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Schools To Get Their Own DARPA
Julie188 writes "A decade ago, Lawrence Grossman, former president of both NBC News and PBS, and Newton Minow, former chairman of the FCC, proposed that the government set up a multi-billion dollar trust that would act as a 'venture capital fund' to research educational technologies for schools, libraries and museums. Congress has finally approved the idea, and grants could start rolling by this fall. Dubbed the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, it should be to education what the National Science Foundation is for science, and DARPA is for national defense."
NCRAIDT or maybe NC-RAIDT or better yet just RAID-T. I wonder how much parity there is?
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
When I was growing up, all the other kids on my block had a DARPA, but I didn't.
I had to do with some stupid National Science Foundation
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
for sharks with frikken lasers.
About time someone in government considers education as important as military "defense" and scientific breakthroughs.
You were lucky! All I had was a lousy National Endowment for the Arts. Every day I'd have some jerkoff smearing my walls with feces in the shape of the Virgin Mary in exchange for grant money. It was a nightmare.
No amount of money is going to get parents in failing schools to care about their kid's education.
The reason is two experiences: one me in school, and the other my youngest daughter in school.
When I was a kid they came up with the "new math". Basically, it was a different way to do long division. The theory was that this new way better explained how numbers work, but in reality it did no such thing. All it did was to prevent my parents from helping with my homework, since I couldn't do long dividion like they did and they couldn't do it like I was taught. I was at a disadvantage for years, until I learned how to use a slide rule, which actually did teach me how numbers worked.
When my daughter was in kindergarten they had a new thing called "invented spelling", and it was an unmitigated disaster. She still misspells many words the same way she misspelled them before she learned to read (she's 22 now).
The truble with new teaching technologies is that unlike medical experiments, you can't do them on animals first. Test them on real kids and if the experiment fails, so do the children.
Free Martian Whores!
... to piss away money. Kids in 3rd world countries learn to read and write with just a teacher, a blackboard and some sticks to write in the dirt with. US schools can't competently teach even when given $15,000 /yr/student. More money is not the answer.
To quote the fine article:
To build support for the project, the group created three prototypes: an educational video game for biology students called Immune Attack; a game for museums, called Discovering Babylon; and a computer simulation to train firefighters in high-rise fires. They typify the projects the center will be looking to finance.
So, basically, its about building a virtual simulation that costs more per user than doing something real? My guess is the immune system video game will cost more than buying books, microscopes, and slides. The Babylon museum game (wtf?) will cost more than a field trip to a real museum. The virtual fire fighting simulator will cost more than having the building trades class build a freaking building.
The National Science Foundation, Mr. Grossman said, started in 1950 with a six-figure appropriation; its fiscal year 2009 appropriation was nearly $6.5 billion.
Ahh, thats the goal, build a new bureaucracy. God knows we need more million dollar executive bonuses.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Sorry, the title of this article is pretty misleading. DARPAis working on missile defense and high energy laser technology. The current lofty plans for this group? Three video games.
I laud this effort. It's something we desperately need to do to stay competitive. But there's no need to oversensationalize.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
This sounds like a waste of money, but if such an organization took over the educational role of the NSF, and let the NSF return to just doing basic research, it could be a good thing. However the more likely scenario would be for the new organization to be heaped on top of what the NSF does. The NSF is increasingly being run by kindergarten teachers, and has less and less to do with basic research.
Golly, we really need more bureaucrats and professional Windows Solitaire players in this country.
And kids in school really need more exposure to media rather than that dirty, scary real stuff.
Technology has the potential to break the monopoly of school districts and classrooms. Right now kids are taught primarily one way. In groups of 20-30 they sit in classrooms and get education from a teacher. The quality of the teacher in process and as fountain of knowledge gos a long way in determining the success of the student. With proper infrastructure each kid can be taught in the way they learn best from the best instructors with the local teachers being facilitators of finding the knowledge. In addition to no child being left behind, we can get no child held back.
I hope they allocate some money for existing projects, personal favorites are LTSP and FOG Project; both of which are used in schools and my own personal computer lab for fun.
I'd hate to see the money dumped into new projects that cost way too much, and don't do half of what already exists out there.
