15. LEAD Issues Five Digital Learning Recommendations

The LEAD (Leading Education by Advancing Digital) Commission has a goal to spread the benefits of digital learning and technology in the classroom to every student by the year 2020.  This is a wonderful, albeit challenging goal; the mission is to "make digital learning a national priority for every child to have access to the same high-quality 21st century learning tools – regardless of zip code."  The LEAD Commission hopes to accomplish this goal of technological equality with a blueprint which includes five recommendations, discussed in the article.  These five recommendations represent the starting point for something much bigger.

The article discusses the spread of awareness of the nation's technological needs when it comes to education: schools are lacking in the hardware needed to connect students to high-speed Internet, and many teachers are unaware of lack complete understanding of the tools available to them through online resources.  LEAD proposes to continue the growth of technology use in the classroom by promoting awareness and encouraging schools with successful implementation of technology to reach out to other schools.

I commend the reach of the goals set forth by this organization and look forward to the future growth of technology use in classrooms; however, I am hesitant to believe that digital learning tools will be in the hands of every child by the year 2020.  The gap between more and less affluent students is one that has been difficult to bridge in many situations, and the use of technology has been argued on both sides to be lessening and widening this gap.  In any case, the spread of technology - when used appropriately and understood by those who are teaching - can only be a good thing for the students who are fortunate enough to have access to these additional learning tools.