A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation. Report of the NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning.
"The TFoC was charged jointly by the Advisory Committees to the Education and Human Resources Directorate and the Office of Cyberinfrastructure to provide guideance to NSF on the opportunities, research questions, partners, stratigies, and exisitng resources for cyberlearning."
The following is an executive summary of the above report, as asked for by Shirley. I've included two versions, a medium length executive summary of the executive summary in the report, and then my thoughts on the report as a whole, just in case you don't have time to read even that.
Short (review): Don't bother reading.
Medium (summary): The NSF TF report sets out a vision of the future where eduction is not confined tothe K-12 and higher education calssrooms of America, but is supported at any age through the addition of cyberlearning. This exciting area of development is made possible by the "use of networked computing and communications technologies to support learning".
The report postulates that the shortage of trained scientists and engineers is an indicator of a larger problem, insufficient knowledge and understanding of the effects of science and technology on policy, business, and personal decisions. The population is underprepaired for the "complex, evolving, global challenges of the 21st century" and the education system must repond appropriately, and dynamically, to deal with this. These educational needs are ideal situated to intersect with advances in technology poised to offer new learning and eductaional approaches and to redistribute learning experiences. However, unless there is some sort of coordination of the cyberlearning, then the moment will pass without it taking root and the NSF is, apparently, in such a position to take over the process and drive it forward to a new and brighter future. They have the technology, they can make it bettter, faster, stronger. No wait...
The last decade of technology design has been spured on by new approaches to technology and real world testing. Again, apparently, the NSF is in a position to lead the revolution in Cyberlearning by throwing money around to create intersections between technologies and learning sciences. Web technologies enable people to share, access, publish, and learn from content around the world. Content which is no longer limited to books or videos found in classrooms.
In conclusion, they conclude that widespread accesss to technology combines with a number of other factors to provide a "stunning opportunity" to transform education. That and they were really enthusiastic when they were preparing the report...
Mmm, buzz words... Taste like bees!
Keywords: cyberlearning, dull, nsf, odinlab, sarcasm
