|
|
|
|
|
|
Hardware |
$25.00 |
$125,000 |
|
Software & Materials |
$8.33 |
$41,667 |
|
Inservice Education |
$4.17 |
$20,833 |
|
Coordinators |
$8.33 |
$41,667 |
|
Contingency |
$4.17 |
$20,833 |
The figure that initially tends to be most interesting to school district administrators and computer coordinators is the money for hardware. What can one buy with $25 per student per year? The answer obviously depends upon the particular equipment being purchased. A recent (winter, 1984) ad in my town's local newspaper indicated one could purchase a 64K machine with one disk drive, printer and monochrome monitor at a retail price of $900. The ad was for a very widely sold computer system from a reputable local dealer. This, of course, was a special sale price. However, school districts that go out for bids can usually obtain a discount of approximately 30 percent off the list price. That level of discount would have brought the price of this particular equipment to under the $900 figure.
The $900 figure might be considered adequate for a low-to-middle-priced microcomputer that has been on the market for a couple of years. You can expect that the quality of machine that this amount of money can buy will continue to improve rapidly in the future. Many school districts are purchasing more expensive microcomputers. The price of such newer, more expensive models may well decrease 20 percent a year during the first few years they are available.
Now a couple of assumptions are needed. A typical school doesn't want a printer on every microcomputer, and it's likely the school will want some dual disk systems. As a school obtains a quantity of machines, it is likely some will be networked using a floppy or hard disk system. This may cut the average cost of a user station. Let us assume that the average cost of a user station will be about $900. Let's also assume that such systems will have a four-year life span, with maintenance costs averaging $100 per machine over the four years. An equivalent way of expressing this is to assume that $1,000 provides a user station that functions for four years and is then completely worn out. The hardware cost is $250 per machine per year.
A particular school district may decide to purchase computers costing much more than is assumed above. Such machines might have a longer life span, different maintenance costs and so on. For example, one might find that a machine whose initial cost is $1,600 will last five years, requiring perhaps $200 of repair and maintenance during that time. The average hardware cost per year is $360.
It is instructive to study an explicit example. We will continue the example based upon a machine costing $1,000 over a four-year time span. The first year's funds would purchase approximately one machine per 40 students. (Editor's Note: This editorial was written in January 1984. At that time there was an average of approximately one machine per 120 students in the United States and Canada. The first year's hardware funds in the two-percent proposal would purchase about three times as many machines as were already in the schools.) The second year's funds would bring the average to one machine per 20 students; the steady state situation in the fourth and subsequent years would be one machine per 10 students. This analysis ignores whatever computers a district might initially own.
An average of one machine per ten students is equivalent to about a half-hour of machine time per student per day. If computers are going to have a significant impact upon our overall educational system, we should be able to see the beginning of the impact with this average level of computer usage.
This hardware analysis suggests that an average school district, by spending one percent of its budget every year for hardware, will eventually have about one microcomputer per ten students. Very few schools have yet achieved such a ratio. If computer prices continue to decline, or if machines have a longer life span, then an even higher ratio will be achieved. Alternatively, if a district selects more expensive hardware, it will achieve a lower ratio of machines per student.
The same sort of analysis indicates that if a school district allocates two percent of its budget strictly for hardware, it will eventually achieve a ratio of one machine per five students. A hardware allocation of five percent of the annual budget leads to a ratio of one machine per two students.
The money allocated for software, manuals, books, films and related support material is substantial but may prove inadequate, as classroom sets of textbooks and expendable workbooks may be quite expensive. One way to analyze this is to look at various categories of instructional computing. The categories I use are learning/teaching about computers, learning/teaching using computers and learning/teaching incorporating computers. Each category requires differing amounts and types of software, support materials and teacher knowledge.
Learning/teaching about computers may require relatively little software beyond the language translators and operating system. It does require books, films and other media, and it requires quite knowledgeable teachers. (The suggested tradeoff between teacher knowledge and costs for hardware or software can occur in each type of computer usage.) Learning/teaching about computers is done in a self-contained classroom, with the instruction being done by a computer teacher. In our overall model, the cost of teachers is not included. Such costs are considered to part of the ongoing costs of the school system.
