Back to School Week continues: École Glen Elementary Wired and Green School
This week ends the trifecta of back to school segments on GlobalBC mornings. Bradley was “on location” in Coquitlam at École Glen Elementary School (isn’t that like saying Rio Grande River?) talking about the new green (and tech wired to the gills it seems) school there.
Here’s the video link–Connected Life – September 11 – Video Centre–and the press release from the Provincial government–$14.8 MILLION TO BUILD GREENER GLEN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL–about the coolness there. Sadly I couldn’t find out much about the new school ahead of time, so I learned a lot about it from the segment. Here are some highlights not in the press release:
- Computers in each classroom for teachers
- WiFi throughout the building
- All the classrooms networked together (I assume so they can collaborate together)
- Flat panel displays in the classrooms (again I assume for displaying things to the class)
As Bradley correctly pointed out in the segment with Steve Darling, we have to think about computers in classes as tools no different than books, paper, and pencils in the classroom. Think about this: how many business do you go into that have absolutely no computers there? Even my hairstylist has a laptop to manage the calendar (and play music) for the salon! Students used to be able to leave school just needing to know how to read, write, and do math. Then being able to type was important (but not for everyone). Later we learned about computers in college/university. Then computers came into high schools. Then computers (and then laptops) became required for college/university. It only makes sense that now computers, and learning how to use them for learning, is now required in elementary schools.
In my opinion, any school that doesn’t start kids learning how to use computers for more than blasting aliens is doing an extreme disservice to its students. Good thing my kids have benefitted from having computers both at school and home(s). Let’s all make sure that computers become more and more important tools in education.
Maybe the day is still a ways off where kids stop lugging books back and forth to school and have a laptop instead, but that day is coming. And our schools and kids need to be ready for it.
