From Des Moines to Charlottesville school districts across the country are making sure there is a laptop in the hands of every high school student. California’s e-textbook initiative augurs the nationwide rise of digital course materials. Teachers now use web videos to reinforce the quadratic formula or impart a civics lesson. Technology is moving forward. Our classrooms and our curriculum need to catch up.
We’re joining with the New York City Department of Education tomorrow morning for an event on digital learning in the 21st century. We’ll speak on the promise of wireless and present a roundtable on the future of K – 12 education, as America begins to employ digital learning solutions. This includes the adoption of digital textbooks and the possibilities of wireless technology to enhance learning in the classroom. Wednesday’s event will explore both the benefits and the obstacles to this shift. The event will take place tomorrow, March 9 from 10:30am to 12:15pm at the NYC iSchool at 131 6th Avenue, at Dominick Street.
Sharing the stage with Chairman Genachowski at the roundtable is a handful of the nation’s standouts in education, from both the public and private sectors. This includes Sharon Greenberger, COO of the NYC Department of Education; Alisa Berger, Principal of NYC iSchool, our host; Matthew Small, Chief Business Officer at Blackbord; and other luminaries.
There’s no better school to debut this initiative and hold this roundtable than the NYC iSchool. The iSchool, which introduced its first class in September 2008, looks to set the bar for 21st century learning. The innovative high school incorporates cutting edge technology into students’ everyday learning and both its teachers and students make it a central part of their mission to harness these tools. To learn more about the NYC iSchool, check out this video.
Join us. If you’re in the New York City area tomorrow, the event is free and open to the public – though we’d appreciate your pre-registration. Send an email with your name, organization name (if applicable) and phone number to diglearning [at] fcc [dot] gov.
Interesting
Although this is an exciting initiative, I have to point out that iSchool's website has many accessibility barriers. The video you link to above was not actively captioned. (I turned on Google's "Transcribe Audio" service, but of course there are many errors, and speakers are not distinguished.) Nor is it described.
The iSchool website indicates that it is being re-designed. I hope they can be encouraged to make some substantial accessibility improvements -- it'd be great to have a showcase site (and institution) for advanced learning techniques that were also highly accessible.
E-textbooks can be challenging. I have an ipad and I STILL find myself preferring to read physical books over books on e-readers. Another option that students have is to rent books for a semester. Then there is no risk that the students are stuck with a book that they can’t sell back.
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Lorenzo
http://lorenzocaum.com