You may decide that by reaching even a handful of teachers who start blogging projects, this has the opportunity to influence lots of kids. And opening a door to just a few of those kids that might otherwise be closed to them is worth more than all the committee meetings, summits, and press releases in the world. One inspired teacher, one inspired kid–it’s a chain of events that can change the world.

OR – you can envision a future where many more kids lives are changed by some improvement in the educational system brought on as a result of a law that you helped shape.

I don’t think these are right/wrong choices, but choices that suit your personality and temperament.

Thought you might be interested in my post today:

http://snipurl.com/1d3hx

I wasn’t trying to write off the meeting, and actually agree that contact is good and definitely a point for starting discussion.

I was just saying (in my first comment) that perhaps the conversation was somewhat divergent because the purpose for the conference call wasn’t entirely clearly established and there were so many diverse players involved for such a brief time.

I agree with Scott also about the myriad audiences that Congress plays to, and the complexity of the policy world, etc. and needing to participate in that. Another thing influencing all this politically that we should be aware of is the bill filed regarding NCLB today.

http://www.nationaledtechplan.org

The message of the latest one that educational technology was critically important was undercut a month later by the Administration proposing to zero out the E2T2 budget…

Perhaps it is time for another summit in Washington similar to the Secretary’s Conference in 1995 (Making it Happen – http://www.ed.gov/Technology/TechConf/1995/index.html
, where educational technology leaders were invited to speak and demonstrate on particular topics. That summit, with its avowed purpose of beginning a National Long-Range Plan for Educational Technology, was quite influential since Mosaic had just been released and we were able to demonstrate our first attempts at creating meaningful educational web sites etc.

We are at that same juncture again, and we should be lobbying people such as Senator Alexander to ask the Ed. Dept to host another summit to UPDATE the National Educational Technology Plan that resulted from the 1995 and later summits.

You need a real-time, face to face forum for Washington so the new tools can be made real for the politicians and policy makers.

Dan

My question Scott and Will is, did I have your bullet points? Are we still discussing what we need? Then, the next step is making the why coherent, which is what Scott is asking on his blog.

It’s like when you are putting up you objectives for a lesson with students. Make it clear, concise, and easily understood.

I’ve also been thinking about the talking points–not so much per this call–but in general, about a group of influential writers coalescing around a vision statement that is “identifiable,” concise and unified in the language that is used. Interesting idea.

Like Gary Stager, I agree with Sylvia Martinez’s comment: I think it’s critically important to be in the game. Despite my law background, I continue to be mystified by the complexities surrounding the formation of federal/state law and policy. The Senator is playing in an arena in which folks like you and I really understand very little. Like all of our elected federal and state representatives, he’s juggling multiple issues, and multiple constituent perspectives, and multiple deals with other politicians at all times. That said, he clearly has his own personal and political beliefs, represents a certain type of constituency, and will listen to certain voices and perspectives over others. Again, though, we all have to try and play in this arena whenever we can, and take whatever opportunities we can get to interact with policymakers, regardless of whether we agree with their individual or political party belief systems. Otherwise our voices never will be heard and our chances of seeing the changes we’d like to see diminish accordingly.

Short as the time was, at least we each had a chance to voice our thoughts. You got to talk about access for disadvantaged kids and a new learning paradigm. I got to express my concerns that, like most other initiatives of this ilk, the school leaders that will be in charge of making this stuff happen have been completely left out of the training, implementation, legislation, policies, funding, etc. Neither of us may have gotten the answer we would have liked (“you’re so right, I’ll work to make those changes in the legislation immediately!”), but at least we had a chance to have our say. The more chances we get like this, the better, and I hope we have many more. As Alice Mercer notes in her comment, we need to be actively involved with our political representatives and we probably need some help knowing how best to do that (I know I do!).

For those of you who are curious, the gentleman Will refers to said: “I’ve been using technology in the classroom since the 1980s. . . . The thing that makes me nervous about this whole 21st century learning and technology emphasis is that, in my experience, this translates into buying lots of cute toys and computers for classes and spending more time on programs that the data show do not work. I mean I don’t think technology is the question. I think that actually teaching kids to know that 4 x 12 = 48 is the answer.” The Senator then noted that, of course, technology can be used effectively to help students better learn required course material.

Andrew Pass and Ryan Boots also blogged about this conference call:

http://snipurl.com/1d1ol

http://snipurl.com/1d1oq

And some of the other participants may as well:

http://snipurl.com/1d1os

However, Lamar Alexander is a bad guy. He did bad stuff to schools while Governor and Secretary of Education.

I always struggle with the decision over whether to be “at the table” or keep my hands clean so I am not implicated when something goes awry. It’s often a 60/40 proposition.