Reinventing Buddy.

The Corporation for Educational Technology (CET; Bloomington, IN) was created in 1988 to administer Indiana's groundbreaking initiative to extend learning beyond the classroom walls by placing computers into the homes of students. But times change, and to respond to those changes the Buddy System

Core Values

Marvin Bailey, president of CET says one of his biggest challenges since rejoining the organization in 1999 has been to reinvent Buddy while staying true to its core values. Buddy was created with the vision of getting technology very rapidly into the homes of kids. It was intended to address the needs of students and schools who today we would identify as being on the wrong side of the digital divide. Buddy purchased computers that were then placed in the homes of eligible 4th and 5th grade students. In early 2000, Buddy was serving 8,000 families in 70 schools. The problem, Bailey says, was that with only $1.5 million in funding each year, it became impossible to provide training and support and still establish a replacement schedule. There was tremendous frustration, with schools thinking that if they just hung on the state would come in and replace all their equipment.

Realizing that the economics of computer ownership had changed and faced with limited resources, Bailey and his staff have designed a new program that is faithful to Buddy's core values and continues to focus on the "have-nots" at home as well in the classroom. [Buddy.sup.2] develops and facilitates demonstration projects of leading edge student learning environments for K-12 schools using technology in anytime, anywhere settings.

Bailey says that improved student achievement is the core of the new program. They have surrounded that with six elements to help drive improved achievement:

-- Indiana Academic Standards

-- Anytime, anywhere technology

-- Parent involvement and parent communication

-- Teacher ownership

-- Best practices in teaching and learning

-- Baldridge in Education

The first project of [Buddy.sup.2] focuses on development of student process writing skills supported by significant use of home-based computer technology and integration of specific education strategies that create student-centric and data-driven learning environments. STAR Writers (grades 3-5) and Universal Star Writers (grades 6-8) will be implemented in 5 schools, for all students over three complete academic school years. (See www.buddyproject.org/write/ for detailed project descriptions.)

Using Baldridge in Education principles, they are building student-centric classrooms where students understand their goals, track their progress and own their results. The goal is to see how technology, when implemented in a much more holistic framework, can alter the levels of student achievement.

Professional Development

Bailey says that even now they are learning from these classrooms. He hopes to leverage that into professional development. Right now CET is taking over a professional development center and will use it for knowledge transfer -- taking what they are learning in the classrooms into the training center to reach teachers throughout Indiana. "Its how [Buddy.sup.2] takes its lessons and becomes more of a statewide project, as opposed to just working with five schools," Bailey says.

Bailey notes that one of the concerns with professional development is that teachers don't know what they don't know. To address that issue, CET hired 10 educators who worked over the summer of 2000 to develop an assessment tool. The MyTarget web-based sell-assessment tool (http:'/mytarget.iassessment.org) allows Indiana teachers to answer a series of questions. Then, with the click of a button, the tool calculates results and recommends professional development resources to fill the gaps.

Bailey told ETM that the My Target site is very extensive, starting at the basics (e.g., what's a mouse) on through curriculum integration and how to evaluate technology activities against the Academic Standards, on through administrative leadership. Over 8,000 teachers have used the tool to profile their professional development needs and Bailey sees interest growing.

It cost CET under $300,000 to develop the tool, using a Lilly Foundation grant. The state of Arizona recently purchased a license to MyTarget for $50,000, choosing it over two other free sites.

Technology Profile

Another piece that Bailey is leveraging at CET is the School Technology Profile (http://ideanet.doe.state.in.us/technology/summary/welcom.html), a detailed inventory of technology use in 2,000 Indiana schools. Using the Profile, CET is able to select schools that have little technology and look at different factors related to those schools. Bailey plans to pick out low performing schools and channel them into the training center. To support this, CET is getting back into the recycling business. Bailey plans to co-locate a recycling center with the training center. Schools will send a team of five teachers, who will go through five training sessions throughout the year. Around the second session, CET will provide participating schools a set of 10 recycled computers and a new sever, delivering a computer classroom that can be tied to the school LAN for under $2,000.

Web Academy

The final piece in the reinvention of Buddy is the Web Academy. This program offers Indiana families the chance to purchase discounted computers with Internet access. The original agreement is with Gateway and Bailey is close to signing a second vendor. They have been able to negotiate prices 20% to 40% below the best values they were able to find. Families can purchase a basic computer that includes three years of Internet access for $866 or $24 a month. The hard part here has been making sure it's a real statewide program, offering Internet access even in the most rural areas of the state. Vendors can only participate if they agree to serve at least 75% of the state. With the addition of the new vendor, they will be reaching 84% of the state.

Center for Educational Communications

Bailey is also president of the Corporation for Educational Communications (CEC). CEC administers the Vision Athena distance learning network, which was developed and is funded by money from the alternative regulatory agreement between Ameritech and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. In return for regulatory relief

Ameritech agreed to provide fiber to any interested school and $30 million in support over 6 years. That money ran out at the end of 1999 and it took some time to reach a new agreement. In February 2001, Athena got an infusion of $15 million over three years. Bailey says that money should carry them through the year 2005.

Project Athena is a public switched video network that runs at 45 megabits per second; Ameritech is preparing to bump it up to 194 mbps. But it's not the technology that has been the key to what Bailey describes as a phenomenal success. It's content and support. They will offer 50,000 hours of content on the network this year alone. And that is doing very little of traditional distance learning -- e.g. taking a calculus class. Bailey says that what's unique about their structure is that they've been working on value-added content, focused around the Indiana Academic Standards and getting content providers, like the Indianapolis Zoo, the Children's Museum, and local corporations, such as Eli Lilly, to generate that content. The program is supported by 14 Distance Learning Coordinators, who work in the field to help teachers understand how to integrate the content into the curriculum, holding hands when necessary.

CET has developed an entire authentic learning curriculum, using Athena to tie students, community planners and other experts together to work on solving real problems throughout Indiana. Bailey says that they have been so successful in this endeavor and in understanding the primacy of content, that they are planning to spin out a for-profit consulting group to share their expertise with the rest of the world. He promises more information on this in the near future