Reply to Going to DCI not from a feeder school

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Our ability to read deeply and critically online sources and our ability to write successfully in a  digital world is a product of an education in print literacy. Our children should have that too. They will adapt to online environments as quickly and with as much ease as we did - when they need to. If we want to monkey with this, let's do so in measured ways informed by research.[/quote]

FWIW, my oldest switched from a 1-to-1 private school (in another state) to Wilson, and re daily technology use, it's like stepping back 20 years. Kids don't even have school email accounts, you can't bring laptops or iPads to class, and some of the teachers can't seem to figure out how to enter grades electronically.  There's no online collaboration unless your child's entire group has easy online access (I realize this is a socioeconomic issue, but many other urban school districts have attempted to tackle this problem, and DCPS is not even trying) and all acquire and share Google or other collaborative accounts. Consequently, there are very few group projects. This is NOT adequate preparation for college or for the workplace.

Aside from the Google grants/partnership, I think DCI people probably weighed the 1-to-1 private model at local private schools vs. the DCPS model and decided that each side has its share of problems, but the tech-first model has fewer. That's debatable, especially for early middle school, but certainly by 7th grade, students should be creating and submitting most work electronically and should be collaborating online to complete and present group projects.

As usual with education, nobody wants to occupy the middle ground (between antediluvian DCPS and all-tech-all-the-time DCI), but that's what research seems to call for here. The caveats I would like to see for DCI and other tech-first schools (some private schools are now looking seriously at these issues): delay the tech-first model until at least the second year of middle school. Make it easy for students to acquire all texts in physical form rather than insisting that they do all reading on a computer/tablet/phone. Encourage students to take class notes on paper; research hints that doing so encourages cognitive synthesis of info BEFORE notes are taken, whereas electronic notetaking encourages kids to just attempt to record what the teacher is saying, almost verbatim if they can type fast enough. That both inhibits class participation and compromises deep comprehension of material. [/quote]

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