Articles

August 17, 2008
At School, Technology Starts to Turn a Corner
The New York Times
by Steve Lohr

"Unless you change how you teach and how kids work, new technology is not really going to make a difference," said Bob Pearlman, a former teacher who is the director of strategic planning for New Technology Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

Click here to read more.

August/September 2008
Back to School
The New Technology Foundation brings its member-school students into the 21st century
IBM Systems Magazine
by Jim Utsler

Read this article about NTF, the model, the NTHS Network and its transition from a decentralized computing environment to a centralized computing environment. This article features an interview with NTF's CIO, Marykay Michaels and Chief Architect, Art Pufford.

Click here.

December 2007
Real Projects in a Digital World
Principal Leadership Magazine
by Suzie Boss & Jane Krauss

This excerpt from the soon-to-be released book Reinventing Project-Based Learning, appears in the December issue of Principal Leadership magazine. Napa New Tech and New Technology Foundation™ are prominently featured in this article.

Click here to read excerpt. (Copyright 2007 National Association of Secondary School Principals. For more information on NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals) products and services to promote excellence in middle level and high school leadership, visit www.principals.org.)

May 2007
Best Practices
Profile of Napa New Technology High School
Partnership for 21st Century Skills

New Tech High

The business community in Napa, California became frustrated with the lack of skilled local employees and determined that no child should graduate high school without critical 21st century skills, such as effective communication and critical thinking. They supported their local district in creating New Technology High SchoolT , where curriculum now reflects a 21st century approach to education.

Read the entire article at the website for the Partnership for 21st Century skills.

They flock to Napa Valley from North Carolina, Texas and Alaska, indeed, from all over the country and the world. But not all come for the wine, food and ambience. Many of them--as many as 700 a year--come to Napa to visit the local high school. These are the educators who come looking for a way to jazz up, or, perhaps, rescue the high school system back home. Some find the answers they seek at Napa's New Technology HighT , a 10-year-old educational experiment that's preparing young people for the 21st century.

Read the entire article at the Northbay Biz Website.

December 2006
"How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century"
Time Magazine
by Claudia Wallis and Sonja Steptoe

American schools aren't exactly frozen in time, but considering the pace of change in other areas of life, our public schools tend to feel like throwbacks. Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed. A yawning chasm (with an emphasis on yawning) separates the world inside the schoolhouse from the world outside.
For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the "achievement gap" between social classes.

This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get "left behind" but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can't think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English.

Read the entire article at http://www.time.com

Summer 2006
"Our House -- Exploring a New School Model from the Outside In"
Profile of Sacramento New Technology High School
Converge Magazine
by Hayley Myers

Sacramento New Technology High School is a small charter school in Sacramento that enrolls a diverse student body. Now three years old and graduating its first senior class, SNTHST is a leading school in the New Technology Network of Schools...The principal colloquially and passionately refers to the school as "our rainbow house," or simply "our house."

"How have these students accomplished so much as teenagers? After the visit, I couldn't help but think how different our country would be if every student was graduating from a high school like Sac New Tech. These students will walk out the gates on graduation day, prepared to take on the world."

Read the entire article at http://www.convergemag.com or download a copy here.

June 2006
New Skills for a New Century
Edutopia
by Bob Pearlman

No matter how sophisticated the tools we put in classrooms, the curriculum designed to educate students to meet the new standards is sorely inadequate to help them after they leave school. In short, learning -- and schooling -- must be totally transformed.

"Today's graduates need to be critical thinkers, problem solvers, and effective communicators who are proficient in both core subjects and new, 21st-century content and skills," according to "Results that Matter: 21st Century Skills and High School Reform," a report issued in March by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Read entire article here.

Spring, 2006
Building a 21st Century High School
Threshold Magazine
by Paul Curtis

Paul Curtis, New Technology Foundation's Director of Curriculum, shares lessons from New Technology High: Planning, building, and running a new kind of high school for a new kind of student.

Read entire article here.

March 2006
Skills For a New Century
American School Board Journal
By Naomi Dillon

New Technology High School is everything its name implies. Computers, updated every three years, await each student. Classroom communication occurs mostly in Lotus Notes. And every senior must complete a digital portfolio, including resume, personal statement, and work samples.

