Electronic technology and its use with rural gifted students. (Electronic Media).Although there are issues for all children in rural schools, the needs of rural gifted students are especially critical (DeLeon & Argus-Calvo, 1997; Gear, 1984; Joyce & Wolking, 1988; O'Connell & Hagans, 1985; Savage & Werner, 1994; Vanderslice, 1999). In addition to economic and cultural conditions, schools for rural gifted students are limited in their ability to deliver services. Each of the following factors must be considered when designing a service delivery system for rural gifted students: geographic barriers, seasonal problems such as heavy flooding, the continuum of population sparsity, the differing variations of English spoken in rural communities when clustering students, the labor needs of differing rural communities that involve the use of students, and the barrier of inadequate teacher preparation. How can states and rural school districts overcome these limiting factors A factor or condition that, either temporarily or permanently, impedes mission accomplishment. Illustrative examples are transportation network deficiencies, lack of in-place facilities, malpositioned forces or materiel, extreme climatic conditions, distance, transit or overflight rights, ? A promising solution lies in the area of electronic technology. Electronic Technology Schools in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. and throughout the world are increasingly using technologies that range from personal computers to satellites. Electronic technology is a major tool of the information age and is particularly important in the context of rural education, where the transmission of information is relevant to many rural problems (Attkisson, 1996; Lewis, 1999). For rural schools, electronic technology offers particular benefits from which the smallest and most isolated of them can potentially gain the most. In addition, electronic communication will dramatically reduce the effect of time and distance on the delivery of rural education (Hofmeister, 1994) as well as overcome many of the factors or barriers to service delivery previously mentioned (Aamidor & Spicker, 1995; Maddux, 1998). The intent of electronic technology is not to be an alternative to a high quality teacher and classroom; the intent is to be an alternative to nothing, and that is what many rural gifted students are getting right now. Electronic technology equalizes access to education. As long as one has access to education, age, gender, socioeconomic, geographic, or population-density circumstances will not hinder access to information and thus to knowledge. Although most rural schools have access to some type of technology, such as audio and videotapes, instructional television Instructional television (ITV) is a type of television program that is designed for use in schools. Programs on instructional television may be less than one half hour long (generally 15 minutes in length) to help their integration into the classroom setting. , and two-way television, it is the use of the personal computer to connect to electronic mail (e-mail) and the Internet and access to CD-ROMs that hold the most promise for removing the isolation of rural school districts and communities (Chandler & Maddux, 1998; Maddux, 1996). Research comparing distance education to traditional classroom instruction shows that teaching at a distance can be as effective as traditional instruction when the method and technologies used are appropriate to the instructional tasks (Partow-Navid & Slusky, 1999). This year, 68% of American colleges American College is the name of:
recognition by an appropriate authority that the performance of a particular institution has satisfied a prestated set of criteria. accredited herds cattle herds which have achieved a low level of reactors to, e.g. college courses are offered on the Web and 84% of four-year colleges will be offering distance-learning courses by 2003 (Worldwide College, 1999). Through computer-based courses using primarily the CD-ROM CD-ROM: see compact disc. CD-ROM in full compact disc read-only memory Type of computer storage medium that is read optically (e.g., by a laser). , the Education Program for Gifted Youth The Education Program for Gifted Youth, at Stanford University, is a gifted education program which offers distance and residential summer courses for students of all ages. at Stanford University Stanford University, at Stanford, Calif.; coeducational; chartered 1885, opened 1891 as Leland Stanford Junior Univ. (still the legal name). The original campus was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. David Starr Jordan was its first president. offers rural middle school and high school students courses that are substantially beyond grade level. Rural middle school students are able to take calculus calculus, branch of mathematics that studies continuously changing quantities. The calculus is characterized by the use of infinite processes, involving