Learning/teaching using computers (usually called computer-assisted learning) can require a substantial software library. A particular computer simulation, for example, might be used only once or twice per year. Currently the costs of such software are high and the total quantity of good software is still quite limited. We can expect a continued rapid growth in the availability of good computer-assisted learning software. We will probably find that vendors will make available multiple copies of software, or software for local networks, at quite good prices.
Learning/teaching incorporating computers requires changes in the content of the conventional curriculum. A typing course might become a word processing course, requiring word processing software and perhaps a typing tutor program. A bookkeeping course might be substantially changed by providing electronic spreadsheet and accounting software. A science lab might be changed by use of appropriate hardware and software for the on-line control of experiments and the collection and processing of data. A math course might require a substantial library of graphic, equation-solving and symbol-manipulation software.
A different way to view this expenditure category is that each machine will have $333 of software and other support materials. This is quite a bit if all of these materials have a long life span and can be used by a variety of students. For example, a single rental film might be viewed by many hundreds of students and a reference book may be useful for several years. By appropriate scheduling, a few copies of a particular historical simulation might be used by students in schools located throughout a large school district. A growing district-level lending library of commercial software might be supplemented by carefully screened public domain software. Of course, such a central library will need to be staffed. Such costs are considered to be part of the funds included in the two percent figure.
The money for inservice education of administrators, teachers, support personnel and aides will allow for initial and continued growth in their knowledge and skills. If a district has not yet put much money into computer-related inservice education, the first year's expenditures probably need to be above one-twelfth of total funds. This can be done by drawing upon the contingency fund. Many districts have already provided such initial inservice computer exposure to all of their teachers and administrators.
It is important to realize that inservice education must continue beyond the initial effort. The level of knowledge needed when there is only one microcomputer per 120 students is quite different from what is needed when there is one microcomputer for every ten students. At this level we could begin to see substantial changes in the content of current non-computer courses. This will require extensive inservice education as well as funds to support curriculum development and revision.
The funds and training effort need not be evenly spread among all educators. Likely it will prove desirable for each school to have a building-level coordinator with some release time from regular teaching duties. Alternatively, a building-level computer coordinator might receive a salary increment for handling these extra responsibilities. In either case the funds would come through the two percent allocation.
While all educators need an elementary working-tool level of computer knowledge, building-level coordinators will need substantially more knowledge as part of their jobs. They will will be doing inservice education of teachers and administrators in their buildings. They will be training aides, helping in the acquisition of hardware and software, and doing other things requiring a high technical level of training in the computer field. Some of the inservice education funds could be used to facilitate this much higher level of training.
One use of some of the coordinator funds was mentioned above--to provide some release time for building-level computer coordinators. But consider the need for a coordinator (and a staff if the district is large) at the district level. In four years a 5,000 student school district will have about 500 microcomputer systems valued at approximately a half-million dollars. The district may have several hundred thousand dollars invested in software and other support materials. This is a substantial investment. A district computer coordinator will have a wide range of duties including supervising hardware and software acquisition, assisting in a large inservice education program, and working with curriculum committees to integrate computers into the curriculum.
The fifth category, the contingency fund, can be used for a wide variety of purposes. As stated earlier, it might be used to supplement teacher inservice monies, especially in the beginning, or for remodeling.
Funds could be provided for:
Possible uses of the contingency fund seem endless.
The Two-Percent Solution provides an interesting model to explore certain aspects of the future of computers in instruction. Most important is the idea of a permanent commitment to a reasonable level of funding. Most school districts have not yet made this sort commitment. They are purchasing equipment using entitlement funds, block grants, grants from foundations, money from parent-teacher organizations and so on. They are giving "one shot" teacher training workshops with little or no follow-up or opportunity for deeper training. They have not yet done the necessary planning for computers to have a significant and continuing long term impact upon the overall content and process of education.
