NSF's Networked Testbeds Inform Innovation in Science Education.

A growing number of educators and technologists believe that computer-and-communications networking can be employed productively to support and enable needed reforms in education. For example, the Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP)--composed of the CEOs of American companies that develop, build and market information-processing systems and software--argues that An information infrastructure for lifelong learning will offer unprecedented potential for improving lives by making knowledge readily available and usable by all Americans. Similarly, President Clinton and Vice President Gore claim that New information technologies can give teachers more power in the classroom and create a new range of employment opportunities. Schools can themselves become high-performance workplaces. (2) The Federal Coordinating Council for Science Engineering and Technology Committee on Education and Human Resources (CEHR), composed of 15 federal agencies and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, established this milestone: By 1994, CEHR agencies will develop and communicate a national vision for networked resources through a plan reflecting input from local, state, and federal agencies and involving public and private stakeholders.(3) However, there are uncertainties on all levels: nature of potential benefits, applications, financing, organizational arrangements, supporting software, knowledge structures, technical support, pedagogical and instructional management issues, teacher development, network infrastructure and costs of all components. As the CSPP points out, This will require investment in training for educators and students in the use of new technologies, development of model curricula and new instructional techniques, development of new information resources, improvement in the quality of existing resources, and extension of public access to electronic schools and libraries. The initiatives of the new administration include support for educational networking. But even under the most optimistic scenarios, the federal funds available to support innovative work in these areas will always be small in comparison with the magnitude of the issues and investment eventually needed for research, development, application and infrastructure building on a nationwide scale. * Real Data to Aid Planning To help decision makers at all levels base investment decisions on a more informed and empirical basis, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is supporting the pilot phase of new consortia to develop and test applications of computer-and-communications networks in support of innovations in science and mathematics education. These consortia are collaborations among industry, higher education, K-12 schools and other institutions to create networking testbeds. Testbeds are designed to enable teachers, students, scientists, engineers, educational researchers and educational administrators to work together to determine the benefits and costs of using the National Research and Education Network (NREN) and associated distributed resources to support innovations and reforms in education and for learning at all ages in many different kinds of settings. The innovations address most key aspects of education: professional development for teachers, classroom science and mathematics instruction, informal science education, teacher preparation, assessment of student learning, project-based science learning, curriculum development, school restructuring and state systemic initiatives. Knowledge provided by the testbed experiments is expected to help government, community and industry leaders make decisions concerning networking technology investments and educational information infrastructures. Because funds for innovation are limited in relation to the needs, the testbeds are designed to leverage available funds both intellectually and organizationally through careful engineering of the testbed communities and technologies. …