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As a result of the Potomac Conference leadership series in January 1999, leaders from
business, higher education and K-12 education began discussing ways to develop a
collaborative, regional initiative to address concerns about the education process
and workforce readiness of the Greater Washington Region's students. To that end,
the leaders of these sectors have begun working together to develop a regional initiative
that will create an innovative, Internet-enriched, instructional model. The theme of this
initiative is, "Citizenship in the Digital Age" which encapsulates the focus on the social
studies curriculum. This new initiative would also include an Internet Summer Institute to
support the instructors using this instructional model.
The overall goals of this initiative are to:
- Produce a technically literate and well-educated student body and future
workforce
- Empower the next generation with good citizenship, knowledge and skills
- Develop a model for regional collaboration that can be expanded into other
applications of technology and instruction
- Provide for greater equity in educational opportunity across the region
- Raise the technological sophistication of teachers and other educators
- Create an exciting opportunity for our children to become successful digital citizens
In order to continue the development of the project plan as described above, a series of
focus groups were scheduled the week of July 19th with administrators,
instructional/technology specialists and social studies teachers in the Greater Washington
Region. Four sessions were held with a total of 38 attendees (7 Administrators, 9
Instructional Media/Technologists, 22 Teachers) from Fairfax County, Arlington County,
Alexandria City, the District of Columbia, Montgomery County, and Prince George's County
school districts. The purpose of the sessions was to gain a greater understanding of the
current environment in which schools are operating, the ideal environment for undertaking a
collaborative, technologically enhanced effort, the potential challenges to this initiative,
and the opportunities to begin implementing this initiative. Following are
the summaries from the Administrators, the Instructional Technology Specialists, and the
Teachers.
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