Online Learning Report - Keeping Pace

Last month John Watson, Butch Gemin and Jennifer Ryan from Evergreen Consulting Associates released an interesting report titled Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning 2008. The report takes a look at K-12 online programs in the United States. Here's some highlights:

• State-led programs and initiatives continue to be an important online learning option for students in many states.
• As of fall 2008, 34 states offer state-led programs or initiatives that are designed, in most cases, to work with existing school districts to supplement course offerings for students.
• Full-time online schools are a second common online learning option:
  
• As of fall 2008 there are 21 states that have these types of schools.
  
• They are often charter schools, although there are also some non-charter, district-run programs that are available to students across the state.
  

Most state-led programs are:

• High school level, with some middle school,
• Supplemental—providing one or more courses to students enrolled elsewhere, and
• Funded primarily by separate state appropriations rather than the per-pupil funding formula.

Examples of state-led programs (which provide full courses, teachers, and student support) include:

• The Florida Virtual School
• The Illinois Virtual High School
• The Michigan Virtual School
• The Idaho Digital Learning Academy
• The Georgia Virtual School
• The Kentucky Virtual Schools, and
  
• The Missouri Virtual Instruction Program.
  

Examples of state-led initiatives, which provide online resources, or serve as a central clearinghouse for online courses, include:

• The Washington Digital Learning Commons
• The Wyoming Switchboard Network
• The Texas Virtual School Network, and
  
• The Oregon Virtual School District.

The report is long (165 pages!) but a very interesting read. You can download a PDF of the full report here.

Broadband Growth In U.S. - 1.3 Million New Q3 2008 Customers

Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) has just published a short report that looks at the twenty largest telco and cable companies in the United States. These twenty companies represent 66.7 million (94% of U.S. market) customers. Here's a breakdown of some of the information in the report:

• Cable companies have 36.5 million broadband subscribers.
• Telephone companies have 30.2 million broadband subscribers.
• The top cable companies added over 870,000 subscribers, representing 67% of the net broadband additions for the quarter versus the top telephone companies.
  
• Overall, broadband additions in 3Q 2008 amounted to 61% of those in 3Q 2007 – with cable having 82% as many additions as a year ago, and Telcos 40.
  
• The top cable broadband providers have a 55% share of the overall market, with a 6.3 million subscriber advantage over the top telephone companies.

Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman is quoted in the report:

Over the past two quarters the top cable providers accounted for 71% of the net broadband additions, adding over 900,000 more broadband subscribers than the top telcos. Cable’s recent success compared to the telcos should not necessarily be interpreted as consumers suddenly choosing cable’s speed advantage over that of the telcos' DSL service. It is more a function of the telcos' shift in focus towards higher value subscribers while cable has been consistent in marketing broadband as part of its nearly ubiquitously available Triple Play bundles.

The report includes a very nice chart that breaks down subscriber numbers for all 20 of the companies. You can view the online version and download a PDF here.

Green IT: The Next Big Thing

Wikipedia defines Green Computing as the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently. Modern IT systems rely upon a complicated mix of people, networks and hardware; as such, a green computing initiative must be systemic in nature, and address increasingly sophisticated problems. Elements of such as solution may comprise items such as end user satisfaction, management restructuring, regulatory compliance, disposal of electronic waste, telecommuting, virtualization of server resources, energy use, thin client solutions, and return on investment (ROI).

On Friday (November 14, 2008) I attended a Green IT (Information Technology) Summit in Plano, Texas. The Summit was held as part of the North Texas Regional Community College Technology Forum and was hosted by Collin College and the National Science Foundation funded Convergence Technology Center (CTC). The CTC is headquartered at Collin College in Frisco, Texas and has worked since 2004 to meet the growing regional need for skilled specialists in the area of convergence technology. The Center has done considerable work in the areas of curriculum development, professional development for high school and community college faculty, outreach to under-served populations, and mentoring colleges in the rapidly developing convergence technology field.

