Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960813160528.006b92ac@pop3.vivanet.com> Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 11:05:28 -0500 From: Jack Crawford <mailto:crawford@TRC.ORG> Subject: Please disseminate widely To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
(This document is copyright 1996 by Jack Crawford. Re-distribution of it by any means is both permitted and encouraged provided that such action is for strictly non-commercial purposes, the content remains whole, unedited and otherwise unmodified and this statement remains intact. Though not strictly required, you are asked to inform the author of any such distribution. Please send comments or requests for permission to publish this commercially to mailto:crawford@trc.org. (The Marucs Whitman School District is located in Rushville, NY. Charles Wiltze is the Superintendent.)
The Marcus Vision ----------------------- A Proposed "Battle Plan" to Catapult the Marcus Whitman School District into the Age of Communications
(c)August 10, 1996 by Jack Crawford (mailto:crawford@trc.org)
A few years ago the former NYS Commissioner of Education, Dr. Thomas Sobel, remarked that "We are in a new era in which we should now be integrating our curriculum into technology rather than merely integrating technology into our curriculum." Certainly, as we look at the real world of modern business, we see the massive, practical application of technology everywhere. In particular, the ability to communicate, collaborate and share multimedia information resources over the "cyberspace" of enterprise-wide intranets and the worldwide Internet has quickly become "mission critical" skills required in nearly every industry. These "cyber skills" have profound economic, social, political and educational implications that are spawning a whole new dynamic to our civilization. The scope, impact and rate of growth of this new culture is unparalleled in human history and is shaking the very foundations of the Industrial Era paradigm. Those who do not begin to acquire the requisite "cyber skills" now will become the "have nots" of the future. Our school must become a place where each student, as an important individual, can persue his/her highest potential by acquiring the academic, creative and social skills necessary for this new world. I offer this Marcus Vision as a means to help launch the Marcus Whitman School District and its community into this exciting new Age of Communications.
There are three primary components to the Marcus Vision. They include an innovative intra/Internet technical infrastructure to serve our school and community (MARCUSnet), a means for providing self-perpetuating technical support, instruction, community outreach and innovation to its users (MarcusCorps), and a practical, foundational philosophy for adapting it's use to nearly all facets of our curriculum (MarcusWay). In addition, the Marcus Vision provides a means for earning a new level of support and enthusiasm for our school activities from our taxpaying public.
1.) MARCUSnet consists of a local area computer-based network to electronically tie the classrooms, offices and homes of Marcus Whitman students, employees and community members together into an enterprise-wide intranet and to the worldwide Internet. Access privileges are governed by an Acceptable Use Policy.
MARCUSnet provides, of course, traditional file server capability for the sharing of local databases and executable programs. However, MARCUSnet's main orientation is to be a communications-rich network. This implies all of the vibrant interactivity of real people conversing, debating, cajoling, exploring ideas, developing concepts and otherwise collaborating in the creation and sharing of knowledge with other thinking, feeling human beings locally and internationally through email, newsgroups, "group ware", web pages and, perhaps quite soon, real-time voice and video. This is the real stuff of the 21st Century!
Typical MARCUSnet resources include: Administrative programs and files accessible only by school staff and employing extraordinary security measures to assure confidentiality and protection from tampering. Academic resources such as word processors, spreadsheets and other proprietary items whose accessibility is regulated by licensing agreements or are otherwise intended for strictly internal use by staff and/or students. Locally created or managed online resources such as web pages, newsgroups, email, school library materials and other multi-media items deliberately intended to be publicly accessible to the entire MARCUSnet community. The creation and online publication of these materials by our students is a significant vehicle for the development of "cyber skills" and practical application of curriculum-based learning. The vast multi-media resources of the worldwide Internet are also available to MARCUSnet users as appropriate. The truly awesome scope, ready availability and curricular value and applicability of many of these as classroom assets should not be underestimated.
