April 2008 — News
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Are Schools Inhibiting 21st Century Learning?
Extra Credit Here are the top-3 technologies teachers and administrators chose to equip the "ultimate school for 21st century learners." Teachers
Administrators
The lowest for administrators were "unlimited student access to the Internet" (12%) and "games/virtual simulations" (15%). The lowest for teachers were Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs and wikis (10%) and unlimited student access to the Internet (11%). More Information --D. Nagel |
Among students, more than half said they would "use technology more easily at school if they could use their own laptop, cell phone or mobile device to work on projects, access related software applications and the Internet, and communicate with classmates," according to the survey. About a third do have access to a laptop. Most high school students (67 percent) and middle school students (52 percent) have cell phones. And 75 percent of middle and high school students have a digital media player.
Mobile technologies also ranked high among teachers and administrators when asked what equipment they would choose when outfitting a hypothetical "ultimate 21st century school."
For both teachers (58 percent) and administrators (56 percent), 1:1 laptop programs ranked as their No. 1 choice of technology.
For teachers, other mobile devices, including PDAs, MP3 players, and graphing calculators, ranked at No. 7 on their list (tied with games and virtual simulations) at 26 percent.
These devices also ranked No. 7 among school leaders (administrators, technology directors, school board members, etc.), with 34 percent agreement.
About the Survey
The Speak Up survey is conducted annually to assess views on current issues in education, and results are shared with state and federal policy leaders. According to Project Tomorrow, since 2003, some 1.2 million K-12 students, teachers, parents, and, for the first time this year, administrators have participated in the survey. The group had expected about 325,000 individuals to participate in Speak Up 2007, a goal that was exceeded by some 42,000 participants, which included 319,223 students, 25,544 teachers, 19,726 parents, and 3,263 administrators.
