Michigan Wind Working Group

Please see below the schedule/agenda for the Michigan Wind Working Group meeting slated for Fri Dec 14, at MPSC offices. The meeting will be accessible via toll-free teleconference. Call in number and pass code are at the bottom of the page.

In addition, in the afternoon from 1:30 to 3:30 this same day, we will be discussing the upcoming Michigan Wind Energy Transmission Study. Representatives from ITC, ATC, and MISO will be joining in on that discussion – also available via toll-free teleconference and webconference. More details will be forthcoming prior to the meeting. The general purpose for this meeting is to begin to organize the Michigan wind energy transmission study, which is planned for completion in the first half of 2008. We will start to identify the objectives for the study, and to assemble a technical advisory group.

-- Tom Stanton, Coordinator Michigan Renewable Energy Program -- http://www.michigan.gov/mrep voice 517-241-6086, generally 9a-5p, M-F EMAIL: stantont1[at]michigan[dot]gov
-----Original Message-----From: Sarver, John H (DLEG) Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 8:46 AMTo: Sarver, John H (DLEG)Subject: Dec 14 Wind Working Group Meeting

The next meeting of the Michigan Wind Working Group will be on Friday, Dec. 14 from 9:00-12:00 at the Michigan Public Service Commission, Hearing Room E. Map and directions can directions can be found at http://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/0,1607,7-159-16400_33353-42315--,00.html. The agenda will be:

9:00 Introductions
9:30 "European Perspective on American Wind Developments: How Can Michigan Be in The Game" - Dr. Stefan Schmitz, Squire Sanders.
10:30 Update on Wind Energy R&D Consortium – John Patten, Western Michigan University
11:00 International Transmission Corp. Tariff Update - Tom Wrenbeck, Manager for Stakeholder Relations
11:15 Michigan Wind Energy Transmission Study – MPSC, ITC, ATC, MISO, MSU
12:00 Adjourn

Call in number: 877-336-1829
Pass code: 2022874#

Presentations and materials will be posted at www.michigan.gov/eoworkshops . Hope to see you on the 14th. ……John

21st Century Digital Learning Environments

TECHNOLOGY CLICKS WITH KIDS

Raising the Bar: What a difference a decade of "digital discourse" makes.

Computers transform classrooms

Gadgets get students excited to learn


November 26, 2007

BY LORI HIGGINS

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

The kids grab small voting devices on their desks, then punch in their answer to a question posed on the screen above them: "¿Cual es verde? "

In an instant, teacher Nancy Conn pushes a button and up pops a chart showing the correct answer -- the green square -- among six squares of varying colors.

All of this is happening on a large interactive white board -- a cross between a blackboard, computer screen and projector -- that Conn uses in her Spanish classroom at Hickory Grove Elementary School in Bloomfield Township.

The boards -- which will be in every classroom in the Bloomfield Hills Schools district by the beginning of next year -- are among the ways schools in metro Detroit are using technology to teach and capture the minds of a generation growing up in a digital age.

At Lottie Schmidt Elementary School in New Baltimore, students in Jim Alvaro's fifth-grade class create podcasts of their lessons, broadcast for anyone on the Web to hear. Rob McClelland, a teacher at the Oakland Technical Center campus in Wixom, has created computer games that help solidify students' understanding of key lessons.

And at Fisher Elementary School in the South Redford School District, students are learning Chinese and interacting with pen pals in China via a webcam, computer, projector and software.

"You always learn something new by using technology," said Natalie Joniec, 10, a Fisher fifth-grader.

Technology boosts performance

While some schools are pushing forward with plans to fully integrate technology, others struggle to do so in ways that engage kids and help them learn, said Ledong Li, an assistant professor of education at Oakland University.

And that's a problem, he said.

"If we deliver information like we used to do in the traditional way, kids are bored in the classroom," said Li, who organized a workshop in June on using video games in the classroom. "They don't feel they are engaged."

Li said technology can be intimidating to teachers who aren't familiar with how to use it, or how it can benefit their lessons. And so much is focused today on improving test scores that it's easy to see technology as an extra. Yet, Li said research shows technology can improve student performance.

Still, some teachers "look at the requirements for raising test scores as the kind of signal that they have to do things in a traditional way," Li said.

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan has announced proposed changes to teacher preparation programs, and he's making the integration of technology into teaching practices a priority. Last year, Michigan became the first, and still the only, state in the nation that will require students to take an online class or have online experience to graduate high school.

Ric Wiltse, executive director of the Lansing-based Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, said budget crunches have impacted how schools integrate technology.

But, Wiltse said, "teachers are getting more and more creative about how they use the technology tools students have these days."

That includes Alvaro, whose classroom has a blog called the Skinny as well as the podcasts. The students worked on a project that had them research and write about when their ancestors arrived in the United States.

Games that teach

Today's kids are steps ahead of their teachers, in many cases. They instant message, text message, play video games, blog and use social Web sites like MySpace and YouTube.

"Everything we do is about technology," said Kala Kottman of Commerce Township, a senior at Walled Lake Western High School and the Oakland Technical Center campus in Wixom. "It's a big deal."

Kala, 17, is enrolled in the culinary arts program at the technical center. She was among a group of students in a computer lab playing a game created by McClelland, who provides support to fellow teachers.

There are about 100 culinary tools students must memorize, and while they still use rote memorization tricks, McClelland's game gives them a fun way to test their knowledge. McClelland has produced a similar game for two other technical center programs.

In the game, which is timed, students must quickly match a picture of a tool with its correct name.

McClelland programmed the game using popular phrases familiar to kids. For instance, if they click on the wrong answer, they're likely to hear the "D'oh!" popularized by Homer Simpson. If they get it right, they might hear a "Woo hoo."

Instant feedback

The Bloomfield Hills district is making a significant investment in the Promethean white boards. About $2.1 million has been committed to put them in all of its classrooms.

Conn was among the first to try them, and she said they make a difference in the classroom. The screen is connected to a computer, and it takes just a few clicks for her to call up lessons. The board also is interactive, allowing students to manipulate it.

The voting system allows Conn to constantly assess students, asking them to record correct answers on the hand-held device.

The instantaneous feedback means that instead of waiting until she grades a quiz to see who is struggling and which concepts students aren't getting, Conn finds out "just like that," she said with a sharp snap of her fingers.

It also means she can do some re-teaching on the fly if she sees many students answering a question wrong.

Mitchell Shults and Destiny Lynch, both 8-year-old third-graders, said the boards make classes more fun.

"You can play games on it and learn a lot of stuff," Mitchell said.

The voting, Destiny said, gets kids excited, especially when the whole class records the correct answer.