Without question, the graduates of this northern California school enter the world better prepared than most for all of life's endeavors. But it's not necessarily the latest software and equipment that give them such an edge. It's how they use those tools to further and improve instruction, and why the school is a model for 21st century learning.

Read entire article here.

February 6, 2006
25 Tools, Technologies, and Best Practices
The Journal
by Dan Page

Discover how your district, school, or classroom can engage in meaningful, real-world learning experiences.

The Web offers an abundance of PBL activities for all grade levels. Adventurous and creative teachers design their own activities and often share them over the Internet. School and district-level administrators can feel confident in promoting PBL because it engages student interest through relevant and meaningful learning projects. What follows is 25 of the top PBL tools, techniques, and resources that will spark up your classroom and take your students to new heights of collaborative learning.

#13: High Tech at New Tech High. You won’t find any teachers handing out daily assignments at New Technology High SchoolT in Napa, CA. Instead, you’ll find students working on long-term projects that may include a written essay, development of a web site, and a PowerPoint presentation or photo essay. Students present their work in an oral report, either individually or with the group involved. Computer technology and Internet savvy are part of the process, along with time-management skills and group collaboration. To learn more about this techie PBL environment with a Silicon Valley focus, visit www.newtechhigh.org.

#16: Pearls of Wisdom. Bob Pearlman is an educational consultant and the former president of the Autodesk Foundation. His Web site offers a sound perspective on PBL. He is especially illuminating on such topics as assessing how traditional schooling is missing the mark, the need to connect kids with real-world experiences, and the importance of collaboration. Not to be missed on the site are the links to examples of creative projects “Leaping Lizards” and “The Big List on PBL.” Pearlman’s pearls of wisdom are available at www.bobpearlman.org.

Read entire article here.

December 2005
UK Knowledge Share on "New Technology High Schools, USA"
Place Group
by Michael Buchanan

Executive Summary

In July 2005, Education Director, Michael Buchanan, attended the Building Learning Communities conference in Boston, USA. The conference provided access to direct experience of innovative educational practice in the USA. One of the most reassuring elements of the conference was the recognition that, although education systems and structures might vary internationally, educationalists are dealing with the same challenges globally –disaffection and disengagement, social exclusion, curricula and pedagogy which are inappropriate for the 21st century, the impact of new technologies, the desire for greater social mobility and the need for an education system which enables young people to develop the skill sets and personal qualities to become successful participants in a fluid, global society.

Coupled with this was the recognition that we need to innovate, to come up with new learning scenarios and education systems which transform learning and achievement, not simply tinker with what was designed for the 20th century. One element of this new thinking is the development of the New Technology High School network in the USA, features of which have become the focus of close examination in the UK, with a view to their potential transferability across the pond. This knowledge share sets out some of the purposes, key principles and organisational strategies of the New Technology High Schools and, as a postscript, makes links to some other related developments.

Read entire article here.

February 3, 2005
Chinese Group Sees High Tech Education
Napa Valley Register/Napanews.com
By HEATHER OSBORN
Register Staff Writer

Although you can't step more than a few feet inside New Technology High School without seeing a computer, that's not what education officials from China were there to see Wednesday.

It's actually what takes place around the computers that sets the award-winning school apart, students and teachers told delegates from China on Wednesday.

The officials are on a week-long tour of Bay Area schools to gather ideas for widespread education reform that's been underway in China since 1999.

Read full article here.

February 15, 2004
Drafting a Customized Tech Plan: An Up-to-the-Minute Design
Technology & Learning
By Gwen Solomon

It's all about measurable results. Today, states and districts are zeroing in on standards-based learning and high stakes test scores-even benchmarking results in advance of the school year. Technology planning is-or should be-a key part of any such learning design. With careful planning for integration we can help districts more successfully address standards and, in general, arm our students with core skills they need to compete in the new economy. ...Despite challenges, effective integration of technology is possible. The first step is to have a vision for the future and a strategy to make it happen at the state, district, and even school levels. ...In California, Napa New Technology High School aligns technology with its project-based learning education model. (See "Reports from the Field")

Read full article here.

Click here for archived articles dated from May 2000 - December 2003.