Feel free to add your own, I can always use more bookmarks.
Jonah HEX
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
It's not pronounceable so it's not an acronym.
Acronyms are to abbreviations as squares are to rectangles.
Why does everything have to have an abbreviation? i'd like to see companies, institutions, protocols and the like with... NAMES. Just give it a name!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
I admit, IMLS doesn't do education in general, but they've been around for some time, and fund museums and libraries. US Dept. of Education has some grants for education ... so the only thing differentiating this one from stuff that's well established is that it's all about 'digital technologies'.
I'm less than impressed. All that this is going to do is add bureaucracy. You're going to have people attempting to apply for grants at all of the available places, and with such limited funding, I wouldn't be surprised if they spent more in evaluating proposals and administering the program than in awards.
(I've sat on a few government grant review panels, although not in this field, and the amount to be awarded is down, but the number of proposals is up ... and we make sure that *every* proposal is given a fair evaluation, which means a *lot* of people being involved, so you have enough expertise to understand what's being proposed and what its potential impacts are. On the review boards I've been a member of, each proposal is assigned a primary and two secondary reviewers, who have to submit their reviews before review starts, then you meet face-to-face (in groups of 8-12 people) to review a block of maybe 25-40 proposals, and you have to have a written report for each proposal to submit to the program head by the end of the last day of the review period. As there will be multiple groups, each with a different special focus, you might also pass some proposals around so they're seen by even more people.)
As some of us get travel reimbursement and/or honorariums, and the government employees are pulled from their normal jobs, it's probably safe to say that the review boards alone might cost a person-day per proposal, not including all of the other administration that goes into it.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
When I was growing up, all the other kids on my block had a DARPA, but I didn't.
I had to do with some stupid National Science Foundation
When I was growing up, all the other kids in the country had the National Science Foundation, but I didn't.
I had to make do with the Texas Board of Education.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
That acronym still needs work (NCRAIDT?), but it's nice to see the Education Department taking responsibility for, you know, doing their job. There has been significant grumbling among some scientists that we've essentially been forced to include pre-university educational plans in our NSF research grants.
What they need are the following things:
1) A legal environment which bitch slaps parents who bring frivolous lawsuits.
2) A competitive market for services.
3) Less politicization.
For God's sake, schools are considering getting rid of science classes because they "need more money for struggling minorities." That is how severe the need for privatizing and depoliticizing the process is. The politically correct would rather pull everyone down so that no one is left behind (because we're all not moving forward) than see a less equal, but more competitive (and eventually cheaper) marketplace for educational services.
US public schools still have no common/minimal national curriculum. Before you, idiots, will start developing your "educational technologies" you will have to wrestle public school curriculum out of your States' hands.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'm not certain how the bureaucracy is going to work, but there are tools being developed right now for education that are really kind of neat. If you ask almost any teacher, they'll tell you the biggest problem with teaching kids is simply keeping them awake in class. Tools that are designed to allow more interaction are important. Not all teachers can be Mr. Smith from Junior High who would dance on his desk while reading a chapter Dante's Inferno to the class or Mrs. Peabody who speaks in Olde English phrases for the entire two months of Shakespeare. So if someone can piece together technology to make your boring teachers fun again, I'm all for it.
There's a tool developed by...I can never remember...I want to say somewhere in Washington State. Basically the teacher gives two students (volunteers) tablet PCs and she has her own. She projects her laptop, and the other two tablets can be viewed (along with her own) through a program on the rest of the students' laptops, phones, etc. She goes about teaching her course. The tablet students take notes through a piece of software, make adjustments to a copy of her slides, etc. The other students use the same software to view all this, including able to do cool things like highlight words and get quick definitions. It's sort of collaborative note-taking. And all of the teacher's original slides as well as all the notes from the tablet users are stored online for later viewing.
How does this help? Because the tablet students may take notes you're not thinking of, right or wrong, and it opens your mind right there and then to alternative thoughts. You're not stuck re-writing what the teacher is doing and trying to think on it later. You're more engaged this way. But most importantly, you're paying attention, either to the teacher or the tablet users' writing. The teacher even said she doesn't really ever look back on the tablet users' notes. She'll occasionally hear giggles from the class but to her, that just means they aren't asleep.