Technology makes it possible

At 7:45 on a Tuesday morning at Fisher Elementary, Deborah Reichman and her students were sitting around a table in a small conference room learning to speak the Chinese language. Reichman, the school's intervention specialist, doesn't know how -- she's learning with her students.

They go over a worksheet, practicing saying words and numbers in Chinese. When they get to a word they're unfamiliar with, Reichman has a plan.

"We may have to change or alter how we pronounce it when Mr. Nemo gets online," she said.

Nemo Ma is a teacher at the Nanao School in Guangzhou, China, and he is usually online when the kids meet to provide assistance and give them a chance to interact with a native Chinese speaker. Often, he places his mouth close to the lens of his camera and slowly enunciates the words so the students in Redford Township can see how his mouth moves. His image is projected on a large screen in the conference room.

The two schools are partnered through a program they call A Classroom Without Walls. The idea here isn't to create fluent Chinese speakers, Fisher Principal Brian Galdes said.

"Our goal is for the students ... to be global citizens, to interact with students from another culture one-on-one," Galdes said.

About 30 kids are involved in the program, in which they also use an online program to learn the language. And they have pen pals at the school in China. They chat with their e-pals, exchanging stories about their lives. But they also work on projects together.

Without technology, "we wouldn't be able to communicate," said Bradford Thomas, 10, a fifth-grader. "We'd have to write letters. And it'd probably take too long for them to reply."

Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or lhiggins@freepress.com.

LIVE! TV on PC

Ann Arbor firm plans to put live TV online in U.S.

November 25, 2007

BY JUSTIN HYDE

FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

For all the countless hours of video available on the Internet, you can't watch many live events on your computer, and what you can watch -- such as congressional debates -- usually isn't worth the trouble.

But an Ann Arbor start-up may have an answer for what could be a billion-dollar problem.

Zattoo, founded in 2005 by University of Michigan computer science professor Sugih Jamin and Swiss software marketer Beat Knecht, has built a growing video service of live video streams in Europe with 1.2 million users. Its free software lets users watch live events such as soccer matches on their computers with far better quality than what has been available before.

Networks "have so many years of practice at producing live TV. It's a multibillion industry, and we're not going to replace it overnight," Jamin said. "There will always be people interested in live TV."

Launched with $350,000 from friends and family, Jamin said Zattoo just closed a $10-million fund-raising round led by venture capital firms in Switzerland, with another $20 million planned for next year. The company has grown to 25 full-time employees, including 20 in its Ann Arbor tech center. It also has an office in Zurich.

Zattoo's software, developed by Jamin and his students at U-M, uses a technique pioneered by Internet file-swappers known as peer-to-peer networks. Instead of relying on one central computer to broadcast data to thousands of users, peer-to-peer systems make each user's computer handle part of the workload, swapping data among themselves.

While developed mostly for pirating software and music, peer-to-peer has emerged as the best method of sending large files and streaming data over the Web. Internet phone service Skype is a peer-to-peer system, and its founders have launched a video service called Joost using the same technology.

Founded in 2005, Zattoo -- which means "crowd" in Japanese -- focuses on streaming live TV channels, a bigger technical challenge than offering recorded videos such as YouTube or Joost.

Using its software, viewers in Europe can choose from a variety of channels in their countries. Zattoo's technology allows it to respond quickly when a user changes a channel, with a lag time of a few seconds, similar to everyday television. The service is free for viewers, who have to watch a short ad when they change a channel.

Jamin said Zattoo's software offers several benefits to media companies. It's a cheaper way to get on the Internet than other systems. Zattoo blocks its video from being recorded, a key concern for media outlets worried about piracy. And by focusing on live video, Zattoo avoids some problems that competitors face, such as ensuring enough users are online to share data.

Though the company is based in Ann Arbor, Zattoo is available only in Europe today. Jamin said that is due to the ease of reaching deals with TV channels for transmitting their video there vs. the hurdles for doing so in the United States. But the service already has carried big events, such as the 2006 FIFA World Cup soccer championships, and has deals with foreign units of U.S. broadcasters. The service hopes to expand to Asia and the United States in 2008.

"The vision is that everybody will watch live TV on the PC someday," he said.

Contact JUSTIN HYDE at 202-906-8204 or jhyde@freepress.com.

Getting DIGITAL!

Bloomfield Hills schools add more classroom tech

Posted on 11/19/2007 2:22:38 PM The Bloomfield Hills schools Monday announced that its board had approved a $2.1 million technology investment plan. By Jan. 1, all 350 district classrooms will be outfitted with interactive whiteboards, projectors, document cameras, sound amplification and playback equipment. One powerful component is Activotes, which are wireless computer mouse-like student response devices that allow teachers to immediately adapt instruction. High school students and faculty will begin using the new technology when they return from the December holiday break. Elementary and middle school students are already benefiting from the boards, since classrooms were similarly equipped over the summer and fall. Bloomfield Hills Schools will be the first district in Michigan to so-outfit all classrooms K-12 with the equipment, manufactured by Promethean. “Teachers tell us that the impact of this technology is as dramatic as the introduction of personal computers into the classroom,” said Steven Gaynor, BHS superintendent. “Students in our elementary and middle schools who are already using this technology are highly engaged mentally, physically and emotionally. Our teachers are as excited as the kids, and are buzzing about the likely boost to student learning.” About $500,000 of interactive equipment will be installed at Andover, Lahser and Model high schools, as well as Bowers Academy, the Bowers Farm classrooms and the Johnson Nature Center. The equipment at Andover and Lahser will be portable, so that it could be moved and reinstalled in the future if the aging high school buildings are renovated. Bloomfield Hills Schools has provided professional development to teachers to aid their understanding and use of the systems. As with traditional lesson planning, teachers develop instruction in advance to best incorporate the technology into student learning. Cindi Hopkins, director of technology, said that the whiteboards will make common classroom items like wall maps and televisions obsolete.

REPORT: TECHNOLOGICAL ROLE!

Maximizing the Impact: "The Pivitol Role of Technology in a 21st Century Educational System."

In a new report, Maximizing the Impact: "The Pivotal Role of Technology in a 21st Century Education System", the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills urged renewed emphasis on technology in education.

The report urges federal, state and local policymakers and other stakeholders to take action on three fronts:

1. Use technology comprehensively to develop proficiency in 21st century skills. Knowledge of core content is necessary, but no longer sufficient, for success in a competitive world. Even if all students mastered core academic subjects, they still would be woefully underprepared to succeed in postsecondary institutions and workplaces, which increasingly value people who can use their knowledge to communicate, collaborate, analyze, create, innovate, and solve problems. Used comprehensively, technology helps students develop 21st century skills.

