Written in Stockholm June 2004 by:

Titicaco Communicaring School has been developed after approximately 5 000 hours of work, involving deep studies of curriculums, deep interviews with headmasters, teachers, students and others. Furthermore we have developed a unique model for creating educational content. We are positive our model will be highly succesful for sustainable development and global use through Titicaco Communicaring School.

The succesmodel to shape our impact oriented educational program of Titicaco Communicaring School is based on involving teachers and students in the process. Furthermore we shall work with high quality content providers such as large companies, globally active NGO´s and univiersities. In order to create a succesful e-learning community we use online communicative methods that students prefer. We are not at this point giving out more details about our winning concept.

To understand more untraditional teaching methods read the following review giving a historical perspective on;


Teachers and machines: The classroom uses of technology since 1920.

Cuban, L. (1986).
New York: Teachers College Press.

Cuban reviews the attempts to adopt technology into American classrooms throughout the 20th century. Moving pictures, radio, TV, and other technology-based improvements were loudly highly praised for bringing a new concept for education. All attempts failed to make an impression in established curriculum and teaching. Cuban analyzes these failures, and applies his ideas to the current wave of technology, the computer.

Cuban points to the "permanent paradox facing public schools: faithfulness amidst change," which is most clear in the relationship between classroom teachers and technology. He describes the classroom as "A crucible where conflicting cultural, community and organizational imperatives mix, creating the elements of the paradox”. He points to contradictory expectations that schools:

• socialize all children yet nurture each child’s creativity,
• teach the best that the past has to offer, but insure that each child has practical and marketable skills
• demand obedience of authority, but encourage children to question and think for them selves
• cultivate cooperation, but prepare children for competition.

Teachers’ solutions to these contradictions often focus on transferring knowledge, skills and values to students via lectures and questions, with the expectation that students listen and answer, and read textbooks.

"Passing on knowledge to students is the force that drives the engine of instruction”

The dream has been to allow students to acquire maximum information with the same or less teacher effort -.efficiency is a goal of technology use. Books and pictures were 19th century media which expanded on lecture to convey facts, skills and values. Film, radio, TV, tape recorders, and computers are new additions with the promise of individualized instruction, reducing monotonous activities, presentation of content beyond what is readily available to the classroom teacher. Cuban defines useful instructional technology as "any device available to teachers for use in instructing students in a more efficient and stimulating manner than the sole use of the teacher’s voice".

Cuban describes a variety of research investigations related to teachers and their tools. He notes that early this century, a superintendent described elementary principals and teachers as having a "Passive, routine, clerical" attitude toward their work. Early in this century, progressive educators called for instruction that built on the interests of students, opened classrooms to the larger world, and involved students in activities that had social and intellectual outcomes. They argued that the teacher’s role was coach and adviser. Student work was project based, which students and teachers jointly determined and explored.

"Books will soon be out of date in schools."

 - Edison said in 1913. "Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye. It is possible to touch every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture”. School boards and superintendents decided when and how to introduce film into districts by bringing equipment funds and assigning administrative staff because they believed that research demonstrated that film was a superior teaching tool. Film was seen as concrete, with the ability to create opinion and interest in students. It was a practical and productive tool that would clearly transform classroom practice.
During the post-World War I era, the new technology in the classroom was film. But even back then they had problem integrating this new technology into the classrooms. Cuban identified four obstacles which stifled increased film in the classroom:

• finding and fitting the right film to the curriculum,
• inaccessibility of equipment when it was needed,
• cost of films, equipment, and upkeep, and
• Teachers' lack of skills in using equipment and film.

In 1920 the Radio Division of the U.S. Department of Commerce began to license commercial and educational stations, and classroom broadcasting spread rapidly through the 1940s. Local and national networks provided educational programming. State Departments of Education across the nation supported radio programming. Universities became involved in educational. Schools districts and individual schools began to develop their own broadcasts. By 1945 there was a wide mixture of educational programming available to teachers and students across the country.

Educational TV was the next technology Cuban explored

By the early 1950s; the Federal Communications Commission had licensed educational-television stations to broadcast programs to school. Within two decades of the introduction of classroom television, the same example that had appeared with radio and film. A similar pattern emerged - supporters claiming great promise of the technology to provide learners with stimulating and suitable information from around the world. Once again, educators did not widely use educational TV. Once again schools did not adopt the new technological changes in society.

The technology and its early applications to the classroom were conceived, planned, and adopted by non-teachers, just as radio and film had captured the imaginations of an earlier generation of reformers interested in improving instructional efficiency. School boards and superintendents did local initiatives; teachers were hardly ever concerned, or even consulted.

From studies and surveys of teachers in the 1970’s, he estimates that the vast majority of teachers used instructional TV for less than 4% of instructional time (1 hour / week).
By the late 1960s, complete data computerization in the military, corporations, and government operations was under way. For schools administrative tasks commonly done by hand, such as paying employees, purchasing products, and making school schedules, became targets for computerization. Individual schools began purchasing software.

Advocates for these technologies saw teachers as obstacles that were unwilling or fearful of change. Cuban points to other fundamental issues at work:
Accessibility of hardware and software- little equipment is available, and what is available is difficult to schedule, and difficult to use. Program quality varies, and hardly ever goes in hand with curriculum.

Implementation of the Innovation

- many technological advances have been promoted by non-teachers and "Such innovations for solving productivity problems defined by non-teachers invariably mandated into use by district policy makers, not teachers”.

Computers were also celebrated for their amazing power to improve teaching and learning. The machines had already entered schools in the early 1960s with mainframes and terminals. But with the introduction of desktop computers in the late 1970s, virtual thrill over their power pumped up claims further.

Cuban’s work traces the history of failed technological innovations in schools - film, radio, and television, and the first wave of computers - and contributes to an understanding of the factors which conclude the likelihood of technologies taking place in schools. To be successful, Cuban found, technological innovations must involve teachers in planning and implementing changes..

In order to be accepted by teachers, Cuban found that technological tools have to be simple, reliable, durable, flexible and responsive to teacher-defined problems. They need to provide students and teachers with access to information that is useful and suitable, that relates to what is currently being taught and learned, and that fits the daily and weekly schedule of teachers and their students. If technologies don’t meet these criteria, they won’t be used by the majority of teachers.

Cuban has recognized a simple and so far reflective issue: "The changes teachers have embraced, have solved problems that teachers identified as important, not necessarily ones defined by non-teachers. Moreover, what teachers adopted buttressed their authority, rather than undermining it”. The teachers will adopt technologies that server their needs and that maintain their classroom influence. They will actively — or passively — resist changes that they see as eroding their authority, and / or that distract them and their students from their most important work.. As Cuban states it: "The power of the classroom and school settings in establishing boundaries and shaping the practices harnessed to the culture of teaching explain, I believe, a great deal of teacher behaviour and varied responses to classroom innovations in general, and technological ones especially" .

He writes a good deal more about the teaching / learning environment and innovation. It is interesting to read and see from the eye of a researcher. Even though the book is from 1986. This book was written before the Computer revolution. But maybe the computer world has many parallels to the earlier infusion of technologies in schools. People working with this must pay attention to what Cuban writes to avoid making the same mistakes. The teachers must accept it before it will have an impact inside the classroom. Prepare learners for the 21st century — and then provide them with the tools, training, and support to provide improved instruction.
Conclusion

The succesmodel of Titicaco Communicaring School is to involve teachers, involve students, use online communicative methods that students prefer. Furthermore we shall use high quality content providers such as large companies, globally active NGO´s and univiersity students in the creation process of a global school.