Two percent is a good initial goal. It is enough money to establish a solid program of instructional use of computers. However, two percent will probably prove quite inadequate over the long run. Perhaps a few years from now I will be writing an editorial on the five-percent solution. That is closer to the level of funding that will be necessary if we want to provide one microcomputer per two students, a good goal to aim at in the next decade.
Moursund, D.G. (March 1984). The Two-percent Solution. The Computing Teacher.
Moursund, D.G. (March 1993). The N-percent Solution. The Computing Teacher.
The following is quoted from my "The Two-Percent Solution" editorial in the March 1984 issue of The Computing Teacher.
I am frequently asked how much money schools should be spending for instructional use of computers. My answer is that it depends upon the goals set by the school or district.But that answer is less than satisfying to administrators in a school district who are just beginning to make a serious commitment to the instructional use of computers. Administrators need help in determining the level of expenses and nature of the commitment that may be necessary over the long run.
With these people I discuss "The Two-Percent Solution." The idea is simple enough. Let's see what could happen if a school district budgeted two percent of its total funds, year after year, for instructional computing.
The closing paragraph of this editorial states:
Two percent is a good initial goal. It is enough money to establish a solid program of instructional use of computers. However, two percent will probably prove quite inadequate over the long run. Perhaps a few years from now I will be writing an editorial on the five-percent solution. That is closer to the level of funding that will be necessary if we want to provide one microcomputer per two students, a good goal to aim at in the next decade.
Almost a decade has passed since that editorial was written. The computer world has changed immensely. The number of computers in schools has grown rapidly, but the ratio is still considerably less than one computer per ten students. The amount of compute power that a dollar will purchase has gone up by far more than a factor of 10. The quality and quality of educational software has steadily increased. And, of course, we now have hypermedia that greatly increases the need for more computer power and more equipment.
I think it is time to re analyze the recommendations in "The Two-Percent Solution." Should the recommended percentage now be much larger, such as the five-percent mentioned in the closing paragraph of the March 1984 editorial? Or, has the rapid gain in price to performance ratio of microcomputers made it possible for schools to achieve their instructional computing goals with less funds?
There are lots of ways to approach these questions. The approach used here is to estimate the dollars per year needed in each of four major categories, convert each dollar figure to a percentage, based on an estimated average school budget per student per year, and then tabulate the results.
One of the key ideas that is emerging is that students and teachers need both the convenience of easily portable computing facilities and the greater power and versatility of non-portable facilities. It seems evident that a students need both portables and docking stations&emdash;systems that connect to portables and that can tie together and provide easy access to a full range of the multimedia facilities appropriate for use in education.
Category 1: Teachers. This category includes hardware, software, teacher training, curriculum development resources, and other direct support of teachers in their professional work at school and at home.
Category 2: Students. This category includes hardware, software, and courseware that students carry around to use at school, home, and wherever else suits their convenience.
Category 3: Classroom. This category includes the hardware, software, and courseware in a classroom for use by teachers and students (for example, docking stations providing access to multimedia facilities).
Category 4: Other (Infrastructure and Miscellaneous). This category includes networking, computerized libraries, maintenance and support personnel, technology coordinators at the school and district level, contingency funds, and miscellaneous.
Here are my thoughts as to where schools should be headed in each of these categories.
What do all of these allocations add up to? Suppose that a school system has one teacher per 25 students, 30 students per class, and a budget of $5,400 per student per year (the latter figure being the current national average for K-12 education). Then the totals are:
Lower % of budget |
|
|
|
|
|
1. Teacher |
0.74% |
1.11% |
$40.00 |
$60.00 |
|
2. Students |
4.63% |
7.41% |
$250.00 |
$400.00 |
|
3. Classrooms |
2.47% |
3.70% |
$133.33 |
$200.00 |
|
4. Other |
2.16% |
4.32% |
$116.67 |
$233.33 |
|
Totals |
10.00% |
16.54% |
$540.00 |
$893.33 |
Most people laugh when they see these figures. "You are joking, right?"
One response is to suggest a look at business and industry. In "knowledge industry" types of businesses, what is the annual expenditure per worker for the types of support listed above? Of course, the answer varies a great deal. However, if we think of both students and teachers as "workers," than the recommendations I have made are small relative to the support that workers receive in many businesses.