passage to a limit—the notion of tending toward, or approaching, an ultimate value. while high school students are able to take university level courses and receive credit for them (Ravaglia, 2000). Because cost is a factor for the parents of gifted rural students, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, plans to make the materials for nearly all its courses freely available over the Internet in the next ten years. MIT's website--MIT OpenCourseWare--will include lecture notes, course outlines, reading lists and assignments for each course. Over the next decade, the project expects to provide materials for over 2,000 courses across MIT's entire curriculum, including engineering, arts, humanities, science, and social sciences (MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology makes course materials free, 2001). Other colleges offering distance learning courses are the University of Hawaii (body, education) University of Hawaii - A University spread over 10 campuses on 4 islands throughout the state. http://hawaii.edu/uhinfo.html. See also Aloha, Aloha Net. (www.outreach.hawaii.edu); Century University (centuryu@nmcg.net); the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (www.class.com); Internet-based Cardean University (www.cardean.com), which is a collaboration of such elite universities as Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, and the University of Chicago; and a host of others can be located at dir.yahoo.com/universities/distance_learning. High school courses are offered by Keystone eSchool (www.keystonehighschool.com), the SusQ-Cyber Charter School (www.susqcyber.org), the Western Pennsylvania Western Pennsylvania consists of the western third of the state of Pennsylvania in the United States. Pittsburgh is the largest city in the region, with a metropolitan area of about 2.4 million people, and is the cultural center for Western Pennsylvania. Cyber Charter School (www.midlandpa.org/wpccs), Utah Electronic High School (http://ehs.uen.org), Kentucky's Virtual High School (www.kvhs.org), the Concord Massachusetts Virtual High School (http://vhs.concord.org), the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County Office of Education's TEAMS Distance Learning (teams.lacoe.edu), and other virtual high schools which can be located at dir.yahoo.com/Education/K_12/Distance_Learning. For those parents of rural gifted students interested in Christian schools A Christian School is a school run on Christian principles or by a Christian organization. The nature of Christian schools varies enormously from country to country according to the religious, educational, and political culture. and home schooling home schooling, the practice of teaching children in the home as an alternative to attending public or private elementary or high school. In most cases, one or both of the children's parents serve as the teachers. , a list of schools can be located at dir.yahoo.com /Christianity/Education/HomeSchooling/Distance_Learning. At times, rural gifted students can find no one qualified or knowledgeable to tutor them in subject matter. The Apex Learning Apex Learning, Inc. is a privately-held provider of e-Learning solutions for K-12 education, offering online courses in mathematics, science, English studies, social studies, Romance languages, and Advanced Placement. Tutoring Network offers users the ability to choose a qualified tutor from a list of selected educators based on cost, certification, and background. Students can either engage in an online tutoring Online tutoring refers to the process by which knowledge is imparted from a tutor, knowledge provider or expert to a student or knowledge recipient over the Internet. Online tutoring has been around almost as long as the Internet and takes the following form: session or select a tutor for a face-to-face session. To find a tutor, students can go to www.tutor.com. Help for teachers of rural gifted students is available. Educational Structures (www.pearsoned.com) is a teaching and learning tool designed for K-12 teachers that offers teachers access to thousands of comprehensive lesson plans, which can be customized for rural gifted students, each supported by instructional resources such as handouts, worksheets, teaching strategies, and assessment tools. Because of its ruralness, Australia of necessity has been a leader in rural education and in the education of rural gifted students. There is one school devoted exclusively to gifted children, Virtual School for the Gifted (www.vsg.edu.au), but the format and delivery of services of the remaining schools obviously provide for rural gifted students: the Distance Learning Centre in Victoria (www.distance.vic.edu.au), the Alice Springs Alice Springs, town (1991 pop. 20,448), Northern Territory, Australia. It lies in a pastoral area surrounded by desert near the center of the continent and is a stop on the Adelaide Darwin Railway. School of the Air (www.assoa.nt.edu.au), and the Charters