2. Use technology comprehensively to support innovative teaching and learning. To keep pace with a changing world, schools need to offer more rigorous, relevant and engaging opportunities for students to learn—and to apply their knowledge and skills in meaningful ways. Used comprehensively, technology supports new, research-based approaches and promising practices in teaching and learning.

3. Use technology comprehensively to create robust education support systems. To be effective in schools and classrooms, teachers and administrators need training, tools and proficiency in 21st century skills themselves. Used comprehensively, technology transforms standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development, learning environments, and administration.

The report supports the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ framework for 21st century learning, which calls for mastery of core subjects and 21st century skills. The report also highlights effective practices in states, districts and schools that are using technology to achieve results. And it provides guiding questions and action principles for policymakers and other stakeholders who are committed to maximizing the impact of technology in education.

Together, SETDA, ISTE and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills represent dozens of leading U.S. companies and organizations, six leadership states, education technology directors in all 50 states, 85,000 education technology professionals and 3.2 million educators throughout the country.

Click here to view the full report, Maximizing the Impact.

NSF ITEST STEM GRANT 2007

National Study to Examine Best Ways to Prepare Teachers to Use Technology

Nov 19, 2007, News Report

The Center for Evaluation and Education Policy in the Indiana University School of Education will partner with a Washington, D.C.-area company for a project examining how current and emerging technologies are being used in classrooms and how to prepare new teachers to best use these tools.

The "Leveraging Education Technology to Keep America Competitive" study has just begun with a $3.1 million contract through the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology.

"To our knowledge the federal government and the U.S. Department of Education have never really funded a comprehensive study of how cutting-edge technologies are being used in pre-service education," said Jonathan Plucker, director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) in the IU School of Education, and deputy project manager of the study.

Plucker said technological advances have made this a vastly different society. "But a common criticism is that that's not really changing the way that we teach," he said. "It's not changing the way we deliver education. It's not changing the way that students learn. This study gives us the resources to go out and do a very comprehensive and careful study to figure out if those things are happening."

Over a technical plan that breaks down into seven "task" areas, the project will produce an overall assessment of technology use in the classroom by April 2009. While that final work will help direct federal policy towards technology in education, a series of white papers issued throughout the length of the project will give immediate insight into the issues the work is tackling.

Put the DIGITAL in ONE "D"

SAVE THE DATE!

No Child Left Behind?

Presented by
Wayne State University
WWJ Newsradio 950
FOX 2
The Detroit News
WDET 101.9
The Michigan Chronicle

This unique panel will combine historical expertise and
the voices of ‘Generation D’
to generate discussion, consider options, and find solutions.

The topic will be Detroit’s future and our children’s education.
What has happened with the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation?
How did it come to be? Where are we now? What comes next?
How can we be involved improving the classroom?

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Wayne State University Law School
Spencer Partrich Auditorium
471 West Palmer
Detroit, MI 48202

Admission is free, but advance registration is requested

Click here to Register

Free Parking Available in Structure #1 with Registration
(across Palmer from the Law School)
Map

Sponsored by
Wayne State University
WWJ Newsradio 950
FOX 2
The Detroit News
WDET 101.9
The Michigan Chronicle

BEGIN VISIONING!

Meeting: University of Michigan-Flint Gary Weisserman

UM-Flint goes global with new program

Posted by Beata Mostafavi July 25, 2007 20:30PM

Categories: Flint, Higher Education

FLINT -- On the other side of the ocean, thousands of miles away in Geneva, Switzerland, Amy Meister waved hello to husband Kent and 13-year-old daughter Ashley here in Flint.

But Meister, of the local United Way, is learning to use technology in a way that could even kick satellite video out of the cutting edge club.

She is among 24 students in University of Michigan-Flint's new "Technology in Education Global Program" that was officially inaugurated Wednesday with a live feed from Geneva, where students are studying.

It's a first of its kind master's degree program in education at UM-Flint that requires global residency and research. The degree highlights the use of technology to teach topics of global importance, ranging from human rights to environmental issues.

The new 15-month program that has drawn students from as far as the Cayman Islands comes just as UM-Flint seeks to "internationalize" campus by giving students more international opportunities and lure more non-local and international students to the university.

The program will help students "re-think the role of technology in education and truly understand the way it can and does transform student learning," Acting Chancellor Jack Kay said from Geneva. "This program is poised to reinvent education for the needs and opportunities of the 21st century."

Acting provost Vahid Lotfi said the university has found partners in Geneva -- chosen because it is home to more than 100 non-governmental agencies -- that will help students focus on issues of social justice, civic engagement and education reform.

The program is mostly online but involves two 3-week-long trips to Geneva where students meet with international non-governmental agencies through the World Federations of United Nations Associations and the Federation of International Institutions in Geneva.

"They're focusing on issues sort of larger than the students themselves," said Sharman Siebenthal Adams, assistant professor in education technology. " They need to connect to the world around them.

"We are looking at all of these issues from a global perspective and using technology."

Students spend days doing Web development and video work. Examples of specific projects could include research on labor issues, K-12 schooling, social justice issues related to human rights or people with disabilities, parks and museums or environmental conservation efforts.

Via satellite, students Jennifer Holladay of Attica and Jeremiah Holden of New York said they are gaining a unique global perspective to using technology to teach in meaningful ways.

Gary Weisserman, a UM-Flint faculty member who is in Geneva with the program, said it's "not just about making a Web site."

"The goal is to make Web-rich communities that can make a difference," he said.

"This is teaching for social and educational change."

TEDTalks: Nicholas Negroponte (2006_

"Urgency of the Digital Emergency"

A Breath............FOR Fresh Air!

Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Former Vice President Gore during a speech in June in Cannes, France, before the screening of “An Inconvenient Truth.”

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November 13, 2007

Investment Firm Names Gore as a Partner

By MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12 — Deepening his ties to Silicon Valley, former Vice President Al Gore said on Monday that he had become a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The alliance provides Mr. Gore an additional pulpit for his advocacy of environmental causes, but also gives the Nobel laureate an opportunity to nurture green businesses.

Venture capitalists said the move could help companies financed by Kleiner establish ties with big business and government, and obtain subsidies that encourage broader use of new technologies.

Mr. Gore’s part-time duties will entail investigating the growth potential of start-up companies focused on the alternative energy sector, and then weighing in on whether Kleiner Perkins should finance those companies.

Mr. Gore said he would donate his salary from the venture to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit policy foundation.

Venture capitalist partners also typically earn a management fee of 2 percent of the amount of money they invest, but the potential for huge returns comes from the 20 percent they take of the profit when the start-ups they have supported go public or are acquired.