When was the last time you visited the office of an executive secretary or administrative assistant in a high tech company? Do you think that $1,000 per year would pay for the equipment that this person is using? Arguments such as these tend to be convincing to people who are familiar with business and industry.
The next question is often, "Okay, I believe you. But where could the money come from?" The answer to that has three parts. First, reallocation of current funds can make a significant dent in the resources problem. For example, all schools have staff development, curriculum development, and library funds that might be reallocated. Second, good arguments can be made that school budgets will need to increase. Third, there will need to be a major change in the nature of school staffing. Businesses have made massive cuts to middle management and to support staff. Right now, in a typical school system, only about 40 to 45-percent of the budget is used for salaries and benefits of teachers. In addition, few schools make adequate use of a differentiated staffing structure that includes a number of instructional assistants.
The above type of analysis leads me to believe that a 10% to a 20% "solution" should be the goal in the next decade.
Moursund, D.G. (May 1996). Effective Practices (Part 5): The Future. Learning and Leading with Technology.
Q. I am planning to make a presentation to our school board. What are some really good arguments that computers can make a difference in education?
I am currently involved in a research project designed to investigate this issue and provide some answers to this frequently asked question. This column is the fifth in a five-part series of columns summarizing some of what my research group is finding, as well as explaining my own current thinking on this question.
Computer technology continues to change at a rapid pace. However, it is possible to anticipate much of this change-and to make forecasts that are useful to planners and decision makers. The following forecasts describe the computer systems that will be used routinely a decade from now.
These forecasts paint a picture of increasingly powerful computer systems becoming available at reasonable prices. Such changes suggest that students and teachers need to learn to use a wide range of generic computer tools (word processors, databases, spreadsheets, telecommunications, and others) as an aid to representing and solving problems in the various disciplines. Such tools need to be thoroughly integrated throughout the curriculum and should be readily available to students and teachers throughout the school day and for use at home.
In addition, technology-enhanced learning (TEL), which includes computer-assisted instruction, computer-managed instruction, and distance education, needs to become a standard component of the educational system. One part of learning involves learning to be an independent, self-sufficient, lifelong learner.
At the current time, schools in the United States spend about 1.3% of their budgets on computer hardware, software, networks, infrastructure, and support systems. Already, however, some schools spend 5% of their budgets in these areas. Over the long run, even this 5% figure will prove inadequate.
To understand why this is so, imagine a school of the future in which every student has a combination computer-television-telecommunications system networked to people and information sources throughout the world. TEL resources are available to the student at school and at home. These resources are further strengthened by a well-maintained infrastructure and support system. The support system provides teachers with the inservice education and technical support they need to continue to grow on the job.
The average cost of public education in the United States is currently about $6,000 per student per year. Ten percent of this amount is about $600 per student per year. Now, imagine how far $600 per student per year would go in terms of providing:
Even 10% of the school budget is not enough to provide all these facilities and services. Thus, over the next decade we will see a steady rise in the average percentage of the K-12 educational budget going toward technology. A decade from now we will see a number of schools spending more than 10% of their budgets for such technology.
[Dave Moursund: moursund@oregon.uoregon.edu]
Note: The National Foundation for the Improvement of Education (NFIE) has received funding from Microsoft founder and CEO William Gates III to carry out a project titled "The Road Ahead." NFIE is a non- profit educational foundation created by the National Educational Association in 1969. NFIE has subcontracted with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) to do research and evaluation on this project. Some of the ideas in this series of columns on computers and effective practices are based on this research.
Moursund, D.G. (March 1999). The 15-percent solution. Learning and Leading with Technology.
The March 1984 issue of The Computing Teacher (which since has been renamed Learning and Leading With Technology) carried my editorial titled "The Two-Percent Solution." That editorial made the bold assertion that if our educational system would spend two-percent of its budget for information technology, great things could be happening. The two-percent suggestion was rather wild-eyed, although some higher education institutions were already spending at that level.
