and networking certificates. About 500 students, again, here at the beginning of our second year in the associate degree program, 700 students in a baccalaureate degree program. You would notice scores of students that are involved in IST classes online, including high school students that join us in the classroom virtually and students from other universities that come in again in the same manner.

You would see the plans for a professional Master's Degree, a Ph.D. Program, both of which will begin next fall, and a world-class research agenda conducted by a top faculty.

You would probably also notice that these programs were all built from the ground up. Over 50 new courses designed by over 125 faculty administrators. This was truly a Penn State effort to get this program into place. This all got started through a series of meetings that lasted over a year with top executives from Fortune 500 firms, government, smaller to mid-size technology companies, and they provided us with the following design advice, and I should add that they gave us this advice with great passion. And it started with the following: Build a program that is focused on educating leaders and problem solvers for the new economy. Don't necessarily send us more C++ programmers, send us folks that know what to do with it.

To that end educate students who understand the technology, but focus them on the application of technology as solution, and sensitize them to the people and policy issues that they will confront as leaders in this e-world.

Educate them using real world problems and require that they do an internship. In other words, engage the students in the realities of the information technology workplace. Make them become proficient in a foreign language, which I am sure the witness next to me will be very happy with, because it is truly a global economy. IST gets talked about in about 3700 languages in this world beyond English, and it would be a shame to miss out on all that conversation.

Put the students in teams to deal with their exploration and push them to build their oral and writing skills at the same time. Believe it or not, these are critical to any information technology education.

Now we took this advice to heart and designed the IST program with these attributes hard wired into every piece of it, not only in the classes that are in the classroom, but these attributes were also hard wired into our online classes as well. We did this all in 14 months, which is in itself probably the most amazing thing of all of this.

This whole unique package was deemed interesting enough to be placed this year in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institute for innovation and education. I want to get down and see it before I leave Washington today. It is an honor that we are deeply proud of at Penn State. It is an honor that is shared and should be shared by our corporate and state government partners who provided not only the design help that I spoke of earlier, but ongoing assistance as well. They provided membership to an active and dedicated advisory board with members from IBM, Lockheed Martin, IO Infinity, P&C Bank, ACTV, Lucent. Their contribution, by the way, has been immeasurable. A host of companies and government agencies have provided guest speakers and course materials to directly impact our students in the classroom.

Some partners participate in the faculty recruiting process. And by the way, recruiting faculties into this area in any university is a tough job with the market that is out there. Our partners have helped us around the country in helping to attract faculty, explaining our performance and our potential to them when I couldn't get to them personally.

Others have served on design committees for new IST programs and courses and, yes, even though we are beginning the second year we already have new courses and programs that are beginning. Industry partners and individuals such as 3Com have contributed a total of almost $7 million in endowments, equipment and building support, and this just the end of the first year.

While there is no correct model for education in this area and I don't pretend to bring this to you, we think we have a great formula for what to teach and how to deliver education that will help close the IT work force gap in the 21st century, not only in terms of numbers but in terms of the impact that those folks can have when they get to the organizations and the careers that they have chosen.

I also think that looking at companies in government as partners in the design of these kinds of programs and the implementation is a model for industry inclusion in IT education around the country.

Design assistance and financial support are critical but just as important is having the eyes and ears of top executives on what is current and important in this e-world that we live in. It is this insight that will keep the school fresh, will keep it exciting, and maybe important enough to be asked back again in a couple years to let you know how we are doing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

See Appendix C For The Written Statement Of Dr. James B. Thomas, Dean, School Of Information Sciences And Technology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Ms. Cronin.

Ms. Cronin. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you today to discuss why technology is an integral part of my classroom, how it is utilized and what benefits result for students, their families and teachers.

My name is Eva Cronin and I team teach at Hayes Elementary School, Cobb County School District, Georgia in a multi-age third, fourth and fifth grade setting.

Our students are quite diverse. They come not only from middle class households but also the country club and homeless shelters. We have bridged the digital divide at Hayes. My teammates and I also participate in the Education for a Sustainable Future project, a Technology Innovation Challenge Grant funded by the U.S. Department of Education and awarded to Cobb County School District and the Center for a Sustainable Future.

Participating in the ESF grant project has provided many hours of professional development both online and in hands-on meetings. We have also been provided with hardware and software for our classrooms through in-kind funding support of the grant project.

I would like to start with a person story that highlights the importance and versatility of technology and that would not have been possible for me even 2 years ago. This past spring I was out of school for four weeks to be with my mother who was dying of cancer. Because my students, their parents and I are so immersed in using technology it was natural for us to maintain daily contact through e-mail and instant messages. I was able to reassure my students that I was all right and that they could depend on me even though I was far away. In addition, I could support the substitute teacher and be by her side virtually. Technology literally allowed me to be in two places at once, the places I most needed to be.

We are part of an information driven global society, one that demands instant access to and analysis of data, immediacy of communication across great distances and multimodal avenues of presenting information. If our students are to become responsible citizens, able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, they must become technologically literate.

As I discuss how we use technology daily and the benefits it provides, I trust you will agree that this is an essential component of education for all of our students. Students, parents and teachers have utilized the technology in many ways. The benefits fall into four major categories: Communication, access to information, activities that promote higher-level thinking, and opportunities to address learning styles and needs. I see the ways technology transforms learning, and while it is impossible to share all of this in less than 5 minutes I will highlight a few stories from the classroom.

E-mail has proved to be an indispensable communication tool for us. This year an ESF colleague and I are utilizing e-mail for his high school current issues class to correspond with my students weekly. The older students write about current events of interest to our students who respond to the articles. This opportunity to provide virtual mentoring benefits both the older and younger students. Using the Internet provides access to up-to-date information so we often track current events. Right now we are watching the Olympics as they unfold and graphing information in the classroom. The opportunity to work with real time data opens up new worlds for students who can study history as it happens across the world.

