SIIA: Software & Information Industry Association

Best Professional Development Solution
PD In Focus

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In the last few weeks, federal and state officials have introduced a plethora of plans and proposals with implications for education and the role of technology that is perhaps unprecedented in scale and scope.  The latest is the “National Broadband Plan: Connecting America” released today by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in response to a Congressional request in the Recovery Act a year ago.  The others: the National Education Technology Plan, titled “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology” released two weeks ago,  the Obama Administration’s ESEA “blueprint for reform” and the NGA-CCSSO Common Core standards, not to mention the final Investing in Innovation (i3) rules.  The timing is largely coincidental.  The question: What does it all mean?

A few observations specific to education technology and SIIA members:

-The Obama Administration (including the independent FCC) seems to view technology as an important means to educating our students to maintain our global competitiveness.

- The Obama Administration is proposing a new federal policy path to realizing that goal, proposing to increase the E-Rate, eliminate targeted DoED funding through the Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program, infuse technology in other ESEA programs, and look to “supply-side solutions” such as investment in open educational resources (OER) and interoperability as well as potentially far-reaching regulation around copyright, technology standards, etc.

- It is unclear whether the Obama Administration’s vision for transforming education through technology is a priority or sufficiently backed by “demand-side” targeted federal policies and investments (i.e., those directly supporting educational agencies and teachers around technology) needed to help lead the nation’s education system in this new direction.

- It is less clear how the U.S. Congress, not to mention education leaders, will react in that their actions are largely need to legislate and enact these policies and recommendations.  For example, “Many of the FCC’s proposals are short on details, and lawmakers and the agency can accept or reject any number of the ideas.” 

A few examples of policies of potential concern that seek to expand the federal role on the “supply-side” around technology or change federal regulation:

- “When the Department of Education funds technology-based learning tools and resources, they should give priority to bids that will produce open resources, and the Department should identify and promote new business models that provide for sustaining and maintaining these resources.” (NETP, p.62)

- “The Department of Education with the Office of Science and Technology Policy should convene a cross-agency effort to create, publish, and maintain open standards for content, student learning, and financial data interoperability.” (NETP, p.73)

- “Congress should consider taking legislative action to encourage copyright holders to grant educational digital rights of use, without prejudicing their other rights. (NBBP, Rec. 11.4)

- “Whenever possible, federal investments in digital educational content should be made available under licenses that permit free access and derivative commercial use and should be compatible with the standards defined in Recommendation 11.1.” (NBBP, Rec. 11.2)

- “The U.S. Department of Education, with support from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), should establish standards to be adopted by the federal government for locating, sharing and licensing digital educational content by March 2011.” (NBBP, Rec. 11.1)

- “The U.S. Department of Education should provide a simple Request for Proposal (RFP) online ‘broadcast’ service where vendors can register to receive RFP notifications from local or state educational agencies within various product categories.” (NBBP, Rec. 11.13)

With regard to the Broadband Plan, reactions are mixed.  SIIA commends the FCC for a comprehensive National Broadband Plan recognizing the importance of ubiquitous high speed broadband access to our nation’s educational and economic health.  While many education ideas are touched on, we encourage the FCC and Congress to focus on those most appropriate and direct to the core goal: improving broadband access to schools and students necessary for learning in this digital age, including especially the raising of the E-rate cap.

Out of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” of these plans and proposals, SIIA looks forward to working further with our members, policy makers and other stakeholders to create an appropriate and positive set of policies and investments needed to transform education through technology.

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Speaker presentations and photos are now available for review.

View attendees here.

Delegates from the following countries are registered:

• Canada
• Denmark
• France
• Germany
• Holland
• Hungary
• India
• Ireland
• Korea
• Luxembourg
• Netherlands
• Norway
• Poland
• Republic of South Africa
• Russian Federation
• Spain
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• USA

Highlights Include:

* Trends in Market Data Delivery and Consumption
* European Regulatory Agenda and Its Impact on Financial Data
* Business Entity and Counterparty Risk and the Bloomberg Symbology Initiative.

View the entire list of highlights here.

