The Coming of Age with Technology in Rural Schools

Articles in The Rural Educator from the early Eighties reflect the new interest in bringing technology to rural schools, primarily for delivery of courses to schools where they would otherwise be unavailable. Expanding the accessibility to curricula would improve the opportunities of rural students to compete with students from larger metropolitan schools for admission to colleges, for job opportunities, and for a broader education as well. Delivery of such courses was first recorded in the journal in an article in the Fall 1983 issue in which John E. Davis, the Executive Head of Field Services and Extension at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at Toronto, recounted the history of the use of correspondence courses by various parts of the world, but especially their use in Western Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Although this methodology hardly fits our definition of “technology” today, it was the forerunner of delivering information to public school students without the physical presence of the teacher and with kits developed by others than the actual classroom teacher. Of course such courses had been available at the college level as early as 1918, but this was a new innovation for public schools. The information in this article proved of such interest to readers that it was expanded and rewritten for the Spring 1985 issue of the journal. In the article Davis wrote, “Not only are correspondence courses now being used to supplement a school's curriculum, but also to permit students to work at varying degrees of pace. The have a special applicability to rural students who, even in these days of advanced mechanization, are (at different seasons of the year) called away from schools for periods of time to become members of the farm work force. The suggestion is not being made that correspondence courses should replace conventional classrooms and that teachers should become mere supervisors of correspondence classes. Rather, the idea is that the two might be used to complement each other. Davis’s article deals only with the in-school use of correspondence materials. “At their most ineffective level of use, such materials are provided to students who are then assigned study space somewhere in the school, most often in the library, and then are left to work more or less on their own. Experience shows, however, that only a small percentage of these students succeed [with this method]. ... On the other hand, when the students are supervised even in the sense of providing only moral support or giving assistance in understanding the questions, the percentage of successes rises dramatically (Davis and Ryan, 1980). This suggests that an important factor in the success of correspondence students is not just the availability of teacher assistance, but the regularity and immediacy of that assistance. The fact, of course, has long been recognized by proponents of computer-assisted instruction who are quick to emphasize the immediate feedback and support features of that mode of instruction.” Of course, Davis's comments could be applied to any other method of delivery of instruction, including on-line courses of today in which the instructor is not readily available for immediate feedback and encouragement. In the Spring 1985 issue of The Rural Educator Davis says, “Correspondence education in rural secondary schools is not a new concept. It has been accepted widely enough to have proven itself to be a superior alternative to inadequate and insufficient curricula. Recent developments which have the potential to enhance its attractiveness center around the use of new communications technology. Two innovations have great potential. The first of these, (which may be coupled with the use of print material), is satellite communications which gradually will make two-way television learning a practical possibility. This will be a major advance over television which delivers only program segments rather than a complete course. The second is a major development in the ways that audiotapes, videotapes and computer discs are used to expand the scope and depth of more traditional types of correspondence materials and, in some instances, even replace them. Computers in particular have a two-way communication facility which makes them especially appealing to young students. Mini programs in a wide variety of subject areas provide diversity and interest in standard correspondence courses.” Davis concludes the 1985 article with “Supervised correspondence courses and materials continue to play a valuable role in providing curriculum diversity in rural schools, especially since new courses no longer are composed of purely print materials but now may incorporate many “hands on” features and, in addition, use new communication technology. There is also a growing trend towards making the materials available to school libraries where they act as resource materials for students and teachers alike.” Only one year later Bruce Barker wrote in an article entitled “The Role of the Microcomputer in Rural Schools” in the Fall 1986 issue of The Rural Educator how this innovation had impacted rural education. He wrote “Though actual research is limited on the role of the microcomputer as an educational tool (Karoff, 1983), few educators would argue that computers are just another fad that will wind up on the shelf as have so many previous innovations. In the past 30 years, our nation has moved

of such courses was first recorded in the journal in an article in the Fall 1983 issue in which John E. Davis, the Executive Head of Field Services and Extension at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at Toronto, recounted the history of the use of correspondence courses by various parts of the world, but especially their use in Western Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Although this methodology hardly fits our definition of "technology" today, it was the forerunner of delivering information to public school students without the physical presence of the teacher and with kits developed by others than the actual classroom teacher.
Of course such courses had been available at the college level as early as 1918, but this was a new innovation for public schools. The information in this article proved of such interest to readers that it was expanded and rewritten for the Spring 1985 issue of the journal.