Utilizing graphing software can allow students to concentrate on data analysis, a higher level thinking skill. As a third grader Scott had difficulty drawing graphs. In his frustration with making all those straight lines he missed the point of why and how graphs are used. Last year he was introduced to The Graph Club, a software program. Scott was so excited about it that for a month he used his recess time to survey his peers about different issues, create graphs and present his information to the class. Technology made a huge difference for this child.

We learn in different ways. Marguerite, a fourth grader, is a visual learner who was having difficulty remembering the meaning of the word "perseverance." She and three friends planned a series of digital pictures to illustrate its meaning and those pictures now hang on our classroom wall.

For Parents' Night the children helped produce a power point presentation, including digital pictures. Many parents commented that they truly gained a sense of what is happening in the classroom.

For every successful project we complete, four more come to mind. For example, when I told my students that I was coming to speak with you today, they wanted to know if one of you would be willing to correspond via e-mail or instant message during our study of government this fall. For those of you who have children, I am sure you know the tremendous impact one such message would have on a classroom.

Thank you again for the opportunity to bring a bit of the classroom to you.

See Appendix D For The Written Statement Of Eva Cronin, Teacher, Hayes Elementary School, Marietta, Georgia

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Ms. Guge.

Ms. Guge. Bonjour and thank you. I teach high school French in a small town in Nebraska. I have been asked to speak about my experience with distance learning and how I provide French to two high schools through a two-way interactive network. The town of Franklin has about 1,200 people and the town of Minden that I also teach to 30 miles away has about 3,000 people. I want you to know that I am a classroom teacher and this is my second year using the distance education network, but my 12th year as a French teacher. I have also taught art for 22 years. I am not an expert on funding policy or the equipment, I am just a classroom teacher.

Our schools are part of the Tri-Valley Distance Education Consortium. This consortium serves over 35 schools and more are joining. This consortium is one of 11 in the State. I can connect to any of the 35 schools in our consortium, and this serves over 16,000 students in grades K through 12. The average size school district has 533 students, K through 12.

Among members of the consortium are three educational service units, the University of Nebraska at Kearney and the Central Community College system. This consortium provides full-motion, audio-video connectivity. And what all that means is I teach using four TV monitors in front of me, four behind me, I have two cameras that I can control and operate, I have microphones. I use a document camera instead of a chalkboard to write on. I use a VCR, a computer with a CD player and I have a fax machine at my fingertips.

All this sounds exciting, but it did take a lot of training and the consortium provided excellent training for me to do this and support personnel for when I had problems. One of the reasons this came about, Nebraska found that they had a need for using technology to provide classes that schools couldn't normally get. And some of these classes were foreign language. That was a very difficult subject to hire for. We also wanted classes that students could gain college credit for and advance placement classes. And because of the shortage of foreign language teachers in the State of Nebraska willing to work in a small town rural setting many schools lacked these instructors. Also schools that did have instructors didn't always have a full schedule for these teachers, and the enrollment was low at times. It is difficult to hire a teacher for two or three class periods a day. So the idea of sharing a teacher and resources seemed the ideal answer. They tried a variety of systems: Satellite, driving from school to school, but the method I use with the two-way audio-video interactive I feel is a wonderful way to teach.

The students I have, I have 8 students in my French II class and they are taking this to meet requirements for university admission. We offer Spanish. We do that and a lot of schools offer Spanish but sometimes students want to take another foreign language. And with the school I teach to in Minden with this arrangement, I have students that now can take a language that they want to take and usually excel at because they want to do this. So we are providing these services to area students.

We also provide advance placement, calculus, and automotive classes. There are a variety of ways to provide other classes that students want to take.

I mentioned this technology is exciting, but it can be a challenge because not everything works like you want it to. And as a teacher you need to be quick on your feet and be able to change the way you are going to present your lesson today. I have got a story where I came into class and turned on my system, and nothing came up. I could hear my students talking in Minden 30 miles away but they couldn't hear or see me. So I had to quickly think of a way to continue with my class that day. And I thought, okay, I can hear them, I know what they are doing, so I quickly wrote out some instructions, a lesson for the day, faxed it to them. And in a few minutes I could hear the fax machine working in the other room and they go over to the fax and read the lesson and they are like, oh, we have to do some work today. And so they started working on their French. And someone asked a question. I thought, okay, so I wrote out the answer, put it in the fax machine, pretty soon it starts coming through. So I am able to continue my lesson no matter if I don't have sound or if I don't have audio-video, we still have a class. So it is nice to be able to use the technology in any way that I need to provide these kinds of, you know, classes.

At this time there are over 250 sites across the State and the State of Nebraska would like to connect all of these sites so that we are not just limited to the 35 schools in our consortium, we are able to access all the schools across the State.

Let me conclude with the idea that distance learning is the way to provide small schools and their students a quality education. It also gives the students a sense of belonging to a bigger world yet allows them to remain in their hometown. Merci.

See Appendix E For The Written Statement Of Janet Guge, Art And French Teacher, Franklin Public Schools, Franklin, Nebraska

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Mr. Dawson.

Mr. Dawson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am Rhett Dawson, President of the Information Technology Industry Council, and we appreciate the opportunity today to talk about an issue that is important to the IT industry, extremely important to the IT industry: Education. ITI is the association of leading information technology, including hardware, software networking and Internet service companies. ITI member companies employ 1.2 million people around the United States.

We believe that the future success of our industry and America's current technological leadership is tied directly to our ability to prepare and educate our children for the digital world.

Education is an information technology issue, as the three previous witnesses have pointed out, and it has become an even more important tool in our educational process.

ITI member companies have a very strong record of working with local schools to introduce technology into the learning environment. They are committed to pursuing high academic standards and innovation in education based on output. To further these goals ITI's board of directors has approved a set of education principles that guide our policy efforts. They are increased technology integration into the curriculum and students' access to that technology, improve teacher training . . . excuse me professional development, strengthen math science and technology education programs. I would like to submit a full copy of ITI's education principles for the record.