MARCUSnet differs significantly from traditional school networks. It is based in an innovative partnership with a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) who provides an "on-ramp" to the Internet as well as the initial design, installation and ongoing advanced technical support of the entire intra/Internet technical infrastructure at virtually no cost to the school. (The school buys and owns most of the requisite hardware and software.) Any student, educator or community member may be assigned a free personal MARCUSnet account subject to the provisions of the Acceptable Use Policy. Access to these accounts from any computer hard-wired to the network inside our school buildings is unlimited and free of charge. This provides equity of access for all of our students. However, to access these same accounts via telephone from outside the school (e.g. from home computers) requires the purchase of a modem access subscription available exclusively from the ISP. This costs about $20 monthly per user for unlimited hours of access and is optionally purchased by individuals rather than the school. These fees directly subsidize the ISP's commercial role as a service provider to the school in creating and maintaining MARCUSnet and providing it with adequate Internet bandwidth.
2.) The MarcusCorps is an elite group of students, teachers and community members who have completed a rigorous, internal "certification" program to form a team of competent MARCUSnet mentors, instructors, grant seekers and technical support people. They assume a leadership role in teaching others (including professional educators) how to use and contribute to the MARCUSnet. They keep it running and continually seek grant funding for new projects and capabilities. They organize its information databases and web pages into logical libraries. They manage or "moderate" various interactive online activities such as newsgroups and mailing lists. Finally, they develop new technical capabilities such as video conferencing, distance learning, etc. To perpetuate MarcusCorps, a primary directive for every member is to continually train an understudy. The MarcusCorps also provides valuable career-track and community service experiences to our students.
The contributions MarcusCorps members make to their school and community is worthy of special prestige and recognition similar to that typically afforded to athletic team members. This could include, for example, the awarding of a "letter" often worn on a jacket and other fanfare to honor them. Student MarcusCorps members may apply community outreach activities toward satisfying their public service requirement for graduation.
3.) The MarcusWay is an underlying constructivist mindset in which teachers incorporate online collaboration, researching and publishing into their curriculum wherever possible. The idea is to create a tradition in which students continually work together to create and pass on their knowledge to others via MARCUSnet. This implies an emphasis on self-directed learning and the development of the "cyber skills" of collaborative research and communications. Our students learn through the active creation and communication of knowledge, not just the mere consumption of it.
MARCUSnet provides a significant vehicle for implementing the MarcusWay mindset because networking is, inherently, an environment which stresses collaboration in the creation and exchange of knowledge. This places heavy emphasis on the development of collaborative and communications skills such as writing, researching and graphic arts as well as online social graces. The published works of our students promote a sense of intellectual ownership in something of real value to their peers rather than "just for a grade". (Students are encouraged, for example, to place their personal copyright notice on virtually everything they create.) Use of MARCUSnet transcends time, location, nationality, age, gender, ethnicity, social status and many handicaps. This has significant implications for MarcusWay-inspired multi-age mentoring, student portfolio assessment and multi-culturalism. Finally, MarcusWay activities promote the creation of an ever-growing library of locally-authored mulit-media information resources and teaching materials such as "Marcus-o-Pedia" articles, lesson plans, tutorials, histories, topical discussions and debates as well as a wealth of other knowledge assets for future generations of students, teachers and community members to benefit from. Some may be used as "micro-textbooks" in classrooms. ---- Dr. Sobel also likes to quote the African proverb, "It takes the whole village to raise the child". The Marcus Vision offers a cross-generational infrastructure in which our entire community, including those who vote on our school budgets, can directly participate in the learning, teaching, sharing and creation of knowledge with each other as well as utilize myriad educational resources of the school and the Internet. Our MarcusCorps will teach them how to access, use and contribute to MARCUSnet. Our students, through MarcusWay classroom publishing activities, will provide useful local content, a new empahsis on lifelong learning and a springboard for online collaboration in gathering, synthesizing and creating new knowledge. We all benefit. We are all enriched. We all learn "cyber skills". Through the Marcus Vision, the people of the Marcus Whitman community can help each other to become "haves" instead of "have nots" in this new Age of Communications.