[email protected]• iPhone: 480.593.1932 • cmweb.pvschools.net/~jbillings T r a n s h u m a n i s m : M e r g i n g w i t h T e c h n o l o g y - M i q e l . c o m Colliding Forces Jeffery F. Billings T echnology Director Paradise Valley Unified School District March, 2008
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• Fully embrace the hundreds of online units and courses through the U.K’s Open University2 initiative,
with core curricular and elective topics, substantially covered, and free.
5) Consideration should be given towards how best to ingrain online learning, using systems/tools like Distancia,into the core culture and services of secondary learning throughout all PVUSD learning environments. Specifically,
PVUSD should consider positioning online learning beyond the alternative, supplementary, or community educa-
tion models, evolving it quickly to be part of all instructional delivery.
6) PVUSD should develop a course of action to acquire funding sources; including resources from, federal and phil-
anthropic grants, business consortiums and leading institutions. Professional networking, forward thinking and
robust partnerships will be critical to advancing in the 21st-century, secondary education market.
Statement
Current public education practices of being a facility-based and tenured posi-
tion enterprise, doesn’t make sense in the Global Economy. The pricing model
can not compete with free content from renown sources, and instant access to
globally-priced content experts from China, India, Europe. The challenge be-
comes not just increasing the educational value within our walls and bricks, but
extending value beyond the physical constraints of space and time. In essence,
how do we become the best at online teaching and learning, be it completely
online, and/or a hybrid model of face to face with online.
Moving from an analog culture to a digital enterprise may require eliminating decades of institutionalized practices,
like master scheduling, textbook adoptions, whole-group instruction, calendaring and start times based on transpor-
tation fleets, and relying on funding based solely on captured (for now) attendance. Embracing online models of
instructional delivery and competing in new arenas using technology tools and methods must become culturally
ingrained. We must transform rules, policies, associations, and long held beliefs that because we are “public educa-
tors” we are somehow entitled to an exclusive right to provide secondary learning in the 21st century. The competi-
tion gauntlet for the Knowledge Economy in this Information Age has been thrown before K-12, and certainly the
public secondary profession.
Curricular content, the “what”, is becoming readily available through diverse channels and free, using practices such
as Creative Commons. Further, the digital nature of the content is such that multiple representations and numerous
media types can in fact accelerate, enhance and differentiate the learning process. PVUSD is beginning to use free,
digital content, but it should be our practice norm, not an exception. Pressure to terminate or significantly alter the
practice of “textbook adoptions”, should be immediately applied throughout the enterprise and planning processes.
PVUSD should also immediately develop and refine best practices of online instructional frameworks and scaffold-
ing, the “how”, of our product. This includes development on how best to use resources like Distancia, and consen-
sus of pedagogy using online systems in general. A credible example of the instructional phase of the open and on-
P V U S D / J e f f B i l l i n g s E v o l u t i o n To K n o w l e d g e E c o n o m y
References1 Billings, Jeffery F. & Baumgartner, Timothy, January 2007 - Call to Legislatively Enact eLearning for All of Arizona’sSecondary Level (9-12) Students and Schools: Findings of Student Achievement Research in Comparing eLearning toTraditional, Face to Face Learning Environments, Paradise Valley Unified School District - Internal Report -http://www.pvschools.net
2 Microcomputers in Education 2008, Arizona State University - From Open Universities into MegaLearning Ecosys-tems, Ali Ozkul, Anadolu Univerity - http://mec.asu.edu
3 United Kingdom - Open University - http://www.open.ac.uk/
4 Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University
5 SanJose State University - http://ou.sjsu.edu/frequently-asked-questions/what-is-open-university
6 Indiana University - 90/30 program - http://scs.indiana.edu/undergraddegrees/undergraddegrees.html
7 Maricopa Community College - Paradise Valley Community College - personal dialog
8 Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Open Courseware -
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm9 Apple Computers - iTunes U - http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/itunesu.html
10 Creative Commons - http://creativecommons.org/
11 Stanford University - EPGY Open High School - http://epgy.stanford.edu/ohs/
12 Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Open Courseware for High School -http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/home/home/index.htm
13 Tutor Vista - http://www.tutorvista.com/
14 Distancia - PVUSD’s Online Portal - http://distancia.pvschools.net
15
Stanford University - Introduction to Physics -http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/itunes.stanford.edu.1406189894.01406189896.1404868852?i=1232809756
16 University of Houston - Stoichiometric Chemistry -http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/uh.edu.1304432563.01477979116.1344100084?i=1423056193
17 Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Molecular Biology -http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/mit.edu.1329584553.01329584560.1329303271?i=1209609123
18 Arizona State University - Introduction to Communication -http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/asu.edu.1144586976.01144586979.1476070310?i=1088424980