Towers School of Distance Education (www.chartowesde.qld.edu.au). Tutors at the Alice Springs School of the Air report a greater eagerness on the part of their students to settle down and study, to work for longer periods, to experiment with freer written expression, and to be more imaginative in setting out assignment work than their city counterparts. The Education Department of Western Australia Western Australia, state (1991 pop. 1,409,965), 975,920 sq mi (2,527,633 sq km), Australia, comprising the entire western part of the continent. It is bounded on the N, W, and S by the Indian Ocean. Perth is the capital. extended the use of technology to gifted and talented students in rural Western Australia with higher order thinking as a learning outcome. The evaluation of the project indicated that the interactive features of the technology provided task-related collaboration and gave the students the opportunity to interpret, discuss, and evaluate concepts, thereby leading to higher order thinking (McLoughlin & Oliver, 1998). The Superhighway Teams Across Rural Schools (STARS) program has demonstrated how student learning was enhanced by the use of communications networks The transmission channels interconnecting all client and server stations as well as all supporting hardware and software. . Rural gifted students gained in increased problem-solving ability and higher levels of motivation and task involvement. Also, they showed improvements in logical thinking skills, adopting special roles as leaders and coordinators, and taking responsibility for their own learning (Ewing, Dowling, & Courts, 1997). Three schools using electronic technology are designed specifically for gifted students: the A. Linwood Holton Governor's School Governor's School may refer to:
n. A public school offering a specialized curriculum, often with high academic standards, to a student body representing a cross section of the community. specializing in mathematics and science located in eastern Massachusetts; and the Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities The Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics, and Humanities (also The Indiana Academy or simply IASMH) is a two-year residential public high school located on the campus of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, although it operates as a separate entity. , a state-supported residential school for academically gifted juniors and seniors in high school (Adams & Cross, 1999-2000). These electronic technologies will aid the rural gifted students and their teachers the most and make the following not only possible but routine: cultural experiences in the visual, creative, and performing arts; provisions for differentiated learning; virtual visits to all types of museums, industries, governmental agencies, and institutions; exposure to different ideas through interviews with prominent and/or controversial persons; advanced study in the content areas; library searches for needed information and for research activities; communication and collaboration with other schools and with teachers and trainers of teachers for gifted students; and interaction with mentors for rural gifted students. The application of these electronic technologies will be limited only by the imagination of the persons using them; also, unfortunately, by fiscal considerations. The acquisition of the initial hardware and software and the cost of staff training in electronic technology will be the primary fiscal problems, especially because rural education has been traditionally underfunded un·der·fund tr.v. un·der·fund·ed, un·der·fund·ing, un·der·funds To provide insufficient funding for. underfunded adj → infradotado (económicamente) . All students should be developed to their fullest potential; gifted students because of their greater potential for making contributions to society should not have their gifts neglected. As part of the gifted population, the needs of rural gifted students should not be overlooked and electronic technology offers a unique way to meet these needs. Recommendations Because the prime responsibility of federal and state legislatures is to act in the public interest and to resolve matters of public concern (Ruppert, 1996), it is recommended that state legislatures act in the public interest in the following ways. State legislatures must mandate and fund consolidation of clustered rural school districts so that they will be large enough to provide, at the least, minimally adequate educational programs and, ideally, superior educational programs, taking into account the previously mentioned factors or barriers to service delivery. Large-enrollment school districts offer gifted programs more frequently than small-enrollment school districts (Belcastro & Kelly, 1996). This effect argues for consolidation. Support for consolidation is found in another study (Iowa Department of Education, 1995) in which the average curriculum units offered and taught by public school districts