Tony Bennett wants to add a new required high school course to the curriculum:
Indiana's superintendent of public instruction wants all Hoosier students to take one course online before graduating from high school.
[. . .]
"Technology will continue to be a driving force in education and in our economy," Bennett said. "We have to make sure our students are prepared to flourish and prosper in that environment."
[. . .]
"If we don't address this issue of technology for all children," he said, "I think we're going to be setting up the next achievement gap."
And in related news, more schools are making use of iPads or other tablets, giving them to ever younger students:
Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation used money from a Federal Communications Commission program that helps schools and libraries obtain affordable Internet access.
GCCSC bought 80 iPads for kindergarten and first grade students as well as for school board members and administrators to conduct paperless meetings.
First grade teacher Greg Vogel at J.B. Stephens Elementary in Greenfield, Ind., said the iPads give students more motivation to learn than a traditional textbook. Vogel uses many apps in his classroom such as Math Ninja and Word Magic.
Our first inclination might be to go all fuddy-duddy over this, especially the growing use of iPads. Slow down, everybody. Keep it paper-and-pencil simple while the kids are still learning the basics, then introduce all that fancy technology later. That might lead us to agree with the Greenfield-Central teacher who, despite noting the value of the tablets, hastens to say they should supplement traditional textbooks, not replace them.
But I think Bennett is exactly right about the possibility of a technology achievement gap. Those who urge slowly integrating digital into the classroom still have one foot in the analog world and think the kids must have, too. But this is going to be their reality from the day they are born, and schools can't operate as if it were otherwise.
