A winning model

In the 1990's  Americans took it as an article of faith that computers and information technology would forever change K-12 education.  Many of us had experienced or witnessed how the use of computers in colleges and universities had transformed college education and we believed that widespread introduction and use of computers in our elementary, junior high and high schools would have similarly beneficial effects.  Over the past two decades America (and most of the Western World) invested billions of dollars in technology and broadband infrastructure.  In part due to the commitment of the Clinton Administration to connect every classroom (and library and rural health clinic) to the Internet by the year 2000 and the establishment of the E-rate  to assure continued connectivity for schools, virtually every child in America has access to computer technology in school.

What has been missing until now is clearly relevant content and curriculum that will  ensure the assumed or theorized benefits from computer technology are achieved.  In an essay in the Sunday New York Times Steve Lohr notes that efforts by non-profit organizations  such as the New  Technology Foundation  and public private partnerships such as the Partnership for 21st Century Skills  are beginning to pay off.  Both efforts (and many others in the US and beyond) are aimed at designing new computer based methods and models to teach students the skills they will need to navigate an increasingly digital world.

During my tenure in government, when we were focused on connecting schools and libraries, one of my favorite t-shirts was one that read "Wired. Now What?"  Maybe now, more than ten years after most of America's schools were wired, we finally will get a meaningful and affirmative answer to that question