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Headsprout Reading Comprehension

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* Finding facts
* Making inferences
* Identifying themes and the “main idea”
* Learning vocabulary in context

The National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) today released  the much anticipated, first official public draft of the K-12 standards as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  The standards in (1) English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies & Science and (2) Mathematics are expected to be finalized in early Spring.  Initial reviews, as expected, are a mix of praise and skepticism.  SIIA notes the inclusion in the standars of student digital/media literacy, use of technology to enhance writing, and use of technology to visualize and represent mathematical concepts as important ways the standards reflect 21^st century learning, knowledge and skills. 

At last week at SIIA’s Ed Tech Government Forum, representatives from CCSSO, Achieve and the Council of Great City Schools presented to more than 150 publishers and developers about the Common Core timeline and impact on curriculum, assessment and publishers.  They noted the key role played by publishers and developers, as well as the extended timeline and investment that will be needed to transition to the new standards. 

SIIA, along with session co-host the Association of American Publishers, took that opportunity to release a joint statement to support implementation of the Common Core state standards:

“The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) support the voluntary Common Core State Standards Initiative for education and its implementation through our members’ development of instructional, curricular, professional development, assessment and other resources, both digital and print, that align to the standards and are necessary for the teaching and learning of those Standards.  AAP, SIIA and our member publishers and developers look forward to the final approval and adoption of a set of Common Core Standards that ensure students gain the knowledge and skills necessary for their success in the 21st century. We expect the commonality of standards will reduce some burdens on our education system, resulting in enhanced opportunity for curriculum innovation and personalized learning to ensure all students are college and career ready.”

In so doing, SIIA and AAP affirmed that we and our member publishers and developers look forward to continued work with education agencies and other stakeholders to provide instructional resources aligned to state standards.  AAP and SIIA members collectively develop and publish a large majority of textbooks, software, online content, assessments and other primary and supplemental materials and related professional development used by educators and students in virtually all states and school districts across the country.

2010-2011

SIIA Board of Directors Elections

The SIIA Board of Directors is the team that makes decisions and sets priorities for the Association at large.  These are your representatives, and you will want to have the best possible advocates for your interests.

SIIA prides itself in having an open process for electing its volunteer leadership.  The process for getting elected to the SIIA Board of Directors is simple: any full member of SIIA who feels they can commit the time and energy is eligible to run for a seat on the SIIA Board of Directors.  Members are self-nominated according to the process outlined below.

The SIIA Board has seventeen seats. In the upcoming election, we will elect nine (9) new Board members to two-year terms.  The nine (9) new Board members will join the returning six (6) members.  This new Board will then appoint two additional Board members to one year terms. The two Board-selected members are usually picked for balancing purposes, since elections may leave one or more segments of our membership under-represented.  For your reference, the returning Board members are:

Suresh Balasubramanian, Director, Worldwide Anti-Piracy, Adobe Systems, Inc.

Daniel Burton, Senior Vice President, Global Public Policy, Salesforce.com

Kenneth Glueck, Vice President, Oracle Corporation

Bernard F. (Bernie) McKay, Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Intuit

Tom Rabon, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Red Hat, Inc.

Ken Wasch, President, Software & Information Industry Association

If you, or a person from your executive team, are interested in running for the SIIA Board, please have a brief campaign statement (not to exceed 200 words), sent to Marnel Williams (mwilliams@siia.net) no later than Friday, March 26, 2010.  The campaign statements will be bundled together and emailed to the principal contact at each SIIA Full Voting member company.  Members will be able to vote online through a password secure system.

2009-2010 SIIA Board of Directors Elections

The following current Board Members’ terms are expiring:

Cindy Braddon, Vice President, The McGraw-Hill Companies

Joseph T. FitzGerald, Vice President, Legal Deputy General Counsel, Symantec Corporation

Kathy Hurley, Senior Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, Pearson School Companies

Steven Manzo, Vice President, Government Affairs, Reed Elsevier, Inc.

Randy Marcinko, President, MEI

Fiona O’Carroll, EVP, Product Development Digital Products Research & Development, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Scott Schulman, President, Financial Information Services, Dow Jones & Company

Timothy Sheehy, Vice President, Worldwide Intellectual Property & Standard Policy, IBM Corporation