varied by category enrollments, with the highest enrollment category teaching from 4.3 to 9.3 times as many curriculum units as the lowest enrollment category, depending on subject areas. It is recommended that both federal and state legislatures "make powerful new Internet See Web 2.0 and Internet2. resources, especially broadband access See broadband and wireless broadband. , widely and equitably available and affordable for all learners" (Grush, 2001, p.4) by funding the purchase of high-speed phone lines (Knapczyk, Rodes, & Chung, 1998) and funding hardware and software for use with electronic technology in rural schools. Legislatures should also fund the cost of continuous rural staff and teacher training in electronic technology (Schweizer, 1999; White & Weight, 2000) along with the cost for rural teachers to attend workshops in all aspects of gifted education Gifted education is a broad term for special practices, procedures and theories used in the education of children who have been identified as gifted or talented. Programs providing such education are sometimes called Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) or (Witters & Vasa, 1981). Both federal and state legislatures should give gifted students the same fiscal consideration that they give to handicapped students. The responsibilities of rural school districts are many. They must provide a staff member at the supervisory or administrative level who will be responsible for the gifted program in their schools. Without administrative responsibility administrative responsibility Any task or duty related to managing an institution; non-Pt management-related responsibilities of physicians include chart review, participation in the tumor board or tissue committee, etc. Cf Clinical responsibility. and oversight, the gifted program does not receive the needed attention at the level where funding and resource decisions are made. Ownership of the gifted program is absent and neglect is the inevitable consequence. Rural school districts must set special requirements for teachers in gifted programs or request the legislature to man date them. They must set district-wide goals (or gifted programs and include parents, teachers, administrators, and students in their advisory groups for their gifted programs. Special procedures for evaluating gifted programs at the district level should be established. These districts must involve parents in the rural school programs of their gifted children so that they feel that they have ownership in the programs and so that they learn important ways to reinforce classroom activities (Baldwin, 1994). Telephone and telecommunication companies must make a commitment to connect all schools in their areas to the Internet on high capacity lines free of charge, but give priority to rural schools, as Bell Atlantic has done (Seal & Harmon, 1995). REFERENCES Aamidor, S., & Spicker, H. H. (1995). Promise for the future: Gifted education in rural communities. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 14, 39-46. Adams, C. M., & Cross, T. L. (1999-2000). Distance learning opportunities for academically gifted students. Journal of Secondary Gifted Education, 11, 88-96. Attkisson, J. R. (1996). Options for rural gifted students. Houston, TX: University of Houston, Education Department. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 400 649) Baldwin, A. Y. (1994). The seven plus story: Developing hidden talent among students in socioeconomically disadvantaged environments. Gifted Child gifted child Child naturally endowed with a high degree of general mental ability or extraordinary ability in a specific domain. Although the designation of giftedness is largely a matter of administrative convenience, the best indications of giftedness are often those Quarterly, 38 (2), 80-84. Belcastro, F., & Kelly, K. (1996). Richardson Study: Largest vs. smallest school districts in Iowa
Chandler, B., & Maddux, C. D. (1998). Student use of instructors' web sites. Washington, DC: Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education, Ninth International Conference. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 421 152) DeLeon, J., & Argus-Calvo, B. (1997). A model program for identifying culturally and linguistically diverse rural gifted and talented students. College Station, TX: Texas A & M University, School of Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 406 125) Ewing, J., Dowling, J., & Coutts, N. (1997). STARS: Report on Superhighway Teams Across Rural Schools project. Dundee, Scotland: Northern College. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. 