The CTC is currently expanding on this work to include “Green IT" and is developing online/hybrid curriculum, methods for under-represented polulation recruitment and retention, and the scaling of a Mentored College program to broaden the dissemination of convergence related degrees and certificates to an increased number of colleges around the country.

CTCpartners include El Centro College (El Centro), Dallas County Community College District; and the University of North Texas, Denton. In addition to its partners, the CTC is mentoring City College of San Francisco (CA), Orange Coast College (CA), Guilford Technical Community College (NC), Ohlone College (CA), Santa Ana College (CA) and Fox Valley Technical College (WI). Mentoring work has included:

• Helping to build and refine advisory councils
  
• Validating IT and IT related regional skills
  
• Creating certificates and degrees using CTC defined curriculum as basis for new courses, and
  
• Creating and implementing CT certificates
  

The Green IT Summit included a panel of IT industry executives discussing what Green IT is, what the workforce needs are and why it is so important. Technical sessions were focused on delivering distance education using new tools (Second Life, You Tube, Podcasting and other Web 2.0 based technologies) that our younger digital native students expect to find in modern classrooms.

EDS Fellow Charles E. Bess gave an excellent presentation at the conference titled The Greening of IT. Charles discussed where he and other EDS Fellows see Green IT going. To give you a taste - here's a piece from a seven part Green IT series on the EDS Next Big Thing Blog:

Economics are starting to play a major role, with the soaring costs of energy, penalties for e-waste, carbon credit trading and fiscal reporting moving these items on to the board agendas. Societal and environmental concerns are getting more media attention, and consumers are "voting with their wallets" to pay premiums for green products and
services. Political and legal issues are driving politicians and regulators to enact legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions and set standards for IT equipment. Technology is also driving the demand for more and more information accessible through an exploding number of end user devices which creates increased demand for direct and indirect (e.g. battery chargers) energy consumption.

This past year I've had the opportunity to visit a number of colleges and have been encouraged by the numbers of science and math focused students that are interested specifically in Environmental Technology and Engineering. When I ask these students why they are so interested the answer (it's obvious if you have had the chance to talk with a high school student recently) is commonly centered around their desire to "fix" things like global warming, energy consumption and pollution. Green IT has not hit most of their radar screens yet but it will.

If you are at an academic institution looking to re-invigorate your IT and IT related programs, Green IT is something you should consider. The Convergence Technology Center is currently accepting applications from institutions that wish to become a mentored college. Ann Beheler, Helen Sullivan and Ann Blackman are doing excellent work and this is a great way to get started. You can get more information on the mentor program by clicking here.

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You can see pictures I took at the Green IT Summit last Friday on my flickr page.

Marshall Goldsmith on Change

Marshall Goldsmith has a new book out titled What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. He also had a short piece in the August 25, 2008 edition of Business Week Magazine titled We’re All Entrepreneurs – Advice for the young that transcends age.

Marshall discusses the current time of uncertainty and, if we are going to be successful, how we all need to think and work like entrepreneurs. In the Business Week piece he gives the following advice to young people who are just entering the workplace:

• It is tough out there and only going to get tougher.
• Forget about (job) security.
• Like it or not, even if you start out with a large corporation, you are going to be an entrepreneur.
• Make peace with this reality and your life is going to be a lot better.
  

He also discusses how the West originally believed globalization would create a world where we would market our products to a worldwide audience and, in turn, buy products from other parts of the world for less money. Well, those things have happened. Now we are realizing that globalization also means people from all over the world are competing for our jobs. Here's more from Marshall's Business Week piece:

In many of the top engineering and science programs, almost no one has English as their first language - and yet they speak it fluently: That’s global competition.

Marshall goes on:

In an era of uncertainty, nothing can be taken for granted. Young people are going to have to develop skills and talents that make them globally competitive. And they are going to have to keep upgrading and changing their skills and talents to fit the needs of an ever-changing marketplace.

