Montessori and the World Wide Web

 Ten years ago, Paul Konigstein wrote a series of columns for Public School Montessorian on the possibilities of the Internet.  It didn’t draw a lot of attention.  A lot has happened since. 

Today Internet entrepreneurs are challenging basic assumptions of the Montessori Community.  Buy from companies you know?  Learn in a classroom?  Travel to a conference?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  And where is all  this going?  You decide.  Here are five cases.

Coursework

Conference

Leadership Training

Curriculum Cards

Durable Materials

Coursework

Philosophy and Peace Education Free Online

 Free online courses in Montessori Philosophy and Peace Education are now available through a new website, www.usamontessori.org

Lori Musa developed the courses from her home in New Jersey.

Her inspiration traces to her training as a Montessori and traditional teacher and her graduate work at Thomas Edison University.

She began writing her thesis on Montessori education and online learning technology.  It developed into a service.

Her goal, she said, “is to have a comprehensive training-type program that will include manuals, making quality instruction available to homeschoolers and educators across all socioeconomic borders.”

The mix, she acknowledged, is not without challenges. “Montessori is so hands-on, sensorial and practical,” she said. “Online learning can be so impersonal and technical.”

The first cohort began the Philosophy course in April and completed work in July.

As of early August the next cohort was ready with 20 enrollees. The Peace Education course was scheduled to begin in September.

Musa said her audience is mostly from outside the United States, with students in the philosophy course from Indonesia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan and South Africa. Early registration for the peace education course shows that 75 percent of students live in developing countries.

Musa plans to limit participation to assure a personal touch. Because of the importance of personal contact, she said, all students have her cell phone number.

The courses begin with a reading list including three texts and schedule. “All activity revolves around the discussion board,” she said.

Musa utilizes the “Blackboard” format, which accommodates live chat. “It includes all the latest formats,” she said, “multimedia, Powerpoint, video.

“The courses are of academic stature,” she said. “What you would find in a university program.”

The project, which she expects to present as her final Master’s project in early fall, has taken on larger dimensions.

“I don’t ask for money,” she said. “The only expense is books if students cannot borrow them.

“The course is such a source of wonderment,” she said. “On a spiritual level it is very gratifying.”

Conference

TIES to Host 10-Day Online Conference

 Philip Gang and Marsha Morgan have set April as the target date for their third eConference, this one focusing on the Montessori centenary.

Operating through the Institute for Educational Studies, affiliated with Endicott College, the 10-day conference will be called “Montessori: A Centennial Exploration.”

TIES has long specialized in distance learning and computer learning communities, offered eConferences in 1999 and 2002 that were shared by individuals from around the world.

According to Gang, participants in the 2007 conference will go to the conference URL and engage directly in dialogue with presenters. “Some of the presentations,” he said, “will be interactive, while others will be video and audio interviews that participants can respond to.”

Gang said that, in addition to himself and Morgan, presenters will include Angeline Lillard, Barbara Gordon, Mary Caroline Parker, Jean Miller, Mary Loew, Sanford Jones, Judi Orian, Brian Swimme, Fritjof Capra, Nicola Chisnall (New Zealand) and Eva-Marie Ahlquist (Sweden).

Fees, Gang said, will be on a sliding scale based on the wealth of participant’s country. A website is expected to be in operation in early September.

INFO: E-mail: montess...@earthties.org

Leadership Training

Tim Seldin’s Course Goes on the Internet

 The first online Montessori school leadership course played out over the summer, sponsored by the Montessori Foundation and led by Executive Director Tim Seldin.

That course, Seldin wrote in an e-mail, is “an online version of one of our popular classes: Finding The Perfect Match: How To Recruit And Retain Your Ideal Enrollment. “

Residential Montessori leadership  courses have been offered for some time.

In addition to courses Seldin has offered, at least two other opportunities have been available:

•  The Center for Montessori Teacher Education of New York offers an annual summer course for Montessori School Management, led by Bretta Weiss Wolf and Marie M. Dugan, both former leaders of the American Montessori Society.

• The Houston Montessori Center has for the past couple summers  offered “Leading Your Montessori School to Excellence, Stability and Harmony.”  That course is led by Michael Eanes, an experienced private school head and former executive director of AMS, and consultants Dana Kaminstein and Jonathan Wolff.