Mr. Dawson. In addition, next week ITI will release a report that underlines the deep commitment our companies have to education. The 2000 ITI high tech education report will summarize the top education programs developed and funded by 20 of the Nation's leading IT companies. The report details initiatives ranging from teacher training to getting computers into the classroom. While the report is not a comprehensive listing of all ITI member companies' education investments, it will provide policy makers such as you with a better picture of how seriously and creatively the high tech industry is investing in our education.

The report details dozens of innovative programs in K through 12, higher education and lifelong learning that bring technology to students, helping students and teachers make the most of this technology and promoting and improving math and science education.

Let me give you some highlights from that report. It will detail initiatives promoting math and science education from companies such as Agilent Technologies, Corning, Panasonic, StorageTek and Unisys. It will detail essential teacher training efforts from Intel, Microsoft, Compaq and Dell.

It will talk about ambitious efforts to integrate technology into the curriculum from Apple, IBM, NCR and Silicon Graphics. It will also discuss initiatives to expand technology access and the opportunities of the digital world to all from AOL, Hewlitt Packard, Kodak and Sony. It will also discuss network training from companies such as 3Com, who Dean Thomas mentioned, Cisco and Nortel Networks.

That is only a sample. We are busy finalizing reports, so disclosure of all the details is premature. However, I can tell you that the programs in our report involve innovative partnership with such organizations as the Boys and Girls Club of America, National Science Foundation, Plugged In, United Way, Urban League, the U.S. Department of Education, and the YWCA. We also provide specifics on major partnerships in education with dozens of school district, including Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, Durham, Dayton, El Paso, L.A., San Francisco, San Jose, Thornton, Colorado, and the State of West Virginia.

My mission today is simple, that IT industry is committed to playing a role it the education of our children. That commitment does not end with the efforts detailed in our forthcoming report. We are also committed to working with government and education professionals to address the important policy issues in the education arena.

Mr. Chairman, I commend you for today's hearing, and be assured that we, our member companies stand ready to work with you and members of your committee to help ensure that our children get the education skills and training they need to succeed in the digital world.

See Appendix G For The Written Statement Of Rhett Dawson, President, Information Technology Industry Council, Washington, D.C.

Mr. Petri. Thank you, Mr. Dawson.

Ms. Mansfield Sutton.

Ms. Mansfield Sutton. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to talk to you this morning about learning to use technology and using technology and learning to use technology.

My name is Claudia Mansfield Sutton. I am the Senior Vice President of Marketing for CompassLearning. CompassLearning has more than 20 years of experience working with educators across the country to help them successfully implement technology into the curriculum. More than 20,000 schools serving more than 14 million students use CompassLearning programs to help teachers personalize learning, measure student performance and connect communities of learners.

WRC Media, Inc., CompassLearning's parent company, is the largest supplemental education provider in the world today. WRC Media has four principal operating subsidiaries: Weekly Reader, the World Almanac and Facts-on-File, American Guide and Service and CompassLearning.

This morning I am also pleased to represent the Software Information and Industry Association, the principal trade group of software and digital content publishers. In the next few moments I plan to highlight three points about using technology to learn and learning to use technology.

In the education arena we have only begun to harness the power of technology. Secondly, technology is an effective tool for an image-based generation. And thirdly, professional development is essential to the success of an instructional technology implementation.

Technology by definition means different things to different people and is highly influenced by experience and perspective. How many of us still use the microwave to heat coffee and VCRs to play videocassettes when there is so much more potential to be tapped, and so it is with education.

The reality and the potential of technology are accelerating a revolution around the globe and indeed in our schools. Revolution is often regarded as negative but this is truly a positive revolution.

I share with you a quote about another positive revolution, and I quote, "Remarkable new technology is introduced into the school system and experts predict that education will be revolutionized. The technology will, as never before, allow the widespread dissemination of new concepts and ideas that stimulate young minds and free the teacher for more creative pursuits. Yet the magic fails to materialize, and within a few years articles appear in the popular press asserting that the failure obviously arises from teachers not being skilled enough in the new technology." The excerpts are from a New York Times article written by Peter Lewis in the 1840s about the introduction of the blackboard.

It is all a matter of perspective, and it is incumbent upon our generation to harness the potential power of technology in classrooms across America. The generation of children in our schools today are often referred to as the image-based or "I" generation. They are interactive, impatient, informed, inquisitive and intelligent. Technology, which is an integral part of this generation's psyche, is a revolutionary tool through which teachers can transform education and improve educational opportunities for all children. By providing both access to quality education any time and anywhere while providing tools that facilitate active and engaged learning, technology can empower teachers to take control of and accept responsibility for their learning.

The technology itself is less important than the changes it brings about in substance, content and focus of the learner. Using technology to learn does not guarantee success. Successful technology implementations are tailored to the learner based upon sound pedagogy and tied to national and state and local standards. As with anything in life, there is not a silver bullet to address improving student achievement and any claim that technology might be that silver bullet is not correct. But it is an effective tool for the image-based generation.

Our country has made a commitment to our schools and subsidized the provision of telecommunications services. This has been a great beginning. As a part of the deal, States and local districts have committed to purchase computers and other hardware necessary to support the infusion of technology into the curriculum. We have made great strides forward. However, I suggest that we as a Nation need to make the necessary investments in an instructional software and professional development programs in order to realize the fruits of our investment in hardware.

A complete discussion of these points is contained in the attached testimony of the Software Information and Industry Association given to the Web-based Education Commission co-chaired by Congressman Isakson.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk to you today, and I am available to answer any questions. Thank you.

See Appendix H For The Written Statement Of Claudia Mansfield Sutton, Senior Vice President, CompassLearning, San Diego, California

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Mr. Kaufman.

Mr. Kaufman. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Michael Kaufman. And more than six years ago I began to develop a volunteer project called NetDay to jump-start the connection of K-12 classrooms to the Internet. However, I am an educator, not a technology person, so my comments will be focused on what it takes to make technology work for education, especially in communities of need.

