Wish TV –

Bridging The Gap Between The Living Room And The Classroom

By Jeff White

Imagine every Newtown student coming home after a long day of school and turning on the television. They would not be tuning into their favorite afternoon shows, but rather accessing their own personalized home page.

Pending parental support, that might soon become a reality.

The school district is currently looking into a pilot program called Wish TV, an innovative initiative designed by WorldGate Communication that seeks to electronically connect a child’s classroom and family room. By giving students the ability to access the Internet at home and at school, the Wish TV program promises to close the gap between students who are already online and students who are not.

Newtown is one of 12 school districts nationwide that has the opportunity to participate in this initiative. At no initial cost to the Newtown school district, the pilot program would target the its fourth grades in each of its elementary schools, with the potential of adding additional grade levels after the pilot year, depending on how well the program does.

The choice of focusing on the fourth grade is not a random one. In Louisiana, the state for which the program was first designed, fourth graders were dead last in all statewide educational tests. Educators and program designers saw Wish TV as a way of increasing those scores.

Every student participating in the program would have his or her own identification number and password that would patch him or her directly into their individual school’s home page, via a keyboard and a Wish TV box (the size of a cable box) on top of the television. The computer would recognize the ID number and password and bring up only the correct school’s home page; there would not be any surfing to get there.

From this “launch pad,” students would have a direct link to their classroom, with links taking them to class work, homework assignments, review materials, practice problems, and messages from teachers. The same screen would be used in the classroom during the school day, so students would essentially be able to go back over that day’s lessons at home.

In addition, parents would have their own separate ID numbers and passwords that they could use to log onto their child’s school page, where they can communicate with teachers or check their child’s class assignments.

It is the wave of the future, says Superintendent of Schools John R. Reed, who maintains a belief that in the next decade the traditional textbooks will be replaced with online versions, accessed over the World Wide Web.

Not too far down the road, Dr Reed believes, “Every school system in the United States will have a link from the home to the school. It will be the Internet. That will be the communication vehicle. It’s a great opportunity for us in a controlled fashion to look at it.”

With the Wish TV program, students would have their own e-mail account, with the ability to correspond with fellow students as well as their own teachers. Perhaps more significant is Wish TV’s promise to open avenues of dialogue between students and schools through another link off of a student’s school page, tentatively called the “Rap Room.”

On this page, students would be able to carry on real time conversations with students in their class in a setting that works like a chat room. Moreover, a middle gate fourth grader would be able to “chat” with a Sandy Hook fourth grader from this room, and Newtown fourth graders would be able to chat with other fourth graders nationwide who are participating in the Wish TV program.

Students would also have access to a page called “My Web,” where they could store their favorite bookmarks, access a list of Internet links posted by their teachers, learn to build Web pages, and access the Internet outside the Wish TV interface.

Close to 30 parents attended an informational meeting in the high school’s library Tuesday night, June 27, where they met with Dr Reed, a representative from Wish TV, and representatives from Charter Communications, the cable provider for the program.

It was a meeting, says Dr Reed, that was meant to alert parents about what the future holds for Newtown’s schools, and the possibilities that future might bring. It also provided parents with a forum to ask their questions and raise their concerns.

The majority of parents who attended the meeting appeared enthusiastic about the program. Citing the growing digitalization of the world, one parent recognized that regardless of the district’s decision to go along with the pilot program, students sooner or later would face this technology. “This is quite an honor for them to use it so soon,” she said.

Concerns

But questions were raised, and concerns about the proposed program seemed to center on access to Wish TV. Only Wish TV equipment can access the program, which left more than a few parents wondering about how necessary participation really was, since they already had more than enough technology to get online. Parents simply worried about the possibility of having their own personal equipment rendered superfluous.

The Wish TV representative said that students would still be able to access their class assignments and school’s page through their own PCs. However, they would not be able to utilize all that Wish TV has to offer without the right equipment.

With the Internet come security concerns, and parents at the meeting raised a few of these as well. Many seemed reassured upon learning about the measures the program has installed to keep young students safe. Not only is Wish TV’s interface secure from objectionable material and advertisements, if students access the World Wide Web through Wish TV, the program has built in capabilities to police where children surf on the Internet and prevent them from drifting onto inappropriate sites.

The district’s technology manager Norm McConnel spoke out in favor of Wish TV, saying that it would finally provide a measure of uniformity for the technology instruction he gives district teachers. Since, if the district participates, fourth grade teachers would be using the same program, all would be on the “same page” during instruction. “This really makes it easy for me to get people involved,” he said.

Dr Reed addressed concerns about teacher readiness to use this program. He said the district was prepared to give fourth grade teachers the training and support they would need to make this program work for the school system.

“We need to support our teachers,” he said. “We’re going to devote a significant amount of energy to helping them where they need it in their own skill development.”

“It’s too soon to be able to say that our kids will benefit in this, and this, and this way,” Dr Reed said. “We want to walk before we run if we go into this.”

Given that there is a level of interest among parents, elementary school principals are busy forming volunteer groups that will seek to determine which families want to participate, and which families do not.

Dr Reed said late last week that among those families who opt not to participate, it would still be important to gauge whether or not they had some kind of Internet capability, since they could access part of the program.

For now, Dr Reed will wait and see what volunteer groups come up with as far as a level of support. If that support is high enough, he says the district will assent to participate in the program, perhaps as early as next year. If a large number of families say they do not want any part of Wish TV, then he says he will reassess the offer.

Either way, Dr Reed maintains, and many Newtown parents agree, that the pace with which the technological world is moving forward necessitates today’s students to be exposed to such resources sooner rather than later.

“We think it is the future,” he said, “whether we do it next year or in the next three to four years.”