http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?&i=52445 Blogen-us Fri, 22 Feb 2008 02:26:33 PMFri, 22 Feb 2008 02:26:33 PM http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?&i=524452008-02-20 I read your statements that results are not compareble. I think you try to convince yourself PISA is worthless. But not. Your statements also shows that you fear to be jobless, suggesting online is bad but to use computer with teacher is good. Do not worry. We need now millions of teachers to design online courses for the whole world. To be one requires a little afford. http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?&i=524452008-02-20 Dear Bob You are right. We all neglected Unesco and its education information. Thanks million. But the reason is not " America's teachers still struggle to meangfully integrate technology with teaching and learning " as you say. Not at all. It is the teachers' union preventing online. Please remember the the Wisconsin case 2 months ago. It is just the fear to be jobless. Yes every technology leaves somebody jobless, technology goes on and those jobless people find new jobs because of that new technolgy. I hope unions see that. Best regards. mgozaydin@hotmail.com of Turkey http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?&i=524452008-02-19 Why dont you try to have all children in USA to have a laptop at 200 $ per piece. make it 10 $ per month installment. Even poor students can buy it. Instead of buying coca cola he can buy a laptop. mgozaydin@hotmail.com of Turkey http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?&i=524452008-02-19 An important point that may be under-emphasized in this piece is UNESCO's substantial investment in developing and disseminating resources supporting "Information and Communications Technology" or ICT standards in national educational systems all over the world, except in the USA. UNESCO resources include policy and best practice guidelines for open and distance learning, e-learning and for using information and communications technologies for supporting teacher training programs. Information describing and detailing UNESCO's ICT & Education program can be found at here, on the WWW: http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=42446&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Although Don Kenezek (ISTE Executive Director) is correct saying UNESCO consulted with ISTE during development of their ICT standards, ISTE's NETS standards and UNESCO's ICT standards are different in important ways. ISTE's NETS standards promote competencies required to use various digital "technologies" (physical artifacts; computers, networks appliances, etc.) and UNESCO's ICT standards promote "information use" for productive social and economic purposes. Using the metaphor attributed to Marshall Mcluhan, ISTE's standards are about the "medium" and UNESCO's standards are more concerned with "the message." UNESCO's ICT standards may have more in common with the American Library Association's advocacy for "information Literacy" standards than with ISTE's NETS standards: "http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/informationliteracy.cfm" The differences between ISTE's NETS standards and UNESCO's ICT standards might play some part explaining why many of America's schools (and teachers) still struggle to meaningfully integrate "technology" with teaching and with learning. Robert Blomeyer (BobBl) rblomeyer@earthlink.net