Pupils using tablets in Mentor
Two Ohio school superintendents were among 100 others from around the country who visited the White House Wednesday. They were invited by President Obama for their efforts to introduce technology in the classroom. The president asked them to spread the word of online learning. Mentor school superintendent Matt Miller and Reynoldsburg superintendent Tina Thomas-Manning joined 98 other local education leaders at the White House to participate in the President’s Connect-Ed initiative.
He wants to have 99% of the nation’s K-12 students to have access to high speed internet. In Ohio, both Mentor and Reynoldsburg have been using so-called “blended learning” techniques that utilize computers and tablets to help pupils learn – often at home.Obama told them that other countries are trying to “out educate” the U-S by providing, in some cases, high speed internet connections to 100% of their students. He noted that students in Singapore have internet speeds 40 times as fast as the average American home and South Korea is eliminating paper textbooks for digital texts. He says American schools lag behind.“Right now fewer than 40% of public schools have high speed internet in their classrooms. Less than half! That’s not good since we invented the internet.”Mentor schools in collaboration with Kirtland Local Schools received almost $14 million from the state of Ohio's Straight A Fund for its blending learningprogram.President Obama announced the federal government is chipping in $2 billion a year in grants to schools and technology companies have agreed to donate an equal amount in products and services.