It is always possible, of course, that the Museum is simply not well designed for the environments in which our participants live and work. I do not think that this is an adequate explanation, however. In my view, the problems facing TX2K are representative of the problems besetting public education in general. Such problems are amplified by the introduction of new technologies and the effort to integrate them with the curriculum. Perhaps the greatest single barrier to the success of the Museum is the fierce time pressure under which teachers operate.
Teachers are under great pressure to cover large blocks of material.
This pressure is exacerbated when the goal of raising standards of student achievement translates into raising students' scores on the state-mandated TAAS test. There are other time barriers as well. The Museum requires that participating schools store their digital artifacts on their own district or campus Web servers. But understandable security concerns mean that students are rarely if ever allowed to upload materials directly to these servers, thus imposing an additional burden on teachers, who must now perform this task but lack the necessary skills or the certification that some districts require. Infrequent Professional Contact.