With the goal of including all communities, NetDay set a threshold for participation in this high tech barn raising so low that most communities could afford to participate for just a few hundred dollars. For example, more than three hundred parents and community members from our Nation's largest housing project came to 112th Street Elementary School in South Central Los Angeles on a sunny Saturday in 1996 to pull wires to connect their children to the Internet and their future.

They knew then that their children would need the technologies if they were to have access to the 21st century opportunities and the global economy. Unfortunately, for the 112th Street Elementary School and its students and other schools serving similar communities, the promise of these connections has yet to be realized and in many cases the wires are still dangling in the walls.

While there isn't enough time in these brief comments to outline much of what needs to be done to ensure that these technologies contribute to the opportunities of all students to achieve high standards and there is much more to be learned, please consider the following: In poor communities, where the technologies are neither in the home nor the workplace, the schools provide the best opportunity for access. The impact of these school resources is enhanced by after school and in home, creating like a family community feedback loop that accelerates change in education and schools. Congress should focus its technology investments in poverty communities in the K-12 schools, but ensure that the programs are complemented with opportunities after school and at home.

Tens of billions of dollars have been spent during the decade on implementing digital resources in K-12 schools. The challenge is to leverage the investments already made. And while the hardware and the software, the connections and the professional development are essential in this Information Age, it is the peopleware, the human infrastructure that make the difference, the champions to lead the charge and engage the constituents, the administrators to take the responsibility and the educators to make the change.

It is full time peer mentors who speak the educator's language and are comfortable enough with the technologies to meet the educators where they are and to explore with them the educational potentials. It is just in time, in-the-classroom support available to help teachers maximize the use of these resources with their students while minimizing the frustrations with the technologies' inevitable hiccups, as was pointed out by Ms. Guge. That is so important. It is an indeed digital community that extends the lessons beyond the classroom walls and the school day and provides work opportunities that warrant the education.

This peopleware is a new ware for national investment in educational technology, without which we will never see the full value of the outlays that we have already made.

All students need to see the light at the end of the tunnel if they are expected to invest themselves in the education required to get there. Certainly I don't need to go into the details of how at-risk students in at-risk communities are familiar with the concept of risk and reward. They take chances every day. Unfortunately, in many of these communities positive alternatives are not as apparent. New economy models and mentors are essential and programs that draw them into these challenging communities offer the promise of rewards that can motivate all students to take appropriate risks, including the risk of doing well in school.

But all of these suggestions above and more lose their value if the lessons learned aren't leveraged for the future advantage of the community, for ultimately all externally funded programs are terminal, be they government, NGO or business. And too often when the external support ends, even though there is still much work to be done, unless there is community leadership the program itself will die.

And although program participants understood from the beginning what the rules of engagement were to be, rarely do they initiate the activity with an exit strategy in mind. Resources and time must also be dedicated to developing local leadership and building community capacity to ensure that the investments made are continually tailored to meet the changing requirements sustainable for the future and scalable beyond the original sites.

In response to the above considerations I established the Tequity organization to bring together the peopleware required to make hardware and software work for learning and teaching, including national experts, local activists, a coalition of education, government, business, labor and nonprofit organization. Tequity dedicated itself to making the Web truly worldwide and the economy global by working with empowerment zone and enterprise communities to help them use digital resources, to help them improve the education of their children, the skills of their parents and the viability of their communities.

For the new generations growing up in America's disadvantaged communities, Tequity is an essential human right. It is increasingly required for communications and commerce and will soon be essential to access services, earn a living and to fully participate in a democratic society. The Tequity organization is dedicated to Tequity for all.

Thank you.

See Appendix I For The Written Statement Of Michael Kaufman, Ceo And Chairman, Tequity, Corte Madero, California

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

And now, Mr. Isakson are there any questions?

Mr. Isakson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to compliment Dr. Thomas on the approach they took on forming the institute by getting the private sector to tell them what they are looking for. I have found so many times in higher education they tend not to engage the people that actually end up using the ultimate product.

It is interesting, your list of things like building a focus on leaders, problem solvers, critical thinking, were almost exactly what Ms. Cronin stated they were doing in K through 5 at Hayes Elementary, which I compliment you on that.

But I have a question. In the classical university setting, degrees are granted at the institution or at some physical extension. You stated you are getting ready to deliver both a Ph.D. And Master's over the web next year. In the classical setting, there is a professor who is responsible for the teaching. In a normal institution, those professors, if they are tenured, are normally required to write and create intellectual property as a part of their job. The web creates a challenge and an opportunity.

First of all, who owns the intellectual property? Does the university through its tuition on web-based delivery of a course get the total revenue or does the professor own the intellectual property that they created that is now distributed over a medium that is not a physical classroom building but in fact is a wireless environment? I would like for you to tell me if you have given any thought to this intellectual property issue as it relates to delivering high-level degrees over the Internet by universities and what the relationship of the professor and the university should be.

Dr. Thomas. I don't think it is a level of degree issue as much as it is the faculty ownership of the content. You have backed into a very interesting subject I think for all universities right now, how this works. Right now what we have in terms of our web-based delivery is the Penn State world campus, and they are the single delivery portal for anything that is a Penn State course or certificate. They work with the faculty member and the department and/or the college to develop the course. But Penn State owns that course in the sense that if it is sold or if it is out beyond the bounds of the university.

The faculty member has a significant role in the research or the revenue stream that comes back from that. So, that varies by department and by certificate versus level, of course, versus number of credits and so on and so on.

At the end of the day they, the faculty member, owns the content but Penn State, through the world campus, will own that course. And that works pretty well for us in terms of trying to figure out where all the boundary lines are and so on and so on.

We also are doing this and, I might add, in a number of different ways with respect to how the online learning environment takes place. One way is sort of the traditional on the web. You are by yourself, so you are the lone wolf trying to work through the oftentimes PowerPoint slides on the web education. We have gone well beyond that in terms of the way that we treat the student and how the student interacts with that course.