It will never last with an acronym like that. Should have called it National Education by Research Department.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
BitNet, is that you? SENDFILE, please!
Create open source course materials, and put all the textbook companies out of business! Textbooks should be a collaborative effort between teachers with decades of experience in real classroom settings, not work-for-hire by companies that have a vested interest in revising the text every year just to sell a few more copies. Of course, the lobbyists for the publishing houses might have some objections to this plan...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
When I was growing up, all the other kids on my block had a DARPA, but I didn't. I had to do with some stupid National Science Foundation
You're lucky you had a NSF. I'm a political scientist, they want us to not even have that!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
At least US government is doing something, here in the UK, the education is poor, not even close to USA, bad standards and funny is when I approach many local public schools to offer membership to a robotic club for kids, they just say "not interested" they not even let me had the opportunity to talk
Education is the only way countries can progress, and increment the GDP, loot at china for instance, (yes I know, about the human rights issues, and etc. I'mnot into politics) but is a good example.
I'm not form the UK, but when I came, here to work as High skilled, I was shocked by the education (well, I'm still here and I help my kids in thier education)
Anyway, good for the USA, I hope they can lead the education and progress once more.
(Education- Education- education - Tony Blair (What a lie!!!)
because your going to have to ditch the educator unions too. Its a jobs program, both for those who went to school to teach and those who know the right people. The ratio of employees (teachers, admins, etc) to students has never been higher and education just keeps becoming less and less.
Reference the Vermont State of the Union speech given recently http://www.stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=449875 and understand the problem facing education in this country. This "new DARPA for schools" will simply increase the number of non educators in the system further burdening it. We all know we can't get rid of the people we have and as such we just have to get more from any new program. Until we get over it and start ditching people who are not needed in the education budget we will never improve it. Yes it is sad we don't need all of them, but like the milkmen of days gone by, society adjusts to changing needs.
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Since 1997, school staffing levels have increased by 23 percent, while our student population has decreased by 11.5 percent. The number of teacher's aides has gone up 43 percent. The number of support staff has gone up 48 percent. For every four fewer students a new teacher, teacher's aide or staff person was hired. There are 11 students for every teacher - the lowest ratio in the country - and a staggering five students for every adult in our schools. With personnel costs accounting for 80 percent of total school spending, it's no wonder that our K-12 system is among the most expensive in the nation at $14,000 per student per year.
In most organizations, if your customer base is shrinking, you make adjustments to stay within budget and, at a minimum, you stop hiring. Although some will be quick to scold that "education is not a business," neither is Medicaid or public safety or environmental conservation. But in each of these areas, if we ignore the basics of prudent financial management, we imperil the services that we provide. Until labor costs in our schools are brought under control, taxpayers can expect their bills to grow every year and the onus of the property tax will continue to threaten a healthy economy.
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* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Or we could wean from the Ritalin and buy a few more textbooks.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
So you were doing National Science Foundation Work? I wonder how many people clicked on you by mistake.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If he were somebody who had actually achieved something other than being a career talking head, he might actually have some credibility (too bad Congress is full of similarly delusional idiots).
Education today, especially at levels below university, is mostly pork barrel social assistance to chronic under-achievers (students AND teachers), who would otherwise have troubles keeping up with mainstream society.
Wow you really had it hard.
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
You obviously don't know what you are talking about. DARPA does (and did) many things besides working on missile defense and laser tech. You might remember Internet to be one of it. More modestly I actually work on a DARPA project for next generation electronics. Hardly something confined in missiles.
You can expect roughly the same with this program.
It will soon become another haven for educationally trained money sponges which will produce nothing but studies and unworkable pie in the sky "solutions" to employ yet more educationally trained money sponges.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Such money is not there for the kids that are failing, its meant for the kids that are succeeding.
The failures need to be told to not bother coming back for year 11 (only 10 years of schooling is mandatory in Australia, the final 2 are optional). Instead in the US failure is rewarded by sports scholarships.
This money should be used to advance science and technology, not simply to throw more funds at schools per student. The DARPA analogy isn't a good one, this should use the CISRO model to develop new tech after all if new technologies are developed that can be leveraged to create funds for the project.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.