In the article Davis wrote, "Not only are correspondence courses now being used to supplement a school's curriculum, but also to permit students to work at varying degrees of pace. The have a special applicability to rural students who, even in these days of advanced mechanization, are (at different seasons of the year) called away from schools for periods of time to become members of the farm work force.
The suggestion is not being made that correspondence courses should replace conventional classrooms and that teachers should become mere supervisors of correspondence classes. Rather, the idea is that the two might be used to complement each other.
Davis's article deals only with the in-school use of correspondence materials. "At their most ineffective level of use, such materials are provided to students who are then assigned study space somewhere in the school, most often in the library, and then are left to work more or less on their own.  (Davis and Ryan, 1980 Nearly 60 percent of today's labor force is engaged in the production of information goods and services, and that figure is still climbing. In 1950 only about 17 percent of the work force was so engaged (Annison, 1982 What is the computer/student ratio, and how many teachers understand computer technology well enough to teach others." Over 90 percent of the principals in both samples state that microcomputers were used for instructional purposes. In fact, student instruction was ranked as the number one use of microcomputers in the schools. Principals also agreed that the second major function was for recordkeeping (attendance records, scheduling, library, etc.) and that the third was for word processing by office staff-related questions.
"Two random samples of operating public high schools in the United States were used. The first consisted of 475 schools with enrollments of fewer than 500 students each. The second consisted of 900 schools with enrollments in excess of 1000 students each. A mailing list, purchased from Market Data Retrieval, Incorporated, indicated a total of 5060 qualifying schools in the first sample (this did not include continuation, alternative, or specialty schools, almost all of which enroll fewer than 500 students) and 4799 qualifying schools in the second sample.
A self-administered questionnaire was mailed "to school principals in each of the two samples. Responses were returned from 319 of the small schools for a return of 67.2 percent and from 350 of the large schools for a return of 38.9 percent. The fact that 99.0 percent of the schools participating in this study owned a microcomputer(s) and that the machines were used chiefly for instructional purposes is evidence that many administrators recognize the importance of this responsibility. With appropriate software, it appears that the microcomputer has instructional application in almost any subject area. The extent to which microcomputers are presently used by students is limited. One reason is that the student/computer ratio is still sufficiently large as to restrict most students from having adequate time to work on-line with the computer at school. Although the findings from samples taken in this study showed a lower student/computer ratio in small high schools compared to large ones, the actual on-line computing time is still surprisingly inadequate. We selected two pilot schools-Cheboygan and Mackinaw City-to be operational in the first year (1986 1987 The authors of this article describe Audio-graphics as "a telephone-based system, allowing two-way voice communication, which is enhanced with a computer network that exchanges graphics between broadcast points. This computer system is described as an 'electronic blackboard' by the company that developed the technology (Optel) and serves the same purpose as a conventional blackboard. While students at a distant school cannot see their teacher, they can see what is being written or drawn on the "blackboard just as if they were in the classroom." The authors' study evaluated the merit and worth of such a system. "The evaluation was organized around two questions: (1) Does the Audio-graphics telecommunication equipment work well enough to enable teachers and students to function successfully in the classroom? and (2) Do the Audio-graphics tele-learning programs offer students educational opportunities which significantly add to their learning at school? Underlying these evaluation questions is an assumption that people-not technology-produced learning. A Nagotech Conference Card (Video and Audio PCMCIA Card) was installed in the computer. A Nogatech portable camera was included in the price of $393. The software cost $600 for permission to have it installed on 10 machines. The total cost for the portable set-up was $2,338, supported by a grant from the state of Georgia for infusing technology into teacher training programs. "When a conference or observation was desired (these were scheduled by telephone ore-mail), the teacher simply turned on the computer, logged on to the CU-SeeMe network, and connected with the reflector at VSU with a manual dial option that was programmed into the computer prior to delivery at the school. This arrangement allowed the teacher to request assistance at any time. Additionally, it allowed observations to occur more frequently than the minimum required." At the time this article was written, Valdosta State University was committed to the expansion of this technology for teacher preparation supervisory purposes.
There were plans to install technology to handle 25 audio/ video observations/conference simultaneously.
Although as we review these previously published articles, the technology seems somewhat antiquated, we must remember that at the time this was the state-of-the art and was an important factor in saving rural schools in that through the technology they could meet state standards and curriculum requirements, their teachers were better trained, and they were no longer isolated.