Kleiner Perkins declined to say whether Mr. Gore would receive a management fee or participate in profit sharing, noting that matters of compensation are private.“I will pull my share of the load at Kleiner Perkins,” Mr. Gore said in an interview. “I will be involved in a lot of activities.”

Mr. Gore is no stranger to Silicon Valley. He sits on the board of Apple, and has an advisory role with Google. He is co-founder and chairman of Current TV, a television network based in San Francisco that broadcasts viewer-created content.

The Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2000, Mr. Gore keeps an apartment in San Francisco and spends five to six days a month in the area; a portion of that time will now be spent at Kleiner Perkins, which is based in Menlo Park, Mr. Gore said.

John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins who is a strong advocate for the development of alternative energy technologies, said Mr. Gore would help the firm, one of Silicon Valley’s largest, attract innovative start-ups — an advantage in the firm’s competition with other venture capitalists.

Silicon Valley’s venture firms have focused increasingly on financing alternative energy start-ups, so-called clean-tech companies.

The early investors are banking heavily — risking billions of dollars — on the proposition that solar power, various forms of ethanol, and other innovations will benefit as oil prices rise and federal and state government increase incentives for use of alternatives to oil.

Thus far, though, few of the alternative energy start-ups have rendered big payoffs for investors. The investments are relatively recent, and venture capitalists say it takes time for start-ups to grow to where their services are ready for the mass market.

But the other more fundamental challenge is that oil and gas provide most of the world’s fuel, and displacing them in a cost-effective way presents an enormous challenge.

Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and author of the blog Infectious Greed, said that Mr. Gore’s new role could benefit start-up companies by providing guidance through the political process.

For instance, Mr. Kedrosky said, Mr. Gore would now have a financial incentive to push for subsidies, like the tax incentives or rebates that have buoyed the solar industry, or to provide start-ups with important connections in government and big business.

“Anyone who thinks this is happening because Al has fantastic clean-tech entrepreneurial chops is fooling themselves,” Mr. Kedrosky said. Alternative energy “is a policy issue, a political issue, and that requires connections to get things done.”

Mr. Gore “is a political rainmaker,” Mr. Kedrosky said. The association between Kleiner and Mr. Gore “just means that clean tech is an inherently political exercise.”

It is not unusual for politicians and other celebrities to join venture firms, or other investment companies, at least in some capacity. Former President Bill Clinton was an adviser to the financier Ronald W. Burkle, and Bono, the singer from U2, has an affiliation with Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley investment firm.

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell serves as a strategic limited partner for Kleiner Perkins, a considerably less intimate role than that Mr. Gore takes as a partner. Former President George H. W. Bush has had a relationship with the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.

As part of the affiliation announced on Monday, Kleiner Perkins said it would collaborate with Generation Investment Management to find and finance clean-tech start-ups globally. Generation, which is based in Britain and was co-founded by Mr. Gore, focuses on investing in larger operations and later-stage companies focused on clean tech.

Mr. Gore has said he did not expect to be a candidate for the presidency in 2008, and he reiterated that position in an interview Monday.

“I don’t expect to be a candidate again,” he said.

STEM Prospectors: Find GOLD!

Thousands of middle and high school students packed Ford Field Thursday for the 2007 YES Expo.

The Expo -- the YES stands for youth, engineering and science -- is a collaboration led by Michigan Technological University among state agencies, corporations, youth organizations, professional societies, business development groups and other universities from throughout Michigan. It offers a hands-on educational experience with the goal of inspiring students to pursue education and careers in the science and engineering fields.

Headline speakers included Dr. Steven Squyres, a Cornell University astronomy professor whose repeated project applications to NASA turned into the wildly successful Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Squyres told the students he was once intimidated by math. Now he drives $900 million remote-control cars around Mars. He showed the students near-live pictures from the Martian surface, where one rover was busily digging into rock.

The event also featured a robotics demonstration from Toyota, which believe it or not has built a robot that can play the trumpet. (Not bad, but no threat to the mastery of Miles Davis just yet.)

While the major presentations took place on the Ford Field turf, the entire lower concourse was ringed by corporate and university exhibits. Included were major displays from General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Toyota, Faurecia (whose exploding airbag was by far the LOUDEST exhibit), the Michigan Department of Transportation, Chrysler LLC, Caterpillar, 3M, Kellogg, Radio Shack, Stryker Corp., Yazaki, Pulte Homes and Dow Chemical.

Michigan Tech, as founder and the lead university behind the event, had by far the largest number of university exhibits, featuring everything from a hovercraft to a polygraph to live satellite mapping.

Photo highlights are available at http://www.yes.mtu.edu/gallery/2007_pictures.php#.

GREEN POST!

Alternative energy summit offers hope for cleaner, greener state

Posted on 11/6/2007 2:44:07 PM Opportunities abound for Michiganders to save money and energy with existing alternative energy technologies. And many will also help boost Michigan's economy and employment. That was the word from a packed house Tuesday morning an an alternative energy summit sponsored by Glima Livingston, Automation Alley's trade association for technology professionals in Livingston County, and the Brighton Chamber of Commerce.The two organizations filled a room at the Crystal Gardens banquet center between Brighton and Howell for the event. NextEnergy title Mark Beyer opened the event by describing the state's efforts at promoting alternative and renewable energy technologies into commercial businesses. The job potential in the field is "huge, actually," Beyer said, "now that climate change has become pretty much a given in the fields of policymaking and public opinion. The global culture is embracing the need to be careful about our carbon output, conserve energy and use lighter weight nonpolluting materials." Virtually every industry, he said, can gain competitive advantage in the hearts and minds of consumers and partners by pushing a green agenda. Michigan has a need for the chemistry and technology professionals to solve battery and solar photovoltaic challenges. And, he said, the real estate and geological worlds will find new opportunities in wind farms and geothermal activity. He challenged those attending to look at what they do and study how to bend it toward renewable energy and energy efficiency. Next up: Rob Derksen of Whitmore Lake-based Michigan Energy Services, which provides geothermal heating and cooling systems. Geothermal heating uses the heat contained in groundwater -- which stays at 52 degres Fahrenheit year-around -- to both heat and cool a home. The only actual energy used is the electricity to pump water and transfer its heat or cooling power, depending on the season. Derksen used his own house as an example of the advantages of the system -- a 2,800 square foot home in Saline with a complete 2,800-square-foot walkout basement. He says he heats and cools that space for about $800 a year, vs. $2,100 a year for natural gas and $3,400 a year wtih propane. He said geothermal pays for itself when bundled into the mortgage on a new home, and on existing homes, payback is 3.6 years if you heat with propane, 7.3 years if you heat with natural gas. The event wrapped up with Larry C. Kauffman, principal program manager at DTE Energy, speaking about the utility's GreenCurrents alternative electricity program. More than 6,000 of DTE's two million ratepayers have signed up for the program so far. The program charges an extra 2 cents a kilowatt-hour to fund the development of renewable energy installations in Michigan. So far, the program has resulted in the building of three renewable energy plants in the state -- a wind farm in Michigan's Thumb, and two biopower plants that use the methane created by decomposing animal dung to generate power. Kauffman referred to the latter plants as "remooable energy," drawing a groan or two. Kauffman said renewable energy creates economic growth, mostly in rural areas, and also helps in energy independence. He said renewables are still more expensive than fossil fuel, but that the gap is narrowing. Michigan generates just 3 percent of its energy from renewable energy, vs. 6 percent nationally. However, that's about to change -- Kauffman said DTE is proposing 300 new megawatts of wind power. Michigan has the most wind power generation potential of any state east of the Mississippi, and is 14th nationally. He also praised solar power for heating water, saying those systems offer seven to 10 year paybacks. That's not true with photovoltaics, which remain prohibitively expensive (but are terrific technology, he added).