Goldsmith’s book is a recommended read and also available in electronic form as an audio book. There is also a Kindle version. You can check him out on the web at http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com

A Conversation with Pierre Thiry and James Jones from MPICT

The Mid-Pacific Information and Communications Technologies (MPICT) Center is a recently funded National Science Foundation (NSF) – Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Regional Center hosted by City College of San Francisco (CCSF). MPICT's mission is to coordinate, promote and improve the quality and availability of ICT education in a region consisting of Northern California, Northern Nevada, Southern Oregon, Hawaii and the Pacific Territories. Current Regional Partners include: Ohlone College , Santa Rosa Junior College , Cabrillo College and Foothill College.

We've had a great relationship with Pierre, James and CCSF and were fortunate to get them on camera to talk about MPICT at the 2008 SAME-TEC Conference.

MPICT is off to a great start under the leadership and direction of Pierre and James. Contact them for more information at www.mpict.org

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We have several interviews from SAME-TEC posted and you can get them different ways:

YouTube: Watch our YouTube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/NatCtrTelecomTech

Streaming and Downloading: View streaming videos and download content using your web browser at: http://nctt.org/podcast

iTunes: If you have iTunes installed you can watch and listen to this one, watch and listen to others, and subscribe to our video and audio podcasts by following this link.

We're planning and looking forward to next years conference. Watch here, our center websites and SAME-TEC.ORG for 2009 Conference information and updates.

Microblogging Study Released

You're reading this so you may have noticed my Twitter feed over in the left column. Wikipedia defines Twitter as a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

One of my favorite "tweeters" is Laura Filton, Principal and Founder of Pistachio Consulting. According to her website, Laura Fitton is one of the first prominent “microbloggers,” with roughly 8,400 readers on Twitter. She specializes in connecting people to new ideas and innovations using all the tools of (what Laura calls) microsharing. Here's more from her site:

Brands and businesses are flocking to Twitter. Internal “enterprise 2.0″ microsharing can make your company run better. But most companies have little or no clear idea of how these tools really work, what they could accomplish or how to do so. At best, many efforts are shots in the dark. At worst, they’re squandering time, resources, opportunity and brand equity.

Laura recently released a report titled Enterprise Microsharing Tools Comparison - Nineteen Applications to Revolutionize Employee Effectiveness. In the report, she takes a look at 19 different microblogging applications and how they are being used for things like HR, Marketing and Sales, R&D, Innovation, Customer relations, etc. You can get online and PDF versions and more information on the report here: http://pistachioconsulting.com/services/research/.

You can find and follow Laura (@pistachio) on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/pistachio.

I don't tweet anywhere near as much as Laura but you can also find and follow me (@gsnyder) on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/gsnyder

OECD Statistics: U.S. Broadband Penetration Rate Still Low

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released their June 2008 international broadband statistics. Here are some of the highlights:

The upgrade to fibre-based connections continues in the OECD. Fibre subscriptions comprise 9% of all broadband connections in the OECD (up from 8% in December 2007).

Fibre overtakes DSL/Cable in Korea and Japan and now accounts for 45% of all Japanese broadband subscriptions and 39% in Korea. Korea’s fibre penetration alone (12.2 per 100 inhabitants) is higher than total broadband penetration in 5 OECD countries.

The number of broadband subscribers in the OECD reached 251 million by June 2008, an increase of 14% from June 2007. This growth increased broadband penetration rates to 21.3 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants, up from 20% in December 2007.

Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Korea and Finland lead the OECD with broadband penetration well above the OECD average, each surpassing the 30 subscribers per 100 inhabitants threshold.

The strongest per-capita subscriber growth over the year was in Luxembourg and Germany. Each country added more than 5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants during the past year. On average, the OECD area increased 2.7 subscribers per 100 inhabitants over the year.

The United States is the largest broadband market in the OECD with 75 million subscribers. US broadband subscribers consistently represent 30% of all broadband connections in the OECD.

Even though the United States has the largest broadband market, our penetration rate continues to be low with a ranking of 15th in the world.

Find all international statistics on the OECD Broadband Portal linked here http://www.oecd.org/sti/ict/broadband