This e-mail communication with Bill Schmit had been posted on educationbridges before the hacking disaster. I was able to retrive it and post it in this section. Mr. Schimdt has good advice for anyone planning a wiki projects. Any comments are welcome.

John,

Thanks for the e-mail. You are pushing the envelope and opportunities for delivery are unlimited.

Prior to giving you comments I need to share where I my ideas come from. I taught 7th grade Science in Worthington, OH in the 60s. I then was VP for Education for COSI from their opening in 1964 to 1984, I then became Ed Dir at Pacific Science Center in Seattle for 6 years. In 1990 I joined Hughes Aircraft in LA to develop an elementary science curriculum that was a systemic reform model that sought to make use of appropriate technology for delivery. We were ahead of being able to use the Internet but made innovative use of video and fax technology. Extensive independent research provided evidence that we were very successful in improving student performance in all schools and especially in schools with large numbers of students considered at risk. Today I am partially retired and developing support of science ed through The Science Center of Inquiry I started 3 years ago.

During the past 2 years I worked part time on a project with Ohio State in which we served Marion and Newark schools to help teachers improve student performance.

Your concerns are on target:

"what about validating the content of open source science materials?"

Content is very important but the most important need for the future is dealing with how we approach the content through innovative learning strategies. If I had a choice of new text books or contemporary researched based teaching approaches, I would choose the teaching approaches.

"how do you address the question of access to the technology that supports the delivery of the curriculum"

At Hughes we saw the greatest value of technology being interactivity in which learners had some control of the outcomes of the process - much as you are doing in the planning of your approach. Technology can engage kids cognitively so they become better learners. When teachers saw evidence of student gain they were more active at gaining access to the technology. But, in the big picture, the state of technology in classrooms is a disaster. Schools are usually not able to provide the technical support to make things work, teachers have very limited ability in technology, and there is just not enough hardware. I think a major problem has been that we see technology as a delivery system for information that replaces text books rather than as a tool for going way beyond the textbook and creating relevance and learner participation. If we did that, the need to advance technology in classrooms might have more support.

and finally how do you train teachers to implement it in the classrooms?

Teacher training is a key to any program. It must extensive and continuous. In the OSU project which was in person and on-line it took almost an entire year before we saw significant progress. In the Hughes project we saw sustainable improvement after 2 or more years. This is consistent with expectations derived from the research on teacher change.

Finally what we can accomplish is determined more by what we believe about the process of learning than by robust content.

I am not certain at this point as to how I can best contribute. I will be in Akron Ohio on 2/15 to 18 and then out of the country for 2 weeks. I would like to meet you when I am in Ohio but my schedule is a bit tight.

Let me know what next steps I might take. I would be happy to share some of our efforts and findings.

Bill Schmitt