Seldin’s course is, apparently, the first a student can take from home.

“Our first online Montessori Leadership Institute course,” Seldin wrote, “had 45 participants, primarily heads of independent Montessori schools, a few admissions directors, a board chair and some volunteers. The group came primarily from the US and Canada, but we had several from New Zealand and Australia, 3 from Africa and 1 from South America. We organized the 45 participants into 3 cohorts of 15.”

We scheduled it over 8 weeks, and extended it for a 9th week to give everyone a chance to wrap up. Participants will be able to continue to use the course’s resource materials and recorded presentations, along with its communication and collaboration tools, for the next year.”

Seldin described the response as “overwhelmingly positive.”

He said the foundation will offer another session this fall of Match and a second course An Uncompromising Commitment To Excellence: Building A World-Class Montessori School.

Orientation for both courses, he said, will begin the week of Sept. 25 with the courses running through December 3.

Seldin added, “A few of us are also developing a new course that we hope will be valuable to many independent Montessori schools, The Effective Board : Governing an Independent Montessori School With Integrity and Vision. It will become a standing online program that board chairs or entire boards can take at their own pace, interfacing with both our team of instructional guides and trustees from other Montessori schools around the world. Dates for the opening of this program will be announced in IMC-eNews and on our website.”

INFO: www.montessori.org

Curriculum Cards

Order Download Laminate

 Children in Montessori environments all over the world are using materials designed by Lori Bourne. That’s no small feat considering her company, Montessori for Everyone, did not exist until a year and a half ago and resides entirely inside her computer. No warehouse. No storefront. No shelves for inventory. And a delivery time measured in hours—rather than days or weeks—with no shipping cost.

 Bourne designed about 140 different sets of materials, turned them into PDF files, and markets those files through eBay and her own internet site. While many of them are nomenclature cards common to Montessori environments, many others are materials that are exclusive to her business.

 After making the purchase over the internet, the teacher can download the full-color files, print them on a color printer, laminate them and be ready to go. The materials are primarily for language, math, art, music, history, and science work for 3-6, 6-9, and 9-12 classrooms.

 Prices range from less than $4 for many individual items to $39.99 for a set of files containing Pink, Blue, and Green Series materials. A full set of vertebrate nomenclature cards sells for $24.99. She sells a copy of every item in her collection for $329 and will ship it for free anywhere in the world on a CD-ROM.

 If teachers want to share within a school, she has no qualms. It’s OK to print multiple copies as needed,” she said. “I have a disclaimer stating the purchaser will not resell it. I haven’t had a problem with that.”

 Bourne began selling Pink, Blue, and Green Series spelling cards on eBay two years ago. “I figured maybe I could sell some materials. I didn’t know. I went into it with lots of hopes and dreams, not knowing what would happen. It was an experiment. Would people purchase files instead of printed materials?”

 She listed her language materials and within minutes got her answer: they would. Within a few months, she became an eBay PowerSeller with more than $1,000 in sales for three consecutive months. She officially started Montessori for Everyone in June of 2005.

 In reference to her websites, she says, “It’s been a real learning process. In the beginning, I knew nothing about html [web design]. Now I do much of that stuff myself. It’s been a real education for me. She does credit her husband, whom she describes as a “computer genius”, for helping her through some of the technical challenges.

 Her initial experience with Montessori was working as an assistant in a 3-6 classroom. After that, she took the elementary Montessori training at the Midwest Montessori Teacher Training Center in Evanston, IL and taught for several years in a suburban school.

 When her son was born in 2000, she opted to stay home with him. Currently she is homeschooling her son, now six, and her daughter who is 2 1⁄2 years old.

 In addition to customers all across the United States and Canada, she sells to teachers and parents in England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, China, and Italy. They find their way to her site, put items in an electronic shipping cart, and within a few hours they have PDF files they can print.

 She said she plans to make another 50 items as time allows. “It’s been incredible,” she said. “I’ve met wonderful Montessorians from all over the world.”

INFO: www.montessoriforeveryone.com

Durable Materials

Low Prices at What Cost?

 By Dennis Schapiro

According to legend, there was a time, long ago, when the leaders of a start-up Montessori school would spend months hoping they could purchase materials.

