January 1999
Perrin Printing & Publishing was in trouble. Long respected as a publisher of classic literature, the company several years ago had decided to pursue growth by adding contemporary titles to its lineup. But though sales had risen steadily since the change in strategy, the company's workforce, warehouse and manufacturing facilities seemed ill-equipped to handle demands imposed by the new production schedule. As a result, profits and margins had declined.
It was not only the toughest case Diana Tamez had ever confronted, it was the only one. Indeed, the 17-year-old student and most of her colleagues at Southwest High School in Minneapolis knew little of concepts like workflows, profit margins or procurement prior to tackling the problems of the fictitious Perrin. But by participating in a pilot project using a software-based business-simulation course in which they role-played as consultants, students at Southwest and four other Minneapolis-area schools have gained a grasp of general business terminology and business fundamentals. This understanding allowed them to make insightful presentations to Perrin's "management."
This pilot represents an alternative solution to meeting a challenge faced not only by a Midwestern American city but by governments around the world: how to cost-effectively incorporate information technology into curricula and support teachers in the use of these new tools in order to bring education into the next century.
The Minneapolis pilot implemented a software-based curriculum patterned after an internal training program developed by Accenture. Working on personal computers in the school, Tamez and 22 other students—many of them non-native English speakers with college aspirations—delved into the minutiae of Perrin's human resources, manufacturing and other operations via a multimedia program on CD-ROM.
In one activity, each student assumed the role of director of human resources and had to make personnel decisions for a 48-month period, balancing the needs of Perrin's employees with the company's profitability goals. If the students did not achieve profit targets, they were "fired." In reality, of course, students were able to turn back the clock and revisit their 48-month block of decision making. Getting fired was a serious motivator for getting it right the second time around.
Teams of students met with managers, explored alternatives for addressing such problems as manufacturing delays or poorly performing employees, and came up with proposals. There were no right answers per se, but an underlying intelligent tutor in the software subtly helped students discover solutions at their own pace, sending them back in virtual time if their ideas did not produce acceptable results. Teachers supplemented these interactive lessons with insights and materials of their own. Their role was more that of a coach, encouraging students to find their own answers. At the end, students made a formal presentation of their findings to area business executives and school officials playing the roles of Perrin management.
Studies have shown that people typically retain 75 percent more from a goal-based approach than they do from lectures. "Our objective is to support a new educational delivery model, one that makes the student an active participant in the learning process," explains Judith Teller, a client partner at Accenture. "In our model, knowledge is not brought to the student; the student has to discover it where it is."
Thanks to the program, Tamez says, she feels more empowered to meet the challenges that lie ahead in life, and has higher expectations for herself. Administrators, too, are pleased. "The level of the students' final presentations was terrific," says Southwest principal Robert McCauley. "They had graphs, they spent time meeting to analyze the problems and make recommendations; I was astounded."
Students also used the skills learned—interviewing, presentation, teamwork, problem-solving and critical thinking—to enhance other parts of their academic lives. "They don't jump to conclusions" in other classes, says Michael Iacarella, a teacher at Edison High School in Minneapolis and one of the pilot project's facilitators. "They'll analyze and research in a more logical manner than they have before." In the process, students' overall confidence levels improved.
Such interactive learning clearly holds tremendous potential for better educating and preparing students for a world in which the delivery of goods and services is being rapidly transformed by information technology. Recent Accenture research with senior executives globally found that the number one issue on senior executives' minds was the need to develop skilled workers for the new information-intensive economy. "Information is the currency of the future," says Accenture global education industry managing partner Bradley Englert. "And there's an expectation that people will exit the educational system with the necessary skills to function in the explosive information environment—skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, which the new software-based curricula help develop."
Another challenge for budget-conscious schools is finding a cost-effective way to keep educational technology and the requisite teaching materials up to date. At a small private school in Fort Worth, Texas, educators are now getting a glimpse of how such issues can be addressed, using currently available technology that has never before been deployed in an educational setting. Last year, White Lake School and its 125 elementary students entered the digital age via the Accenture managed education technology project. Through the project, some 90 previously donated personal computers were converted to wireless network computers upgraded with software that allows the students to access their own data and programs, regardless of which computer they use.
The network computers—some hardwired into the walls, others positioned on mobile carts linked to an off-site data center by the latest in wireless technology—are scattered around the school. Students have their own log-ons and passwords, allowing access to the network from anywhere in the school. And because the students' profiles, programs and data are stored at the off-site data center rather than the computer itself, it is both cheaper to build and maintain, and easier to update. Also, Internet access is filtered at the data center by a sophisticated set of monitoring software.
The network essentially turns the personal computer into an appliance, in the same sense that a public telephone is an appliance. Providing students with virtual personal computers means that they can share the appliance without interfering with one another's use and that schools can provide students with computer access without necessarily dedicating one computer for each student.
Equally important is facilitating the transformation from traditional textbook-based learning to a more interactive model. As with any change effort, there are challenges. For new technologies to be successful, teachers must be provided the professional training and on-site coaching to learn how to effectively incorporate information technology into the curriculum. "We are not going to automate the classroom," notes Englert. "We're discovering how to better leverage information technology so teachers can be more effective." Starting last April, White Lake teachers received more than 200 hours of training and on-site coaching on how to use both the new computers and the expansive resources available from the data center and the Internet.
White Lake headmaster Jerry Johnson says that learning in his school has been transformed overnight. Today, teachers can pull information off the Internet and transfer it to students' monitors. The Spanish teacher has tapped into several interactive software programs available on the Web, and second-graders recently jumped onto the Internet to plot the course of a hurricane. "You can't do something like that with a textbook," Johnson says.
The annual per-student cost of a network like White Lake's, including technical support, may vary from school to school. It could also seem steep at first glance. But Johnson argues that when the amount now spent on textbooks, hardware, software and technicians—most system glitches can be addressed at the data center level—is taken into account, "it makes good economic sense."
The White Lake experience could be duplicated by other schools. Accenture envisions centralized databases, housed in off-site data centers, that would host an extensive digital library of educational programs and materials, including a growing menu of interactive tools such as the business-simulation course used in Minneapolis. This content would be accessed by dozens, if not hundreds, of individual schools. These educational resources could also be delivered to the home for use by adults and students alike. Because the software runs at remote data centers, it would not be necessary to retool thousands of computers each year to keep pace with new offerings.
"Software-based curricula and managed education networks are not a panacea," observes Englert. "But they do offer new, exciting techniques for the delivery of education." And if the preliminary results found in Minneapolis and Fort Worth are any indication, introducing more and richer technology-centered, interactive learning experiences to the classroom in a way that is affordable would leave students like Diana Tamez much better prepared for the world they will enter after graduation.
John Engen is a business and financial writer based in Minneapolis.
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