There are physical residency requirements for all this. The students despite, whether they are on the web or in the classroom, are working in teams. It is based around problems. So that our courses, for example, in the information sciences and technology, those courses on the web are in modules, and each module has a problem, and the team has to attack that problem. They have to report and defend that problem solution to the professor and the other teams. So they don't meet every day as in the traditional classroom experience. But the web becomes the main delivery focus.

That involves all sorts of different people and also allows us to sort of distinguish who owns what when and how and where, and it becomes an excellent learning event as much as it is a scaling event as we have so much demand for our courses.

So that is one of the things that we have done. And with that, having to deal with the intellectual property issues, as most universities are right now, we are coming together with that I think quite well.

Mr. Isakson. I really appreciate your going to the web site of the web-based commission and submitting what you just said to testimony on that commission. Because we are in the process of dealing with that entire issue.

I think that was an excellent answer as how the professor of the institution, the degree and delivery all interact.

I would assume that in the university setting if more research money flows with more creative thinking that at Penn State and in the university system of Pennsylvania that professors are awarded accordingly for their productivity in bringing money to the university, is that correct?

Dr. Thomas. Absolutely.

Mr. Isakson. Secondly, I would like to tell Ms. Cronin how proud I am of Hayes and how proud I am of her and Ms. Brown. They make me look good by coming here and testifying today.

I want to ask Ms. Cronin a question. I will ask for slightly more time, if I can, Mr. Chairman.

Your testimony was great, but in your example of your difficult time when being with your mother took you away from the students but yet e-mail let you communicate with them. You do have upper class, you have middle class and you have those that are in some degree of poverty or even in, as you testified, some cases homelessness.

The biggest issue we deal with is the issue you talked about which was the digital divide, and you talked about how Hayes had closed it in your example I think of your communication with your class was a part of it. But for the student who can't, one who comes from the homeless shelter who is poor, there are those that think that the digital divide will exist as long as that person does not own a computer.

Mr. Kaufman made an excellent point, that our schools and Boys and Girls Clubs, which I think Mr. Dawson might have mentioned, or YMCAs, having more accessibility in areas like that, would allow those who might not have the resources to access the Internet. I am wondering, Ms. Cronin, about your poorest student in your classroom, tell me about the digital divide, tell me about accessibility that in those off hours when they are not in the classroom they might be just as involved as the kid who has the financial resources to have a computer.

Ms. Cronin. That is an issue that we are dealing with right now. I know that we do have an after-school program, and they do have computer access there. I know there is a program where they have kiosks put into stores where people can have computer access, Internet access. So we are hoping that that will be something that happens in Cobb County as well.

I know that the library has access. It is a difficult issue for some of these students, and I know that after school often and during the nighttime their parents do not have the access.

So I don't have an answer to that right now. But it is something that we do need to look at for our students. I do know that during the classroom day they have become as adept at using the technology as the students who do not have it available to them, and I truly believe that that is a start for these students.

Mr. Isakson. So would it would be fair to say that the digital divide is not an intellectual divide between the poor student but it is merely a resource divide?

Ms. Cronin. Yes.

Mr. Isakson. One last thing I would like to say for the members of the committee and for the record, what Ms. Guge expressed was tremendous value in Georgia. Although I represent a dense urban area, Georgia is basically a rural State once you get out of metropolitan Atlanta. I think I heard you say there are now students in Nebraska who are able to get AP classroom instruction that would not have been able to get in the past because of an unavailability of teachers in the rural setting. The application of what you describe of your ability is going to go a long way towards improving learning and environment. That is because of time and distance and, in certain cases, economics don't allow teachers of the type of quality really to be there. So I commend you on what you are doing and Nebraska. Mr. Barrett is very lucky to have you there.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Mr. Owens. Any questions?

Mr. Owens. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the committee on holding this hearing and thank our very knowledgeable guests for appearing. I have two basic questions.

One is, given the fact that we have sort of an exploding, expanding culture with demands for people and the information technology area who are, you know, highly theoretical . . . the Ph.D.s and the scientists and the engineering people to apply it and technicians and mechanics and managers. You have an exploding number of levels of need out there. Do you think that we have the pool of people either in our high education institutions who are going to be able to meet these needs? Is the pool sufficiently large?

We still need doctors, lawyers, engineers and MBAs; and people in higher education have all those choices. I understand that we got a great shortage right now of information technology workers. And the anticipation is when you look at the colleges and universities and what they have coming out that shortage is going to be there for a long time. Do we need some kind of Marshall Plan, a mobile station?

I know that industry is solving the problem . . . looking to solve the problem immediately with imports from outside the country. We have H1-B that is going to be on the floor I guess some time soon. And that will bring in, you know, hundreds of thousands of foreign people who can qualify for those positions in the short term. But in the long term do we need some kind of Marshall Plan to really deal with the products that are coming out of our secondary institutions and going into our higher education institutions? It just seems to me too few qualified going in. Question one.

Dr. Thomas. I guess everybody is looking at me, so I will take that one on.

Indeed, there is an explosion of demand. And you are absolutely correct, it sometimes gets lost, that there are so many different levels in that demand. At Penn State we have taken the approach that you invest in a program that is linked across virtually all of Pennsylvania, and the investment is to try and close that gap. But the gap between what is needed and what is out there in terms of the demand . . . and we feel that that is a pretty good way to go about doing this. So that we have the potential over the next 5 years to graduate anywhere between 2,000 and 4,000 students a year that would go into this area at various levels. And that doesn't include the folks, for example, in the certificate area which we have hundreds, even now, that are demanding and participating with us in the certificate programs that we offer both in the classroom and online.

That is an investment . . . you can couch it in a Marshall Plan or whatever kind of support would be appropriate. But that is the kind of investment that, over the long run, would really make a difference in this technology gap.

