THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK / ALBANY, NY 12234

 

TO:	The Honorable the Members of the Board of Regents
FROM:	David Walsh
COMMITTEE:	Quality
TITLE OF ITEM:	USNY Technology Policy and Practices Council
DATE OF SUBMISSION:	May 10, 2004
PROPOSED HANDLING:	Information
RATIONALE FOR ITEM:	Update
STRATEGIC GOAL:	4,5
AUTHORIZATION(S):

 

 

 

SUMMARY:

 

Attached is the meeting summary for the USNY Technology Policy and Practices Council held on May 4, 2004.

USNY TECHNOLOGY POLICY AND PRACTICES COUNCIL

Meeting Summary

May 4, 2004

10:00AM – 3:30PM

Regents Room, State Education Building

 

Co-Chairs:

Don Jacobs Center for applied Technologies University of Buffalo

Ellen Meier Center for Technology and School Change Teachers College, Columbia University

 

Attending via video-conference:

                        Richard Mills, Commissioner of Education

                        Chancellor Robert Bennett

                        Regent Robert Johnson

 

Commissioner Mills addressed the group, highlighting:

• The University of the State of New York (USNY), the unique entity that we have in New York State.  He discussed the document “Engaging the University of the State of New York,” which has been circulated to the Council.
• The need to close the gap by focusing the energies of all USNY – the performance gap in K-12 education; the gap in access to resources of libraries and cultural institutions; the shortages in teachers, administrators, licensed professions.
• The commitment of the Regents to achieving these goals.

 

Regent Johnson discussed:

• The vision of using technology to close the gaps in education.
• The use of technology to bring scarce resources from the high-resource schools to low-resource schools, e.g., using technology to bring a physics teacher’s lesson from a suburban school to a rural school.
• The need to have the best-educated workforce in the country – to look at our mission from an economic point of view.

 

Chancellor Bennett re-emphasized our mission as a USNY-wide mission:  we cannot look at our resources from our institutional silos (K-12, higher education, museums, libraries), but as a collaborative endeavor to achieve singular goals.  He also directed the Council to:

• Think big
• Think quickly
• Be as creative as we can be to enhance learning across USNY

 

Working from the Objectives

The stated objectives of this group:

• Identify technology/network infrastructures within USNY institutions
• Identify digital content being created/shared/exchanged within USNY institutions
• Identify the capability to use technology within USNY institutions
• Begin to build a data map of the State

 

The three guiding questions:

• Where are we now?
• Where do we want to be?
• How do we get there?

 

Three subgroups were organized (loosely based on K-12, higher education, and libraries/museums), and Ellen charged them with answering the following questions:

1. What are we talking about – what is the glossary?
2. What should we ask?
3. Whom should we ask?
4. How do we go about this task?
5. What barriers exist?

 

Criteria for judging responses to questions two, three and four:

·        Is it reasonable to ask?

·        Is it feasible to do?

·        Will it reveal usable information?

 

Summarizing and Next Steps

The Council endorses the direction:

• Identify a means of collecting information on current state of network/technology infrastructure, current digital content creation, and current capacity of customers to use the technology.  This involves capacity at three important levels:  people, content, and technology used to deliver knowledge to our customers.
• Plan to have a report on this current state by the anticipated November convocation.
• Concurrently, begin discussions about our vision:  Where do we want to be?

 

Ellen and Don proposed the following steps to carry out these tasks:

• The Co-chairs, Regent Bowman, Regent Johnson, and David Walsh will review the material generated by this meeting and create a summary of key issues.
• During the next month, the co-chairs will identify and speak with a number of potential consultants who could carry out the information gathering.  The criteria for such an organization are:

□        It needs to have a national profile, with broad experience in doing such an information survey; and

□        It must have the capacity to carry out this work quickly.

Council members may recommend potential consultants.  Don and Ellen mentioned four:  Tom Carroll, Larry Irvin, Linda Roberts, and Margaret Honey.

·        We will search current literature on these issues, and identify any work that is already done and pertains to our work.

·        The Council will meet in early June.

 

Materials, meeting summaries, and membership information will be posted on the Council's web site, www.usnytech.org.