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Administration Accomplishments in Education and Technology
Administration Accomplishments in Education and Technology
The Clinton Administration has made an unprecedented commitment to bringing
technology into the classroom. As a central element of the President's lifelong
learning agenda, the Administration believes that technology can help expand
opportunities for American children to improve their skills, maximize their potential,
and ready them for the 21st century workforce.
Technology Learning Challenge
The Clinton Administration has initiated a
"Technology Learning Challenge," to challenge communities to form partnerships of
local school systems, students, colleges, universities and private businesses to
develop creative new ways to use technology for learning. Each grant focuses on
integrating innovative learning technologies into curriculum and leverages federal
dollars to establish local consortia of communities committed to school reform and
technology integration. The Administration expects to award 19 grants for FY 95.
Connecting classrooms
Connecting schools is so important that the President and
Vice President have made a connecting every classroom, library, hospital and hospital
clinic to the National Information Infrastructure by the year 2000 a national priority.
The Clinton Administration is working actively with Congress, the states, local
governments, private industry, public interest groups and the public groups
themselves to achieve this goal.
Grants to schools through TIIAP
In 1994, the Clinton Administration created the
TIIAP (Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program)
which makes grants to public institutions to speed up the flow of information through
the application of advanced communications technology. Through federal support
and investment, TIIAP has accelerated the pace of connecting public institutions and
has stimulated private sector investment. This program has enabled the federal
government to leverage $24.4 million in federal funds to provide a total of $64.4
million in cutting-edge demonstration projects for public institutions. The program is
so successful that there are 200 times more applications than there are grants.
AskERIC Program
In order to reach out to the teachers across the country, the
Clinton Administration created the AskERIC service, which stands for the Educational
Resources Information Clearing House Service. Educators are able to send questions
through e-mail to askERIC, and receive a response within 48 hours. Educators can
ask about lesson plans, educational techniques information on GOALS 2000 and so
on. Every week 200 new questions come in, and the information that ERIC has made
available on-line, such as sample lesson plans and answers to frequently asked
questions is accessed more than 15,000 times a week.
Star Schools Program
The Star School's distance learning projects have helped to
improve instruction in mathematics, science and foreign languages, literacy skills and
vocational education. These distance learning projects serve under-served populations
through partnerships that develop, construct, acquire, maintain and operate
telecommunications audio and visual facilities and equipment, develop and acquire
educational and instructional programming, and obtain technical assistance for the
use of such facilities and instructional programming. More than one million students
and their teachers in 50 states and territories participate in this program.
Connecting Students to the Environment
Vice President Gore initiated the Global
Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program in 1994.
GLOBE joins students, educators and scientists in an international science and
environmental education network using state-of-the-art technology. GLOBE students
make environmental observations at or near their schools and share their data through
the Internet. More than 2,000 schools in the U.S. are participating in GLOBE in
1995.
Assessing School Connectivity
The first national survey of schools access to broad
band telecommunications and the Internet was completed in the Fall of 1994. A
second national survey will be conducted in October, 1995 and will document the
progress being made to link schools and classrooms.
Improving rural education and health care
The Administration's commitment to
ensuring the wide dissemination of information has worked through the Rural
Utilities Service Distance Learning and Medical Link (DLML) Grant Program, to
improving education and health care for rural residents throughout the Nation. The
program has already given hundreds of students attending rural schools in 28 states
access to previously unavailable courses.
Teaching computer science skills
The Clinton Administration has worked through
the Department of Energy's Computer Science Education Project (CSEP) to develop
educational materials, including experimental syllabus for teaching interdisciplinary
computational science. This information is available on the Internet and is also
disseminated through training workshops for educators.
Regional Technology Consortia Grant Program
The Clinton Administration
initiated the Regional Technology Consortia Grant Program authorizing $10 million in
FY 95. Six consortia of technical assistance providers will be funded to help state,
local educational agencies, teachers, administrators and others to integrate advanced
technologies into K-12 grade classrooms, library media centers and other educational
settings (including adult literacy centers). Consortia will establish and conduct
regional activities that address professional development, technical assistance, and
information resource dissemination to promote the effective use of technology in
education.
National Plan for Technology in Education
Education Secretary Riley will submit
a National Plan for Technology in Education to Congress in October. The report is
the effort of hundreds of educators, citizens and industry leaders in seven regional
forums, two national conferences and a on-line discussion over the Internet.
Rural telecommunications infrastructure
The Rural Utilities Service (RUS)
administers grants and loan programs to assist rural and remote communities with the
development of their communications infrastructure, including schools. Additionally,
fifty-two K-12 school systems will be provided two-way interactive video services.