DO THE RIGHT THING! From Risk-Adversive to Risk-Immersive

Better to DO the right thing wrong then the wrong thing right.
http://www.archfoundation.org/aaf/audio/Events.Summit.Ackoff.mp3

Michigan's K-12 Education Transformation "Brute-Force to Brain-Force"

NOW That's WHAT I'm TALKING About!

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October 30, 2007

Basics

In Science Classrooms, a Blast of Fresh O₂

By NATALIE ANGIER

Maybe you’ve seen the television quiz show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” and will proudly attest that you are. But how might you stack up against the students in Faye Cascio’s ninth-grade physical science class? Consider the following problems:

1) You fall into a swiftly moving river and are in need of a flotational device. You see a life preserver bobbing three meters downstream of you and another one the same distance behind. Which preserver should you swim toward?

2) A bullet is fired into one end of a spiral tube. When it shoots out of the other end, and forgetting here about the effects of gravity, will the bullet follow a trajectory that (a) is a straight line; (b) begins as a slight curve in the same direction as the spiral tube before gradually straightening out; or (c) begins as a slight curve in the opposite direction of the tube before straightening out?

3) A plane flying into a headwind will have a lower speed, relative to the ground, than it would if it were flying through still air, while a plane traveling with the benefit of a brisk tailwind will have a comparatively greater ground speed. But what about a plane flying through a 90-degree crosswind, a breeze that is buffeting its body side-on? Will its ground speed be higher, lower or no different than it would be in unruffled skies?

The school year is still young, and so, too, is the Academy of Science, the almost sneakily rigorous high school magnet science program in Loudoun County, Va., of which Ms. Cascio’s physics class is a part. Yet already her freshmen students can not only ace exercises in Newtonian mechanics like the samples cited above, but they can also explain the reasoning behind every answer they give.

Many people wring their hands over the state of science education and point to the appalling performance of America’s students in international science and math competitions. Yet some of the direst noises about our nation’s scientific prospects may be premature. Far from rejecting challenging science courses, students seem to be embracing them.

This year, for example, the American Institute of Physics said that the percentage of high school students taking physics courses was at an all-time high, and that the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in the subject had climbed by 31 percent since 2000. Moreover, there are a growing number of “magnet” or “gifted and talented” programs in secondary schools that emphasize science and math. While quality varies widely, and some observers worry that the tiny, competitive programs consume an outsized portion of a school’s budget, a visit to Ms. Cascio’s class and her students, who are not only gifted, talented and magnetic but hardworking, too, is almost enough to make you wish you were back in high school.

So, which life preserver to swim toward? It’s the same either way, just as it wouldn’t matter if you and the floating rings were in a pool on a cruise ship: the speed of the ship won’t affect how quickly you reach one ring or the other.

The path of the bullet as it emerges from its spiraling tube? Well, Newton’s second law, the famed law of inertia, insists that a body in motion will stay in motion unless something persuades it to do otherwise, and that includes directionality. With the elimination of the curving walls of the tube, nothing remains to deflect the bullet off an otherwise linear path: from the point of departure, it’s all a straight shot.

The plane’s ground speed in a crosswind? Ms. Cascio’s students will explain that it is greater than it would be in calm air, and with a few deft sketches of vectors and triangles, they will tell you by how much.

The students can articulate their reasoning because, for one thing, they have no choice. One recent morning, Ms. Cascio asked several students in succession to explain the logic of their answer to the same question — and, “Uh, yeah, I agree with Yasamin and Josh” just wouldn’t do.

“It’s called dipsticking,” Ms. Cascio said. “It’s really important to make sure the kids are picking this information up, and so I ask, Is this clear to you? Do you really understand it? and I won’t go on until I get a positive, satisfying answer.”

A bigger reason the students seemed to wear the material comfortably emerged when they pulled from the classroom closet genuine items of clothing: white lab coats. The Academy of Science is built on the principle of what its director, George Wolfe, calls inquiry-based learning. “I want them to learn to think like scientists,” he said, “rather than regurgitate facts.” From the moment they enter the program, students do experiments, lots of experiments. Not canned experiments, either, of the sort found in the average “science is fun!” book that spell out every step. Here, the students must design experiments themselves, which means they must learn essential lessons like how to ask questions in an answerable way, what’s your error bar, and, will you please just give me some data already.

Their natty new lab jackets shrugged into place, the students in Ms. Cascio’s physics class set out to demonstrate by experiment, in four four-person teams, the Newtonian verity that force equals mass times acceleration. One team proved hyperefficient, and within moments was catapulting ever more heavily weighted wheeled mini-carts along the tabletop and timing each run. Another team got bogged down debating whether their experimental design would work better with one long string or three short ones, until finally their teacher trilled, “Stop obsessing — let’s go!” A boy yearned for a pulley. Too bad, none available.

A mildly manic half-hour later, the data from the four teams were in and projected on an overhead slide for all to see. Calculators clicked as the young white coats computed the percentage of error in their collected findings, and, whoa, it was only 6.6 percent. “That’s phenomenal!” Ms. Cascio crowed. Think about all the things that could have thrown your experiments off course, she told the class — the low-tech equipment, friction from strings rubbing on stacked textbooks. “But even with that, look at how fabulous the results are,” she said. “You set up a great lab, and you should be proud.” It’s one thing to read about Isaac Newton and apples falling from a tree. It’s another to test his laws of motion and see how right they can be.