Now, I have seen so many different numbers as to the size of the gap or even recent reports that are suggesting that . . . do we really have a gap? And I don't know the answers to those. I do know that any time that we talk with a company about the school, almost literally at the end of that conversation they will say to me, how long before we can hire all of your graduates? Can we sign a piece of paper right now that will give all your graduates a ticket to our company? So the anecdotal evidence that I see is that the demand is real.

What Penn State is doing to attack that demand is to create a program that virtually touches . . . Penn State right now touches educationwise about one in every three families in Pennsylvania. The IST has probably been the faster growing and the most program in demand, if you will, around Pennsylvania. So investment in that I think in the long run will help with that.

Mr. Owens. In my question I think I forgot the most important part with all these positions and occupations within this so-called cyber-civilization that we are going into, what is the likelihood that we will be able to recruit teachers who are knowledgeable? They have all these other alternatives. In fact, I have had the experience that was alluded to before, NetDay. We have wired schools, about 22 schools in my district; and we got everything in place with varying degrees of follow-up. But some, we got everything in place and hooked it up, got a T-1 even; and the person who in that school happened to be volunteering to take charge of the technology got an offer of a better job somewhere. And they left, and everything was put in a box and put away in the closet, and nothing happened after that person left. It is that critical that that one person be there.

So if you don't have the teachers and you don't have folks in the schools, that is not going to go forward to produce the flow of graduates from the schools that are going to flow into higher education institutions and fill your positions. How does the e-rate impact upon this? Are you familiar with the e-rate and the fact that we really don't have to do NetDays anymore because the e-rate makes it so inexpensive to wire schools? The basic wiring as well as the telecommunications costs, ongoing telecommunications costs, can be subsidized by the e-rate. What is the impact of e-rate as you see it?

Mr. Kaufman. Well, the impact of e-rate has been substantial. The investment was large. It certainly did do to a lot to obviate for the need of a volunteer organization like NetAid to stir things up and that is what it was designed to do.

But when all is said and done, there are many schools that remain unconnected. I am concerned about the schools that are in your district that are on the other side of the digital divide. And the fact of the matter is many of those classrooms statistically are way behind the more advanced communities even in the connections, even with the e-rate available. It has a lot to do with how districts and cities and States are making application for the e-rate and how they distribute those resources out to the different schools.

So although there is a resource there, it is affecting the poorest communities the least, whereas it was designed to affect the poorest communities the most.

Mr. Owens. It moves the necessity for investment in the capital expenditures to get wired, and it also takes away the necessity for the ongoing expenditures. Schools in my district have a 90 percent discount. That means they are only paying a dollar . . . for every dollar they only pay 10 cents for the services or whatever they receive; and the library has an 85 percent e-rate, which means they only pay 15 cents for ongoing telecommunications services or the initial cost of wiring. So it frees up that money, it seems to me, that they would have used to go into personnel.

I was just wondering is it happening better elsewhere than it is in New York City? Because I don't see . . .

Mr. Kaufman. In urban cities it is happening pretty much like it is happening in New York City, in fact. People are still trying to learn how to effectively apply the E rate. But I want to bring a couple of the issues that you have raised together. The first issue that you have raised, there is no question that there is need for higher education and to respond to the demand for new technology workers. But the requirements in the technology field are not all at the higher education level, and there are a number of positions that are very well-paying that would work . . . that young people can enter and do enter today without that degree. And we need to be much more effective in preparing young people who want to take a course that does not necessarily take them to a higher education, but does take them into the new economy, does take them into the advantage of the jobs that are becoming available. Whatever the number is, there are jobs out there, and you do not necessarily need a degree to get those jobs.

In reference to the investment that the E rate allows to free up in technologies, there is no question that this had a major impact on freeing up some of the resources. As a matter of fact, as I said, there are some estimates that go as high as $40 billion that have been invested in K-12 education over the last decade, much of it by people in these buildings and by business and by NGOs.

But the bottom line is if I were a business and I were looking at $40 billion invested and seeing the return that I had gotten on that investment, I would be out of business. The return has not been what it needs to be.

So going into what you were saying, Representative Owens, the need for people to support the technologies, the need for . . . in the case of teachers, for somebody to help teachers change their habits of instruction so that they can effectively use these technologies to improve what they are doing in the classroom is very high.

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Mr. Barrett.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I, too, want to thank the panel for some excellent testimony, interesting and, more specifically, very informative. And I compliment the committee and the Chairman for the appropriate name for this hearing: Using Technology to Learn and Learning to Use Technology. I think it is most appropriate.

Like my colleague from Georgia, my district is basically rural, and we do have problems that certainly some other parts of this country do not have. This is why this model, this technology is becoming so terribly important out in Middle America.

Mr. Kaufman, I was particularly interested in some of your comments about low-income school districts and so forth. We often hear that technology isn't worth anything if you don't know how to use it when it is placed in a school. And from your vantage point, what training do you provide is available, what oversight? What training specifically is available?

Mr. Kaufman. Well, I think the schools are recognizing the importance of professional development training, and the universities are stepping up to the plate as well. We are dealing with a difficult environment, and it is a great opportunity to be in front of the books. There is a lot of pressure on teachers to meet standards. There is a lot of pressure on teachers to fulfill the testing requirements. So technology slid off the table, and they are not ready to incorporate it at this point in time. Most teachers won't do what Ms. Guge did when technology fails; that is, start faxing things back and forth. Most of them will shove the technology off to the side.

It is important to help the teachers use the training they have got, use the technologies that are available, leverage what they have so they can comfortably use them in classrooms, so that when it does give up, that somebody is there to help them make sure it works. There is good training out there, and I think the teachers are moving in the right direction, but without the in-classroom support and under the pressures that they are working under today, they are not going to use this as effectively as it needs to be.

Mr. Barrett. Then in your opinion in the schools that you are familiar with and are working with, do you feel that you are at a disadvantage with some of your brethren in perhaps urban areas or not?