421 319) Gear, G. (1984). Providing services for rural gifted children. Exceptional Children, 50, 326-331. Grush, M. (2001). Editor's note Editor's Note (foaled in 1993 in Kentucky) is an American thoroughbred Stallion racehorse. He was sired by 1992 U.S. Champion 2 YO Colt Forty Niner, who in turn was a son of Champion sire Mr. Prospector and out of the mare, Beware Of The Cat. Trained by D. . Syllabus, 14 (8), 4. Hofmeister, A. (1994). Technological tools for rural special education. Exceptional Children, 50, 344-349. Iowa Department of Education. (1995). The annual condition of education report: A report on elementary, secondary, and community college education in Iowa (6th ed.). Des Moines Des Moines, city, United States Des Moines (dĭ moin`), city (1990 pop. 193,187), state capital and seat of Polk co., S central Iowa, at the junction of the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers; inc. , IA: Author. Joyce, B., & Wolking, W. (1988). Curriculum-based assessment: An alternative approach to screening young gifted children in rural areas. Rural Special Education Quarterly, 8 (4), 9-14. Knapczyk, D., Rodes, R., & Chung, H. (1998). Collaborative learning Collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches in education that involve joint intellectual effort by students or students and teachers. Collaborative learning refers to methodologies and environments in which learners engage in a common task in which each program addresses demand for special education teachers. T H E Journal, 26 (4), 57-60. Lewis, J. (1999). Country living: Benefits and barriers for gifted learners. Albuquerque, NM: American Council American Council may refer to: In linguistics:
Maddux, C. D. (1996). Search engines: A primer on finding information on the world wide web. Education Technology, 36 (5), 33-39. Maddux, C. D. (1998). The world wide web: Some simple solutions to common design problems. Educational Technology, 38 (5), 24-28. McLoughlin, C., & Oliver, R. (1998). Meeting the needs of gifted and talented students through technology supported by distance teaching. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 14 (1), 35-48. MIT makes course materials free over Internet. (2001, April 8). The Telegraph Herald The Telegraph Herald, locally referred to as the TH, is a daily newspaper published in Dubuque, Iowa for the population of Dubuque and surrounding areas in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin. , 211, 9D. O'Connell, C., & Hagans, R. (1985). High achievement in rural schools. Portland, OR: Northwest Region
The Northwest Region Education Laboratory. (ERIC Reproduction Service No. ED 265 008) Partow-Navid, P., & Slusky, L. (1999). Learning Java internationally using WebCT. THE Journal, 27 (4), 114-120. Ravaglia, R. (2000). Educational programs for gifted youth delivery through the Internet. Retrieved March 29, 2000 from http://EPGY.Stanford.Edu. Report on distance learning. (2000, August 4). Chronicle of Higher Education higher education Study beyond the level of secondary education. Institutions of higher education include not only colleges and universities but also professional schools in such fields as law, theology, medicine, business, music, and art. , 45, A38. Ruppert, S. (1996). The politics of remedy: State legislative views on higher education. Littleton, CO: Educational Systems Research. Savage, L., & Werner, J. (1994). Potpourri of resources to tap gifted education in rural areas. Austin, TX: American Council on Rural Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 369 601) Schweizer, H. (1999). Designing and teaching an on-line course. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Seal, K. A., & Harmon, H. L. (1995). Realities of rural school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 77, 119-124. Vanderslice, R. (1999). Rural Hispanic children and giftedness: Why the difficulty in identification? Albuquerque, NM: American Council on Rural Special Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 429 752) White, K. W., & Weight, H. H. (2000). The online teaching guide: A handbook of attitudes, strategies, and techniques for the virtual classroom. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Witters, L., & Vasa, S. F. (1981). Programming alternatives for educating the gifted in rural programs. Roeper Review, 3(4), 22-24. Worldwide College Links Employees to Training. (1999, July 23). Workforce, 121, 47-49. Frank P. Belcastro recently retired as professor in the Department of Education and Psychology at the University of Dubuque, Dubuque, IA. He is presently teaching part-time at Northeast Iowa Community College Originally, the school was known as Northeast Iowa Technical Institute (NITI). The school became a Community College in 1988, and was renamed NICC. The school is authorized by the Iowa Board of Education to award the Associate in Arts, Associate in Science, and Associate in , Peosta, IA. He has contributed articles in the areas of behavior modification behavior modification n. 1. The use of basic learning techniques, such as conditioning, biofeedback, reinforcement, or aversion therapy, to teach simple skills or alter undesirable behavior. 2. See behavior therapy. and gifted education. Manuscript submitted September, 2000. Revision accepted September, 2001. |
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