The space constraints of this article do not allow me to do justice to these projects. However, here is a brief overview of three places where digital publishing is making a big difference in the lives of teachers, students, parents, and administrators. All of these projects had to overcome funding issues, those resisting change, and the technical challenges of K-12 implementations. Through all those challenges, the programs continue to have a positive impact in their respective communities. Each of these examples includes thousands of laptops deployed. For more information on the schools check out the accompanying URL, so that you can get the whole story for yourself.
Eastern Township School Board
The Eastern Township School Board (ETSB) is an English language system within the Canadian province of Quebec. As if that setting isn’t difficult enough, the district covers a massive geographic area and serves a student population that includes some with difficult financial circumstances. Into that very challenging environment stepped Ron Canuel with a vision, a passion, and an irrepressible drive. In 2001, ETSB began its 1:1 laptop program. Beyond the impact on the teaching and learning, additional benefits began surfacing very quickly–benefits like a reduction in truancy, discipline problems, and dropout rates. Now, five-plus years into this program, ETSB is truly building a model for success.
www.etsb.qc.ca/en/EnhancedLearningStrategy
Quaker Valley School District
Quaker Valley School District (QVSD) is another very interesting case. Located in western Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, the district serves a significant population of low-income families but interestingly has the distinction of having one of the few Bentley car dealerships in Pennsylvania. As part of his very diverse role with the district, which also includes the local public library, Joe Marrone worked with a broad cross-section of sources including district, city, county, and state offices, non-profit organizations, and even the local cable provider to put together an incredible array of technology, training, and related services to make 1:1 computing a reality across the district. QVSD is now in its seventh year using technology as an integral part of just about every subject they teach.
www.qvsd.org/2550115914103416/site/default.asp
Maine’s Statewide Initiative
As far as statewide initiatives go, Maine is a good example. Earlier this decade, a bold and insightful decision was made by the state. Led by Independent Governor Angus King and the Maine Legislator, a statewide information technology project was launched. It is evident that progress can be made as the students of Maine have experienced a fantastic journey. Here again, we are talking about five-plus years ago. The results have been tremendous. For example, studies have shown that twice as many students met “proficiency” standards in writing in the highest-laptop-use group as compared to the lowest-use group. Visit the link below to read more about the research that demonstrates how using laptops has led to greater achievement in writing.
Beyond these district examples, here are just a few items that help to frame the speed at which things are moving:
- The children who started kindergarten last September have never been in school when iPods didn’t exist. In fact, since the iPod turned six last November, most of those kindergarteners haven’t spent a day on planet Earth without the iPod.
- In October 2007, NBC streamed 50 million shows via the Internet. That is just a fraction of the 9 billion videos viewed on the Web in an average month.
- According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, the average age when a child starts playing with a computer is 5.5 years.
Follett has moved very aggressively to address these issues. In October 2005, they formed Follett Digital Resources as the first major step towards unifying their overall corporate digital strategy and as an outward statement to the marketplace that showed their commitment to digital content creation and distribution. Follett has been delivering eBooks, tens of thousands of them, to schools and libraries for several years. In June 2006, Follett acquired Interactive Constructs, Inc. to giving them a solid foundation in the software and services business that enables the publishing community to get digital products developed and deployed in an efficient, compelling, and meaningful way. Follett is investing heavily to develop more products and services for their publishing clients.
For the publishers who are reading this piece, I offer the following questions for your consideration:
- What is your position with regards to rights and permissions to take your content digital? What is your strategy to manage all of your digital assets (even if you are just printing a book, the content is still digital) across your various titles?
- What is your plan for leveraging the expense of building your titles into new and different digital revenue streams?
- Are you willing to wait just long enough to get passed by someone else who was ready to try an experimental project and watch them take off?
- Are you going about solving your current problems by doing the same things that got you into these problems in the first place? Why?
If you haven’t noticed by now, we are already well into the digital age. Changes are happening faster than we can record them or hope to react to them. The future is well underway. We can help to shape it. We can actively and meaningfully participate in it. Or, we can be left watching as it passes us by.
The choice is ours.
