Friday, October 19, 2001

LOGGING IN WITH . . . Rita R. Colwell Science Foundation's Director Sees Equity and Access as Major Technology Issues By DAN CARNEVALE Rita R. Colwell is the director of the National Science Foundation. Although information-technology research is a major goal for the science foundation, it also works to make computers more accessible to college students in the classroom. Ms. Colwell was appointed by President Bill Clinton to a six-year term that ends in 2004. Q. What are some of the top technology priorities for the NSF? A. We're really very concerned about supporting really good teaching and students with a learning capacity in advanced technologies -- having students who really are capable, not just computer-literate, but highly versatile. But more than that, for the undergraduate classroom, it's equity and access. ... We're looking for ways to update curricula, to enrich courses with technology -- not substitute for teaching, but to enrich courses -- and we really are focused on removing barriers for women, minorities, and especially people with disabilities. And we have some very exciting projects under way for the visually impaired and the hearing impaired to be able to use computers and benefit from the computers and their capabilities. And we're particularly focused on serving the underserved communities -- Native Americans, African-Americans, Chicano-Americans, Hispanic-serving institutions, and that community -- and women, of course. ... I remember in the late '70s and early '80s, the enrollment of women in computer science was really very dramatic. And that has fallen off, and we don't really know why. Q. How are you going to improve overall access to computers and technology for students? A. We're investing in something that's very important, and that's the National Digital Library -- about $24-million a year in 2001-2. This is of fundamental importance because it's a national resource for Internet-based learning for students. What it does is link students, teachers, faculty in virtual learning communities. It provides databases that students can explore on their own, and self-learning and tutoring are extraordinarily good ways to learn. I think I learned more the years that I was a graduate teaching assistant than I learned any other time, because you had to be prepared for the totally unexpected, the-emperor-has-no-clothes types of questions. Q. Is this being used widely in colleges and universities now? A. It's being used widely. I think students are really very creative creatures, thank heaven. And when they find out that there's something that's interesting and useful, they surf like crazy. I think the challenge for the NSF is to move from those who are computer-agile to introducing the computer to those who have never looked upon themselves as computer users. Once you are somewhat facile on the computer, then there's really no stopping you. And that's where we want to get these communities that are underserved to be, to feel comfortable with the computer and consider it another tool. I think the computer can be a source of enrichment for children in ways that we haven't even thought about ... digital libraries, efforts to make students technology-literate, reaching parents. I was involved in a program before I came to NSF that was connected to the local school system. We worked through community organizations, including the churches, and on weekends we would have the parents joining us with their kids with some of the programs we started, using the computers. It got to be kind of amusing. You'd have to peel the parents off the computer in order to give the kids a chance to work on it. So that's another aspect of it, which is important, bringing the computer into the community and into the family. Q. Are you working mainly to provide families access to computers, or to make computers more user friendly? A. It's both, really. Once you've crossed the River Styx and you're now in computer territory, there's no going back because you get hooked on it -- that's being facetious. What I really mean to say is that it is indeed improving the capacity of students to use the information technology as well as to introduce to those who had not had any interaction with computers to have a better understanding of what they can do for you. Now another area that's very important is course-curriculum lab improvements. And where we do this investment, it's about 75 percent technology-based. It supports really good educational materials and instructional models. These are very important, especially where you have perhaps institutions such as the Native American-serving institutions and Hispanic-serving institutions, as well as rural institutions, where the curriculum needs to be updated and improved. It's a good opportunity to enrich the courses that are being taught through technology. Now this doesn't mean just plunking a computer in a classroom and saying to the teacher, "Now you're technology-linked." Because we have found that unless the teacher is comfortable and understands the use of the computer and can see how it can improve his or her teaching, then it's not anything more than something else in the classroom like another table or chair. So there's a multidimensional approach to what we're trying to do here at the National Science Foundation. Q. How do you accomplish this with so many colleges and universities across the nation? A. Well, NSF is a leader. It's a paradigm-setter. What we do is develop the models and then work with the Department of Education and with the local school system to scale it up. For example, there's over $350-billion that's spent for K-12 education by local communities, and something between $40-billion and $48-billion by the Department of Education. And if you take everything that NSF spends on education across the entire foundation, it's about $1-billion. So obviously, we have to be enzymes or catalysts. ... And we already know we've been successful because we have a number of programs where the effects of the NSF have been dramatic. Background article from The Chronicle: NSF Director Focuses on Information Technology, Math and Science Education (11/20/1998) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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