Yesterday, First Gentleman Bob Eaves joined North Carolina Business Committee for Education (NCBCE) board members for a 21st century classroom experience hosted by SAS. The meeting featured students, parents and Cary teachers who described how technology affects their teaching and learning environments. They talked about experiencing science and mathematics rather than just hearing about those subjects. And who needs to buy notebooks and pencils when you can organize all of your information and materials on your notebook laptop?
Participants experienced this one-to-one laptop learning when we completed a history assignment to create a virtual civil rights museum. Thank goodness for the middle school students who were our “coaches” and helped us navigate the technology to find primary documents, access videos, use pictures and even create our own Avatars for the museum. Mr. Eaves worked on his portion of the assignment with staff and their student “coach.” It seemed like they enjoyed this online research more than simply copying information onto index cards.
The session gave everyone the opportunity to experience how differently today’s students think, learn and communicate in a global environment by using technology. Mr. Eaves and NCBCE members were so engaged in our assignment, it was hard to stop. Imagine classrooms where all students are this excited about learning – so excited, in fact, they don’t want to stop working on their assignments. This kind of classroom already exists in many North Carolina public schools, thanks to the collaboration between private and public partners.
Governor Perdue continues her efforts to make sure schools are ready for 21st century students – all K-12 public schools now have access to broadband technology and work continues to expand the one-to-one laptop project. If we’re going to keep students excited about learning, we need to realize that they don’t remember life before the internet – Skype, Twitter and blogging are part of their everyday life outside school, so we can’t expect them to shut down those tools during the time they spend at school. How would your life change without the technology you use at work and play?
The NCBCE Web site features videos that communicate how students, business leaders and teachers feel about today’s schools. Please visit www.ncbce.org and look for the Having Our Say video series.