Ms. Cascio, 57, is a law of motion herself, a stylish dynamo whose voice retains the comforting vibrato of her natal Jersey City. As an undergraduate at Douglass College of Rutgers University, she studied molecular biology and planned to become a doctor, but while living in Greece she began teaching and fell in love with the profession, eventually earning master’s degrees in biology and education. With her decades of experience and a string of national teaching laurels, Ms. Cascio could easily have settled into rote mode, but instead she decided to join the fledgling Academy of Science, where, she admits, the pace can be grueling. “It takes a lot more time to teach inquiry than by plug and chug, by getting up in front of a class and lecturing by the book,” she said.

But how much more satisfying the nosy approach to knowing can be, and how amusing, too. In one biology class last year, for example, Ms. Cascio’s students acquainted themselves with the cell, the nucleus, DNA, proteins, evolution, taxonomy and other bold-faced biology concepts by analyzing meat and seafood products from the supermarket, discovering that, hey, the things that had been sold as scallops were actually pulverized trout pressed into scallop shapes.

Through its emphasis on Socratic parrying and creative laboratory work, the program could well serve as a model for remedying misconceptions. Nearly all scientists and educators agree that somehow, at some point during their pedagogical odyssey, most Americans get the wrong idea about what science is, and what it is not.

“Science is, or should be, about the world, not about science,” said Eugene Levy, a professor of physics and astronomy and the provost of Rice University. “But for too many students, science has been presented as a large series of manipulations that they rarely understand or connect to the reality around them.” If there is a message that he wants his students to take from his introductory science class, he said, “it is to grasp that the world is in fact understandable, that rational inquiry can lead to understanding, and that there’s rarely an excuse to say understanding is beyond them.”

In Ms. Cascio’s class, ignorance is always an excuse — to get out your lab coat. May I have a pulley this time?

K-12 Student-driven Project

Michigan leaders push U.S. for fix in St. Clair River

October 28, 2007

BY TINA LAM

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

With no natural relief -- like more rain and snow -- on the horizon, three powerful Michigan politicians are prodding federal bureaucrats to dust off decades-old ideas about doing something unnatural to help restore water levels now at near-historic lows on Lakes Huron and Michigan.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, both Democrats, and U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, a Macomb County Republican, have asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consider a quick fix at the head of the St. Clair River to stymie the flow out of Lake Huron and help shippers, boaters and wildlife suffering from low water levels.

They want the corps to consider placing a flow inhibitor -- such as concrete speed bumps -- even before the completion of a new study that's examining whether dredging exacerbated low water levels by creating a larger drain hole. Any man-made fix would be hugely controversial, potentially expensive and certain to encounter a minefield of regulatory hurdles on both sides of the border.

Final results of the study -- by the International Joint Commission, a U.S. and Canadian advisory body -- are not expected until early 2009. That's too long to wait, says the bipartisan coalition, echoing what many lakefront property owners have been saying for years.

Experts hired by Canadian homeowners suggested in a 2005 study that St. Clair River dredging completed in the 1960s has permitted an estimated 2.5 billion extra gallons a day to escape from Lake Huron because continuing erosion has deepened the river.

In recent months, the IJC has done preliminary work using a camera-equipped mechanical probe to examine the riverbed to try to determine the validity of the 2005 study. Results of the preliminary probe are expected to be released this week in Toronto.

Granholm and Stabenow asked the corps in separate letters to its Washington and Detroit offices this month to immediately consider dusting off old designs, dating to the early 1960s, for putting weirs -- in effect, concrete speed bumps -- in the bottom of the river.

The corps concedes that human activities from the 1860s to the 1960s -- dredging, sand mining and shoreline alterations -- have caused Lakes Michigan and Huron to drop about 14 inches, including 5 inches from the 1960s dredging alone. But scientists hired by the Georgian Bay Association of homeowners in Canada say that continuing post-dredging erosion is now responsible for closer to 30 inches of lowered levels.

Weirs might not work as intended

The corps had plans for weirs to slow the river's flow after the 1962 dredging, but those weirs were never built because water levels began rising in the late 1960s.

Congress pulled the plug on plans for the weirs in 1977, said Scott Thieme, chief hydrologist in the Detroit office of the Army Corps.

"Since we are no longer in a high water level cycle, I am requesting that the corps immediately evaluate the potential effectiveness of the structural measures that were identified as part of the corps project plan when dredging of the St. Clair River occurred in the 1960s," Granholm wrote in an Oct. 17 letter.

Liz Boyd, a spokeswoman for Granholm, said the lakes are the lifeblood of the state's economy and quality of life.

"We need the federal government to help us solve a problem they helped create decades ago," Boyd said.

That would be consistent with a promise President George W. Bush gave in 2004 to make federal agencies partners in restoring the Great Lakes, she said.

Such a fix, while raising levels in Lakes Michigan and Huron, could cause the level of Lake St. Clair to drop by about 2 inches.

Many government scientists in the United States and Canada reject the findings of the Georgian Bay study. They say more complicated factors are at work and the data the study relied on -- the government's data -- could be flawed. They caution against making changes until the new international study is done.

Politicians want the corps to act sooner. "People are justifiably concerned that such dramatic drops in lake levels could be inadvertently caused by our government's own actions," Stabenow wrote to the corps on Oct. 10.

Miller said she has pushed for a fix in the river since the Georgian Bay study was released. "I'm glad to hear the governor and senators talking about this now," she said. "I've been trying to get them to do something."

Thieme said the corps has discussed with congressional staff the idea of taking a fresh look at its old weir plans, but it couldn't be done quickly. It would require funding from Congress, studies, environmental permits, public hearings and consultation with the Canadian government, he said. "We'd have to make sure we weren't benefiting some people while others were losing," he said.

For example, a drop in Lake St. Clair of 2 inches would be permanent, he said. Roger Gauthier, a hydrologist for the Great Lakes Commission, disagreed and said a drop in Lake St. Clair because of such a fix would last less than a year.

Miller, whose district spans part of the shoreline of Lake Huron as well as Lake St. Clair, said she's not sure. "I'm not a hydrologist, but I don't think it would have a lasting negative impact," she said.

Thieme said slowing the flow out of the St. Clair River could cause problems if water levels rise again. "There are pros and cons to whatever you do," he said.

River is at center of mystery

Low water levels have been a major Great Lakes problem this decade. Low water hurts commercial shipping, which supplies raw materials for the auto, steel and building industries, forcing ships to carry less cargo per trip and jacking up costs. Wetlands dry up, affecting the habitat for fish and other creatures. Boaters bang propellers on rocks or have to extend their docks.

Lake Superior hit a record low for a September last month but has since risen about 8 inches. Lakes Michigan and Huron are about 5 inches above record lows. Lakes St. Clair and Erie are closer to their long-term averages.

