The AORTA Manifesto: A Movement to Revolutionize Teaching and Learning
Moderated by David Engle, Director of Operations, SNS Project Inkwell, and Superintendent, Port Townsend School District, WA; Kathy Hurley, SVP Strategic Partnerships, Pearson Education and Pearson Foundation; and Nelson Heller, President, The HellerResults Group
Always on Real-Time Access to Learning –
- A manifesto is needed to elevate the issue to the policy level and drive awareness. In order to efficiently promote AORTA, Project Inkwell hopes to analyze that AORTA can place on technology, budgets, and educators.
- Provide adequate bandwidth to all schools
- Provide access to wireless internet services
- Provide technology training and development for teachers and administrators
- Provide tech support to schools and teachers
- Provide means dependent prices to students in their homes
- Involve all relevant stakeholders in this process
- Advocacy and legislation is of the utmost importance: an act similar to the Rural Electrification Act to mandate broadband access for every citizen.
- Educators should embrace technology, view it as an enabler, and stop thinking that “screen time” is something that should be limited. The more that children can bring technology into the classroom the more comfortable they will feel while they’re there and the more likely they will be to revisit that information outside the classroom.
- Opposing view: technology is not the answer. Teaching needs to be emphasized; throwing more technology at students will not help students absorb information. Students should engage with teachers and “reverse teach” the educators in order to demonstrate their understanding of information.
- NGOs, administrators, technology firms, parents, and students are coming together to facilitate the adoption of technology into the classroom. “Classroom of the future” affects students in ways beyond just learning specific information; attendance rates increase, affect improves, discipline issues falls, and teacher interaction becomes more meaningful.
- There are many different ways that human beings absorb information and classrooms needs to accomodate all of those ways. Additionally, people learn certain subjects at different rates – technology can provide support for fast learners and additional resources for slower learners.
- The conversation needs to shift away from deciding whether devices should be in the classroom and towards figuring out the most effective way to approach AORTA.
- Main idea – This is going to happen… Monocultural educational systems will no longer exist.. Technology will create an ecology of diverse tools to enable an environment in which every student’s needs can be met.