The 1996 National Education Summit, held March 26-27 in Palisades, N.Y., featured a series of technology demonstrations, including one by the National Digital Library.
The goal of the summit was to build commitment among participants to move quickly to help states and communities reach consensus and develop and implement high academic standards, assessments and accountability. Participation was limited to 130 people and included 44 state governors, one business leader from each state and a variety of education leaders such as chief state school officers, educators and state legislators.
The National Digital Library (NDL) Program demonstration was one of only 11 featured presentations at the summit, chosen from more than 80 proposals. The demonstrations were selected to reflect comprehensive use of technology and a keen focus on improving education.
The demonstrations were divided into four groups: teaching and learning, staff and professional development, school/home/community connections and administration and management. The NDL demonstration was featured in the group on school/home/community connections, along with the Kennedy Center ArtsEdge information network and Wired for Learning, a software program designed by IBM Research.
Governors and business leaders attending the summit saw the technology demonstrations in small group sessions during the morning of March 27. The small-group format allowed closer viewing of the demonstrations and more informal dialogue. The NDL demonstration, conducted by Martha Dexter of the NDL educational services team, featured a role-playing exercise in which the governors and business leaders were asked to imagine themselves as students studying America at the turn of the century and researching the emergence of business and commerce in their hometowns. With an actual online connection, Ms. Dexter acted as their librarian in helping them conduct research in the NDL collections via the new Learning Page (accessible at //memory.loc.gov/learn), a gateway to the collections that is tailored to the needs of students and teachers. She showed imaginative ways that students have used the archival collections as springboards to further research and as documentary evidence to support their work. For example, the photographs from the Detroit Publishing Co. collection, many of which were originally turn-of-the-century postcards, can be rec-reated in their original postcard format by simply downloading them into basic word processing software.
Feedback from the participants was enthusiastic. One business leader commented that the NDL demonstration made the entire summit worthwhile. Most seemed amazed at the wealth of material available from the Library, and were pleased to find they can access it now via the World Wide Web.
Many applauded the Library of Congress's commitment to make its collections universally available, but expressed concern about the ability of schools to access the Internet, reinforcing their commitment to review connectivity in their own states.
Following the technology demonstrations, President Clinton met with summit participants and endorsed his commitment to education, including a plan to provide Internet access for all schools.
For more information about the National Education Summit, the full text of speeches and background on the technology demonstration, contact the Summit's World Wide Web site: http://www.achieve.org/node/301.