Mr. Kaufman. Am I disadvantaged compared to people working in urban areas?

Mr. Barrett. Yes, in terms of training and some of the tools that are available.

Mr. Kaufman. Well, again, there is an increasing number of schools available online not only for training students, but also for training teachers. The gentleman from Penn State is a good example of that. There are many not only universities, but commercial organizations that are stepping up to the plate to help train teachers to better . . ..

Mr. Petri. Excuse me. Your microphone is not picking up.

Mr. Kaufman. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that it was off.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you.

Again, a moment ago you used the term "leverage," and earlier you used "concentration" and so forth, which was appealing to me. From the standpoint of teachers themselves, from those that are on the ground, and maybe specifically Ms. Cronin and Ms. Guge, what should Congress know at this point; what should Congress be doing specifically to move this technology forward, to make it become so critical? I know in Nebraska I think it is fair to say we are at the cutting edge, are we not, Ms. Guge, in this type of technology? What more can we be doing specifically? And Ms. Cronin, anyone, as well.

Ms. Guge. If I had not had the training, I would not be as comfortable being in the classroom. The technology is important. I use it every day. But I want that to be secondary and want my lessons to be the primary focus. And there was another teacher who was also teaching this way and did not have the training, and she struggled all year long.

And so whenever training can be provided, it also has to be financed. I probably wouldn't want to spend my money on something that I wasn't sure I was going to like. So when I was asked to do this and was told I was going to be paid for my training, I thought, oh, well, okay, I can't lose. So, you know, being supported by my school district, being supported financially and then having training and support personnel behind me so if something did happen, I could, you know, run for expert help, was very beneficial, and it was nice to have that in the background to know that I had someone to help me.

Our consortium, of 35 schools, provided excellent training, and I have talked to other people in other consortiums, and all across the State, I believe, teachers are being trained to use this effectively and continue.

This is only my second year doing it, and so I don't feel like I am an expert on how this all works, but I think it is going to be the wave of the future for the rural schools having more teachers involved. When I get back Sunday, I am training another teacher so she can teach it, an ACT preparation class. And, you know, so I am trying to encourage other teachers to be interested in this type of technology to expand their classroom.

Our classes are not very large. We are not a very large school, and so we don't teach to a lot of students, but if we have got an excellent teacher who only teaches to 15 students in our school, it is nice to be able to take that excellent teacher and make him available to other schools who may not have a good teacher.

Mr. Barrett. Ms. Cronin, would you care to respond?

Ms. Cronin. I agree that the financial backing is very important. What we have found is that very often in education, your training tends to be a one-shot deal. You learn how to use a particular computer program in the classroom, and then there is not support over time because . . . that piece, I think, as far as the ESF grant, has really been solved for us. We have had ongoing training, we had online opportunities so that we could complete courses whenever it was convenient for us, and we had the support online. We have had meetings every year, we are now going into our fourth year, so that we have been able to really develop a network of teachers, and we work with experts both online and in hands-on meetings so that we have that support over time.

And what tends to happen is you start off trying out a few things, and at that point you need to make that decision, am I going to continue with this, is it working for me, or is it not working. And if it is not working, and there is no one there to help you out to make that next step in your application, it does tend to end up as the computer being unplugged in the classroom.

But because we have had continuing support, we have been able to network, we have been able to apply, we have been able to adapt to different lessons, different uses of technology, and, in fact, we see as well that very often teachers will kind of walk down to my classroom at the end of the day and say, you know, I heard you were doing such and such with your students today, could you take 10 minutes to show me how? It is that type of opportunity where you have the time to work over a period of years that you really find the technology becomes an everyday part of your classroom.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, may I indulge you for another moment or two?

Mr. Petri. Yes.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you.

How do you two classroom teachers handle the quizzes, the homework, the discipline and so forth?

Ms. Guge. Okay, homework. We work on it daily. If it is something that I don't mind a few days' lag time, they mail it to me, so we rely on snail mail. If it is something I want very fast, I can grade papers in class using a document camera, and I just have them put it on their camera, and I look at it on the TVs and grade it that way, or fax machine. So I have a student gather up all their homework, put it in the fax machine, 3 minutes later I get it in my room, I read it over and say thank you. And so technology there is very important.

Quizzes and tests I need to have a proctor or a room supervisor in the other room mainly because I can't really tell if they are cheating. I can zoom in on the camera quite a bit, but it is nice to have another adult in the other room, and plus liability. But usually just a day-to-day lesson I don't have a proctor in there with me, but for tests and quizzes we do that, and they mail them to me.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you.

Ms. Cronin, how about discipline?

Ms. Cronin. I was going to say I don't have the issue with the homework and the quizzes. As far as discipline, I think what you have to have, again, is training, because we are really changing the way our classroom looks. If you were to walk into my classroom, for example, yesterday during math I had six or seven children working on the computers. They were finding some data on the Olympics. I had other students working on a different project, and so you have to really be flexible, and you have to trust your students. I tell them they need to be trustworthy and complete their work.

We spend a lot of time on procedures in our classroom: What are the proper procedures for using the computer? What are the proper procedures when the teacher is not standing next to you? And they really handle it well; even 8, 9 and 10 years old are very responsible. Rarely in my classroom will you see everyone sitting down doing the same thing at the same time.

So that has taken a lot of training as well to be able to move from being the person standing in front of the classroom and lecturing and giving instructions to working side by side with my students, but it works. They are just learning incredible things, and I would love to have anyone come and visit any time.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Ms. Guge. May I comment on discipline? In my classroom my students sign a contract saying that they will be on camera at all times. So they need to sit in front of me, and in the contract, if they don't follow those rules, we can send a letter home to their parents like a warning, and then after that it is like you are out. So they understand that they have to have more responsibility for taking this type of class.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you. I appreciate that.

And finally, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Mansfield Sutton, what kind of training do you provide, your company provide, what kind of support to those schools using your software?

