There is
some good news for the upcoming school year that could impact instruction and
student engagement. The first
announcement came from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). On June 19th, LAUSD announced that
it would give every student an iPad. As
the second largest school district in the country with over 640,000 students in
K-12, LAUSD will utilize electronic textbooks through an app provided by
Pearson, a publishing company[i].
The second
announcement came from Microsoft. Today
(June 25th), Microsoft announced it has developed “Bing for
Schools.” Bing for Schools is a free search
engine specifically designed for K-12 students.
Bing for Schools will filter out all adult content, beef up privacy
protection, remove all advertisements, and add learning features that promote
digital literacy. Additionally, Bing for
Schools will offer students’ hotspots to help students explore investigate and
explore new topics and provide short lesson plans to encourage students to use
Bing to find answers to different questions[ii].
The
announcement of these new educational initiatives could be the foundation to
bringing public education into the digital age.
If LAUSD is successful in their move from paper textbooks to digital
textbooks and they are to able to prove through data, their digital textbook
program has shown gains in academic achievement, student engagement
(graduation) and decreases in suspensions and school leavers, districts across
the country will follow the lead of LAUSD.
Also, the barrier of costs will be removed in favor of the positive
data.
As for Bing
for Schools, this search engine could revolutionize this search engine could
revolutionize instruction and the motivation to complete homework. Bing for Schools gives teachers the
opportunity to provide instruction in “real” time. Teachers would be able to discuss curriculum
topics by providing web links which provide visual, auditory information via a
tactile process of an electronic device.
Additionally, the additions to Bing for Schools will allow students to
explore beyond the curriculum topic in a safe environment free of inappropriate
content.
It will be
very interesting what the next school year will hold for these two new
educational initiatives. If these
initiatives meet or exceed their potential, school districts across the country
may have the blueprint to moving into the digital textbook age.
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