The mystery is why the lower lakes are in better shape, hydrologically speaking, than the upper lakes, and whether dredging in the St. Clair River is the reason. That's at the heart of the political debates.

The so-called bathtub drain Georgian Bay Association study has created a huge international fuss as hydrologists, climatologists and engineers battle over its accuracy. Other scientists have never reviewed the study, and the International Joint Commission work will effectively do that.

Scientists who dispute the Canadian study attribute low lake levels to a combination of factors: tilting of the earth's crust after the glaciers receded; climate change; weather cycles; storms that hit the lower lakes but miss the upper ones; less ice cover that leads to more evaporation of the lakes in winter, and years of drought.

But the bathtub drain theory has taken on a life of its own. It has gotten so much attention on both sides of the border -- including lengthy reports on CNN and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. -- that many people accept it as gospel. "The Yanks are stealing our water," said a recent post on a Canadian newspaper's Web site.

People may buy the erosion theory of why lake levels are low because it can be fixed, said John Nevin, spokesman for the IJC study in Washington, D.C. "People see erosion as an engineering problem and say, 'We can fix that,' " he said. "We can't fix climate."

Study chief cautions against haste

The $15-million study of the St. Clair River will look at complicated scientific calculations of river flow, sediment deposits, weather patterns and the tipping of the earth's crust.

"We all want to know the answer, but it's going to take time," said Jim Nicholas, cochairman of the study. Much of the information used now, such as water flow gauges and depth records, needs to be reexamined to see whether it's accurate, he said.

The study will produce new data using more modern methods, which could change the conclusions, he said. For example, videos of the river's bottom are being made by using an unmanned, camera-equipped submarine to see what's actually there. Hydraulic models of the river will be created. Sonar will be used to take overlapping measurements of large swaths of the river.

Gauthier said he has pushed for four years for new river flow meters that are just now being installed for the study.

"It should never have taken 30 years for government to measure the depth of the river," said Gauthier. "This is the most critical location in all the Great Lakes."

He doubts whether everyone will be satisfied when the study is complete.

Canadians feel a short shrift

The Georgian Bay Association already has concerns.

"We feel there is a coolness towards our report being taken seriously," said Bill Bialkowski, an engineer who did the latest association calculations. "Ours was a short study, $250,000, because we have small pockets and we're not the government. It was our hope that this study, which has much deeper pockets, would look more closely."

He's concerned it won't. Among other things, he said a full three-dimensional model of the river is needed, but not planned. (K-12 Student-driven Project)

Mary Muter, a Georgian Bay homeowner who is on the study's public advisory panel, said she's concerned about the science, especially because none of the association's experts is directly involved in the study. Design work on mitigation measures to slow the river's flow should already be under way, she said.

"We can't wait," Muter said.

Kay Felt, a retired Detroit attorney who lives on Lake St. Clair and cochairs the public advisory panel, said the study must balance scientific and personal points of view.

"We have people who want us to immediately dump rocks in the river, and my neighbors who want all the water coming down the river they can get.

"We can't listen to one small, vocal group. We have to get the science right."

Contact TINA LAM at 313-222-6421 or tlam@freepress.com.

Do schools today kill creativity? (Ken Robinson, TEDTalks)

Note to self: The contextual implicaton is that CREATIVITY ever existed in the Silo's of Irrelevance in the first place. NOT!

Dangerous DIGITAL Consequence?

---

October 26, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

The Outsourced Brain

By DAVID BROOKS

The gurus seek bliss amidst mountaintop solitude and serenity in the meditative trance, but I, grasshopper, have achieved the oneness with the universe that is known as pure externalization.

I have melded my mind with the heavens, communed with the universal consciousness, and experienced the inner calm that externalization brings, and it all started because I bought a car with a G.P.S.

Like many men, I quickly established a romantic attachment to my G.P.S. I found comfort in her tranquil and slightly Anglophilic voice. I felt warm and safe following her thin blue line. More than once I experienced her mercy, for each of my transgressions would be greeted by nothing worse than a gentle, “Make a U-turn if possible.”

After a few weeks, it occurred to me that I could no longer get anywhere without her. Any trip slightly out of the ordinary had me typing the address into her system and then blissfully following her satellite-fed commands. I found that I was quickly shedding all vestiges of geographic knowledge.

It was unnerving at first, but then a relief. Since the dawn of humanity, people have had to worry about how to get from here to there. Precious brainpower has been used storing directions, and memorizing turns. I myself have been trapped at dinner parties at which conversation was devoted exclusively to the topic of commuter routes.

My G.P.S. goddess liberated me from this drudgery. She enabled me to externalize geographic information from my own brain to a satellite brain, and you know how it felt? It felt like nirvana.

Through that experience I discovered the Sacred Order of the External Mind. I realized I could outsource those mental tasks I didn’t want to perform. Life is a math problem, and I had a calculator.

Until that moment, I had thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more, but then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less. It provides us with external cognitive servants — silicon memory systems, collaborative online filters, consumer preference algorithms and networked knowledge. We can burden these servants and liberate ourselves.

Musical taste? I have externalized it. Now I just log on to iTunes and it tells me what I like.

I click on its recommendations, sample 30 seconds of each song, and download the ones that appeal. I look on my iPod playlist and realize I’ve never heard of most of the artists I listen to. I was once one of those people with developed opinions about the Ramones, but now I’ve shed all that knowledge and blindly submit to a mishmash of anonymous groups like the Reindeer Section — a disturbing number of which seem to have had their music featured on the soundtrack of “The O.C.”

Memory? I’ve externalized it. I am one of those baby boomers who are making this the “It’s on the Tip of My Tongue Decade.” But now I no longer need to have a memory, for I have Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia. Now if I need to know some fact about the world, I tap a few keys and reap the blessings of the external mind.

Personal information? I’ve externalized it. I’m no longer clear on where I end and my BlackBerry begins. When I want to look up my passwords or contact my friends I just hit a name on my directory. I read in a piece by Clive Thompson in Wired that a third of the people under 30 can’t remember their own phone number. Their smartphones are smart, so they don’t need to be. Today’s young people are forgoing memory before they even have a chance to lose it.

Now, you may wonder if in the process of outsourcing my thinking I am losing my individuality. Not so. My preferences are more narrow and individualistic than ever. It’s merely my autonomy that I’m losing.

I have relinquished control over my decisions to the universal mind. I have fused with the knowledge of the cybersphere, and entered the bliss of a higher metaphysic. As John Steinbeck nearly wrote, a fella ain’t got a mind of his own, just a little piece of the big mind — one mind that belongs to everybody. Then it don’t matter, Ma. I’ll be everywhere, around in the dark. Wherever there is a network, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a TiVo machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a Times reader selecting articles based on the most e-mailed list, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way Amazon links purchasing Dostoyevsky to purchasing garden furniture. And when memes are spreading, and humiliation videos are shared on Facebook — I’ll be there, too.