Ms. Mansfield Sutton. Well, fortunately for us, Mr. Barrett, we have been in business for over 20 years, so we have had lot of experience with professional development for teachers. And I agree with both of the ladies at the table with me that technology is a very important tool to use in a classroom, but it is only as good as the teachers who are able and know how to implement that instruction.

We have a cadre right now of about 120 educational consultants who are across the country who go in and work with teachers on a daily basis where they have our products and services, and we offer everything from initial training, this is the program, this is . . . in some places this is the computer, this is the terminal, et cetera, to very sophisticated classes on how to successfully implement the technology into the curriculum. So we provide educators with a continuum of kind of courses that they can select to meet the needs of their students and their teachers.

Mr. Barrett. Thank you very much, and thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Petri. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

Just one or two things to wrap up. I am not sure that Mr. Isakson mentioned it, but he accepted your challenge and said that your students could contact his office.

Mr. Isakson. Mr. Chairman, we are going to go back up to my office after this is over and e-mail them and let them know how good Mrs. Cronin did so we can start the dialogue.

Ms. Cronin. Thank you.

Mr. Petri. The one final question if anyone would care to respond to it or not, this is inspired partly by your testimony or the hearing that we had yesterday on the subject that Representative Owens referred to, and that is math and science education in the United States, and the need to have a competent citizenry in that area to sustain the high level, and accelerating technical change that is working through our system. And Mr. Greenspan, who was the lead witness, testified that we really can't as a national strategy rely on importing talent, though; that is a temporary expedient because that's not under our control. Sometimes people may want to come here. Other times they may not. And right now a lot of people do, and that is very good.

But I thought maybe the answer wasn't technology and that somehow we could use communications and computers and so on to help people learn, and he thought not. He thought it is a tool. But knowing science being somewhat unforgiving, people tend not to like to be wrong, so they really do not like to go through all the work they have to do and make a lot of mistakes. But once you overcome that, it is often very satisfying to be able to accomplish something and do it.

He thought a pencil and paper and a good teacher was the basis, in fact he thought it was a danger to use computers too soon with kids because that would be a crutch, and they would never really learn the fundamentals. Once they do, he said, he couldn't do his work without a calculator now, but he had to learn to add, subtract and divide as a kid, and it is a basis for understanding numbers, and I suppose the same is true in many other areas.

Would you care to comment on that? We are always looking for a magic ball and a quick fix. Is this a quick fix? Is this another tool? How does it fit in? Should we be careful about relying too much on technology even though it is a wonderful opportunity?

Dr. Thomas. I will begin the response, I am sure there is a number of people who would like to, and I will speak from the college level. We came into this convinced, I had mentioned earlier, that a learning event is just a series of Power Point slides that are posted to the Web, and calling that Web-based or E learning is not really a learning event.

There are so many different variations on the theme of Web-based instruction in the sciences or the social sciences. We have to be very careful about that. The tack that we have taken is you have to have face-to-face contact with the professor. That physical contact, there is a lot of things that happen, and it is very focused. It also indicates to us in experiences we have had with this that it is appropriate especially for the sciences, because there is . . . that kind of interaction, as you say, needs to be rich enough to promote that kind of education. And so we have done it in sort of, as you say, a mixed bag, if you will, both physical contact as well as the Web.

Now the professor goes from being in some sense the sage on the stage and moves now to a little bit more of a guide on the side. And the students are working in teams and are in a sense help each other now much more than they would be doing so in a traditional classroom environment. The Web then becomes a resource tool for providing them with information even above and beyond what possibly the professor could provide. And then you come back together with the professor to see what you have done and to get the correction and to be motivated to move into the next series, be a module or topic or whatever.

So it is, in our way of thinking at IST, that you need a little bit of both, but that the computer, the Web-based, the Internet, if you will, can be used as a wonderful tool for getting the information to the students. But it still is in the realm of the student with interaction with the professor to really make a quality learning experience.

Ms. Mansfield Sutton. I would like to take a moment and add to that. Technology is definitely a tool that is well positioned for the I generation child, the child who is interactive, imaginative, excited about learning. It is a very effective tool, and it does need the appropriate professional development to support its success in a classroom.

Many implementations of technology are not successful because of the lack of professional development, and one of the things about the Web-based education is there is a lot of confusion, perhaps is the best word. And I come from an education background, I have been a teacher as well, and there is a big difference between content and curriculum. And what you find on the Web is content for the most part, and it is a teacher's job to pull that content in and put a framework around it so the students can learn from it. I am speaking from a K-12 environment rather than the higher ed environment. But it is definitely a tool that is used successfully and has been used successfully, and we have many research studies to show those results.

Ms. Cronin. I think there is absolutely no substitute for a human being in working with students. They need to have that bond with a person. And to use technology just to say "I am using technology in my classroom" is not the answer. I agree that the professional development is vital because as a teacher I need to know when during the curriculum technology best fits in as a tool. There are times when the Internet is not the answer.

Last year my students really wanted to get on line all the time, and so we did just a short little activity where I said, who can find the capital of . . . I think we used New York, because that is where I am from originally, the capital of New York most quickly? And what happened was I had students who raced for the computer, and then a couple of them thought the social studies is book is right over there, and they found the answer in 1 minute. And it was a real dramatic example for the students to see that, yes, there are times you need to use the Internet, that technology is a good tool to use, but there are times when it is not the best tool. As a professional I need to make that decision through the curriculum and activities that we do and also for individual students.

I had a learning-disabled student last year who really struggled with reading, and for him to be able to complete a project using an encyclopedia on line that would read the information to him just was an incredible experience to him because he felt that he was able to be produce a report of very high quality, which it was, with the support of technology. So it is a matter of seeing when it is the best tool to use and for which students at which times.

Mr. Petri. Well, thank you very much. And it has been a very interesting session. We appreciate the work that you put into the testimony and the answers you have provided today. With that, this hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 10:54 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]