First, the school would send a telegram and check to Holland. If you asked about price, you couldn’t afford the materials. Then there was the sense that every aspect of your being was being evaluated to determine whether you were worthy of the carefully crafted wood. Finally, there was word that the materials were at the dock. Better come quick to clear customs and take the boxes home.

Fifty years later, the market for Montessori materials is, to say the least, different.

As a first wave of competing companies became familiar to U.S. Montessorians, a new wave is upon the community.

The second wave is largely inspired by the boom in Montessori-oriented business in China. By some estimates, more than two dozen factories are producing materials for Montessori schools, most being sold only within China. Others estimate that two or three factories are producing items for export via several companies in North America. These companies rely heavily on Internet promotion with attractive websites.

It is likely to change the options facing a purchaser of materials.

Want a pink tower? We can use pricing for it as a rough approximation of the pricing structure of various companies. Many should be viewed in the context of other disount offers from the companies and are provided here only as general indicators.

Your options, based on the websites or phone queries, as of late August, might look like this:

Nienhuis, the traditional and dominant market player, will sell you a pink tower for about $139.

Several established first-wave companies offer slightly lower prices.

According to websites, Kaybee Montessori will offer the Gonzagareddi-made tower for $120. The Juliana Group has it priced at about $107.

Appleseed Montessori, a decade-old California-based importer, has the tower priced at $119.

The Materials Company of Boston has a tower priced at $105.

A tower imported from Sri Lanka is available from Bruins USA for $102 and Edu Aids for $90.

Canadian importer Cab Dev offers the tower, with stand, for $145.

A truly competitive marketplace to be sure, with some potential for a tradeoff between price and quality.

All these companies have been frequent exhibitors at conferences with some track record and reasonably high levels of consumer awareness.

Now with the Internet and the second wave, there is a spate of new companies selling primarily through the net, almost all importing materials from Asia.  They provide low-cost options but raise questions and challenge the stability of the market. They’ve got low price options on that pink tower.

E & O Montessori will ship from Canada for $90.

MontessoriLand, with a U.S. office in California, showed a list price of $90 with a sale price of $59.

Montessori Outlet’s base price was $39, but that was reduced further by a 25 percent discount that ran until the end of August.

Alison’s Montessori and Educational Materials, with a base in New York, sells the tower for $38.

Bambini will ship from Malaysia for $35.

Adena Montessori, which lists a corporate headquarters in Ohio, sell a pink tower at a regular price of $39, discounted to $29.95.

Kid Advance, with a U.S. office in California, has the tower listed at $28.14.

Montessori Concepts, a Chinese importer with links to Edu Aids, has on its website a price of $24.

IFIT, based in Canada and shipping from Ningbo, China, shows a $14.95 price on its website.

And of course there is eBay, with several Pink Towers up for bid, with starting bids below $5.

What is a consumer to make of the price range and what are the implications for the Montessori community?

Nienhuis and, to a lesser degree, several other first-wave companies, have long designated revenues that have contributed mightily to the health of the U.S. Montessori community through support for organizations, teacher education centers, conferences, publications and projects. If pricing becomes more competitive, will those funds dry up?

Will programs suffer if they use lower quality material? Several first-wave vendors express limited concern about the threat to their sales. They suggest that they are unlikely to respond until quality and reliability improves. Several reported calls from schools that were dissatisfied with materials purchased from second-wave companies over the Internet. Among the concerns was that Interned-ordered pink towers were hollow, plywood construction sloppily glued together rather than solid wood.

At least some of the sellers are clear about the price-quality tradeoff. Jason Tao, who represents Montessori Outlet, frequently promotes Niehnuis when quality is the only concern. “If you have the money,” he said, “buy Nienhuis.” His website includes the text:

“First class Montessori materials are sold by Nienhuis Montessori Company. They are excellent quality materials made of beech wood with perfect finishing.… Montessori [Outlet] materials are still well made with relatively good quality finishing.”

There are no easy answers, but based on suggestions from several vendors, here are some questions you might ask before purchasing:

• Does the company have a printed catalog?

• What is the warranty?

• What is the return policy?

• Is there an easy phone contact should problems occur?

• What are the shipping charges and, if shipping is international, how do charges compare to those of companies shipping from North America?

• What insight and information can local training centers staff members or other school heads and teachers provide?