February 1999 — Features
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The Educational Enterprise Zone: Where Knowledge Comes From!
Enhanced Learning Through Collaboration
Through funding from the Hitachi Foundation and Title III, teachers from schools in New York City, Long Island, Washington D.C. and other locations are collaborating with museums, cultural institutions, research sites, hospitals, colleges and businesses on lessons and activities that share knowledge and resources. Some of the participating Museums include The Museum of TV and Radio, American Museum of Natural History, The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), The New York State Museum, The Smithsonian Institute (Natural History and American History), The Philadelphia Fine Arts Museum and The Bronx Zoo.
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The Natural partners of the National Museum of Natural History are working with EEZ to develop a concept called "The Museum in the Box." Schools will receive a box with three compartments. The first compartment has the technology required to connect the school to the museum, the second contains the instructional materials required for the activities (lesson plans, student lab materials, specimens or replicas of items in the collection, etc.). The third section of the box is perhaps the most exciting because it is empty. Students will construct knowledge after interacting with the museum and placing results or products into the empty section to send back to the museum in order for them to be shared with their peers and the educational community.
What we have learned is that the technology must be seamless. Once teachers and community partners are trained, together they develop effective and rich learning activities. They use the technology as a means to plan, train, and collaborate with one another, just as they expect their students will do in the 21st century. Area experts, teachers and scientists find their own knowledge growing and professional expertise expanding from the new collaborations.
Videoconferencing offers students real time mentors and real world problem solving: adults who serve as role models and guides in expert systems previously unavailable to schools. The President of NYIT, Dr. Matthew Schure has often said, "It is not simply about the technology but it is about the teaching and learning." Imagine the possibilities as the researchers, curators and educators and millions of artifacts become part of the community of learning in every school location. As a community and as individuals we are constructing knowledge. NYIT's EEZ paradigm puts forth and supports the notion that community members can provide not only resources, but the real world problems, support and encouragement needed for students to build constructs that lift them to high levels of achievement, applied critical thinking and problem solving. We call on all who join NYIT's EEZ to open the doors of wonder and to build the whole village that will raise our children.
Stan Silverman is the Director of Technology Based Learning at the New York Institute of Technology.
Gene Silverman is the Coordinator of Curriculum and Instruction at Nassau BOCES.