I am one with the external mind. Om.

Education Today and Tomorrow "A DIGITAL CONUNDRUM"

A Vision of Students Today

Begin With The End in Mind! Curriculum for Differentiated Learning & Understanding

Understanding by Design Web-site
http://www.ubdexchange.org/

Review: Book Contents

Milford Powerhouse Project / Virtual Update!

Milford Powerhouse Virtual Tour
http://www.milfordpowerhouse.com/1/165/Virtual_Tour_of_Milford_Powerhouse.asp?artID=9873

THE URGENCY GAP! HOW should WE FILL IT?

Voters urge teaching of 21st-century skills Poll suggests 'back-to-basics' approach to education is not enough for nation's citizens

By Meris Stansbury, Assistant Editor, eSchool News October 15, 2007

In yet another sign that momentum is building for the teaching of so-called "21st-century skills" in the nation's classrooms, results of a new poll indicate that voters overwhelmingly agree: The skills students need to succeed in the workplace of today are notably different from what they needed 20 years ago.

Americans are deeply concerned that the United States is not preparing students with the skills they need to compete in the new global economy, according to the poll. Eighty-eight percent of voters say they believe schools can, and should, incorporate 21st-century skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, communication and self-direction, and computer and technology skills into the curriculum. What's more, 66 percent of voters say they believe students need more than just the basics of reading, writing, and math; schools also need to incorporate a broader range of skills, Americans say.

The findings come as candidates for public office are ratcheting up their campaigns for the 2008 elections. Advocates of educational technology hope the poll results will mobilize candidates to talk more about the need for 21st-century instruction.

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), which commissioned the survey, released its findings at a National Press Club event Oct. 10.

"Voters generally are not happy with the direction our schools are headed with respect to ensuring we have the skills to compete," said the report's authors, Bill McInturff with Public Opinion Strategies and Geoff Garin with the Peter D. Hart Research Associates.

"Ten to 15 years ago, America was in a back-to-basics mode, meaning focusing strictly on math, science, and reading. The pendulum might have swung too far in one direction. This survey represents a change in the country's attitudes," explained Garin.

Administered during a three-day period in September, the survey asked 800 registered voters for their opinions about how well their schools are performing. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus three-and-a-half percentage points.

According to the report, when asked how they would rate the schools in their district, 53 percent of voters rated their schools an "A" or a "B." However, when asked to rate their schools in comparison to other leading countries' schools, such as China's or India's, grades dropped to "C" and "D," with only 13 percent of voters agreeing that the U.S. is doing a better job than other countries.

"That's less than one in seven," said Garin. "That's startling."

Although voters believe their schools are doing a good job of teaching computer literacy and technology skills, 80 percent say students need to learn different things than what they learned 20 years ago, such as focusing more on collaboration, communication, and cultural knowledge.

In fact, only 38 percent of voters say schools are doing a good job of keeping pace with changing educational needs. Three out of five believe schools are doing a "fair" or "poor" job.

McInturff said the survey reveals that voters believe students are not workforce-ready, don't have the breadth of skills needed to succeed in today's world, and are not well-rounded enough.

"They believe students need more knowledge of problem-solving skills, [need] to learn different languages, and [need to] know the cultural history of various countries," he said.

Voters' opinions mirror those of employers, based on a separate poll conducted last year. In that poll, sponsored by P21 along with the Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Society for Human Resource Management, business leaders reported that while the three "Rs" are still fundamental to every employee's ability to do the job, applied skills such as teamwork, critical thinking, and communication also are essential for success. (See "Survey reveals the skills employers desire most".)

"It's important to note," said McInturff, "that people don't want to replace core skills, they just want to build around them." Two-thirds of the voters polled said schools need to teach more than just reading, math, and writing, and three-quarters of voters want there to be at least equal emphasis on 21st-century skills.

Eighty percent of voters agreed that critical thinking and problem solving are important, yet only 18 percent thought schools were doing a good job of teaching these skills. Seventy-seven percent of voters think oral communication skills are important, while only 16 percent believe they are being well taught. Three-fourths of voters said ethics and social responsibility are important, while only 15 percent think these are being well taught.

"We believe that people see these skills not only in terms of what constitutes a good employee, but also what constitutes a good citizen--both roles that will help lead our country into a bright future," said Garin.

Why the shift in attitudes from 20 years ago? McInturff attributes the change in voter perspective to a "huge economic anxiety right below the surface." He believes that, with China and India making great strides in education and workforce development, Americans are worried. "By making education an issue, we can start a discussion about how to solve our anxiety," he said.

An astonishing number of poll participants, 99 percent, said they believe students' 21st-century skills will be critical to the future success of the nation's economy.

Despite such an apparent consensus, the road toward change in the nation's schools might be a rocky one.

A recent report from the nonprofit group Public Agenda, titled "Important, But Not for Me: Parents and Students in Kansas and Missouri Talk About Math, Science, and Technology Education," suggests that although parents and students understand the national importance of math, science, and technology skills, they just don't see these as important for themselves. (See "Parents, kids don't see need for math, science skills".)

This could imply that although voters see the need for change on a national scale, they might not know, or even want, to incite change at the local level.

In response to P21's voter survey, Jean Johnson, executive vice president of Public Agenda, said, "Unfortunately, the apparent consensus begins to fall apart when we probe on the specifics. That is, parents and students endorse the general aim, but when you start asking them about the details, they are much less enthusiastic."

Johnson continued: "At Public Agenda, we've labeled this phenomenon an 'urgency gap.' People may accept the challenge in a general way, but they don't really see it when we ask them about their own schools and what their children need to study."

On the other hand, P21 notes that six states have joined the group's initiative to help incorporate 21st-century skills into the classroom, and officials hope that, by next summer, another six will have joined.

The group also hopes to provide policy makers and educators with more tools to help incorporate 21st-century instruction into their schools.

"This is a moment in both the economy and the upcoming election where Americans are looking for hope," said Garin. By focusing on education and the teaching of 21st-century skills to the nation's students, citizens and their elected officials can "help lead the country to a promising future."

Links:
Partnership for 21st Century Skills
Public Agenda
www.eschoolnews.com info@eschoolnews.com 7920 Norfolk Ave., Suite 900 Bethesda, MD 20814 (800) 394-0115 - Fax (301) 913-0119 Privacy Policy Manage your FREE eSchool News eMail subscriptions here Contents Copyright 2007 eSchool News. All rights reserved.

OUR URGENCY FACTOR: Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age