President Barack Obama views student projects created on laptops during a tour at Mooresville Middle School in Mooresville, N.C., June 6, 2013
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Update: Read President Obama's remarks in Mooresville here.
Today, in Mooresville, North Carolina the President is announcing a bold and transformative education initiative to breathe life into the classroom of the 21st century. The goal of the President’s ConnectED initiative is to bring high-speed Internet connections to 99 percent of America’s students – which he is calling on the FCC to do within five years.
This is not connectivity for connectivity’s sake. It is laying the foundation for a vision of classrooms where students are engaged in individualized digital learning and where teachers can assess progress lesson by lesson and day by day. It’s about creating learning environments where students can both succeed and struggle without embarrassment, where barriers for children with disabilities are removed, and where we can bring the most modern, innovative, and up-to-date content into the classroom.
Yet this national vision of the 21st Century classroom is impossible with the level of connectivity that most schools have today. Only 20 percent of educators feel their classrooms have the connectivity to meet their teaching needs today. In fact, the average school has about the same level of connectivity as the average home, even though the average school has 200 times more people. Thousands of schools don’t even have the bandwidth to stream two videos into their school at the same time – let alone provide the kind of opportunities that can be seen in Mooresville, where students in classroom after classroom are learning on their own individual digital devices.
The President understands that we have to take bold action if we are to offer our young people the best education in the world so they can compete for jobs in the global economy. South Korea, which tops global rankings in reading and math, already has 100 percent of schools with high-speed connectivity – and by 2016, its schools are planning on eliminating textbooks from the classroom altogether. We have to move with force and speed if we are to lead – not follow – on developing the best learning opportunities for our young people.
Fonte: White House