Fifteen years have now passed. According to data given in Presidents Committee (March 1997), the expenditures in the 1994-95 school year had grown to 1.3% of the school budget. More recent data suggests that for 1998-99, we have now come close to reaching the two-percent level.
The following is paraphrased from the 1984 article:
A recent (winter, 1984) ad in my town's local newspaper indicated one could purchase a 64K machine with one 5.25 inch floppy disk drive, printer, and monochrome monitor at a retail price of $900. The ad was for a very widely sold computer system from a reputable local dealer. It was for a one megahertz, 8-bit machine that had been on the market for a couple of years.I recently saw an ad for a 64MB machine with one 3.5 inch floppy disk drive, a 4.3 gigabyte hard drive, a 56k modem, a 32X CD-ROM drive, color monitor, and color printer at a retail price of $1,000. This is a 333 megahertz, 32-bit computer. When adjusted for inflation, the cost is substantially less than the 1984 machine.
I also saw an ad for a $999 16MB laptop with a 12.1 inch color display. This is a 233 megahertz, 32 bit computer with a 3.5 inch floppy drive, a 20X CD-ROM, and a 1.6 gigabyte hard drive.
In both cases these computers come with a graphical user interface-type of operating system and a mouse or touchpad. In both cases the prices were down substantially from just a few months before, and they will likely have dropped still more by the time this article goes to press.
Two-percent of the school budget buys a LOT more computer than it did 15 years ago. However, our expectations have also gone up a lot. Fifteen years ago we felt lucky to be in a school that had a student to computer ratio of 80 to one. Now, the national average is about eight to one, and it is still inadequate. A commonly stated goal is a ratio of two students per computer, and we now have a number of schools where every student carries a laptop. We also have expectations of the school providing good connectivity to the Internet and a wide range of multimedia facilities.
Moursund (1997) lists expectations that a school might have:
The analysis given in Moursund (1997) indicates that meeting such expectations will cost well over 10-percent of the school budget. President's Committee (1997) analyzes a number of different forecasts of what information technology is apt to cost in schools in the future. Conservative estimates are in the 10-percent range, while bolder estimates are in the 15-percent range.
In many school districts, the total amount of "discretionary" funds is in the 15-20 percent range. This is money available for books, supplies, equipment, and so on. All of the rest of the budget is used up by salaries, bussing, ongoing maintenance and repairs, insurance, and so on. Clearly a school cannot allocate all of its discretionary funds for instructional information technology.
Where will the needed information technology resources come from? The answer to that has four parts. First, reallocation of current funds can make a significant dent in the resources problem. For example, all schools have staff development, curriculum development, and library funds, and some of these resources can be reallocated. Second, good arguments can be made that school budgets will need to increase. Third, the E-rate and/or other sources of Federal funding will make a significant contribution.
Fourth, there will need to be a major change in the nature of school staffing. Businesses have made massive cuts to middle management and to support staff. Right now, in a typical school system, only about 40 to 45-percent of the budget is used for salaries and benefits of teachers. In addition, few schools make adequate use of a differentiated staffing structure that includes a number of instructional assistants.
My prediction is that 15 years from now there will be a significant number of schools that have implemented the "15-percent solution." To a great extent, the needed resources will come from restructuring of staffing. Schools that have the most flexibility in staffing (such as Charter Schools, magnet schools, and private schools) are likely to take the lead in these types of educational change.
Moursund, David G. (1997). The Future of Information Technology in Education. Eugene, OR: ISTE. This book is available for reading at Moursund's Web site. http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~moursund/D.A.V.E.
President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology. Panel on Educational Technology (March 1997). Report to the President on the use of technology to strengthen K-12 education in the United States. Washington DC: Author.
We have not yet reached the time when it would be considered silly to write a "xx$ Solution" article. But, eventually we will get there.
We do not separate off Reading and Writing expenditures in our school system. All teachers are expected to read and write reasonably well. Reading and writing are used in every academic area. Needed facilities (such as well lighted classrooms) are not considered separate budget items to be charged against a "Reading and Writing" line item.
Where we are headed is an educational system that includes the following: