“Every Child Connected”
According to an article on TechPresident, “Who Will be America’s First TechPresident,” we must ensure that all public schools have Internet, and provide “networked ability for our students, teachers, and parents 24 hours a day to access the greatest libraries of the world.”
While we cannot guarantee in-home Internet access for all Americans, it is important to ensure that schools provide children with Internet access they can utilize on a daily basis. As of 2001, 98 percent of public schools in the United States were connected to the Internet.
The next generation will probably rely on the Internet even more as a source of information and communication than we do now, so it equally important that children are taught how to effectively use the Internet. Moreover, it is important that ALL children are taught how to use the Internet, to avoid a technological skills gap.
Not only would children access information for educational purposes, but they can learn how to be critical of the information they find and the websites they read. They must be taught about protecting their privacy online, and how to avoid online predators on social networking sites. Many teenagers use the Internet for personal expression, and it is safe to say that communications technology has saturated their daily life.
Therefore, it is imperative that if children have access to the Internet, that they are taught how to research and analyze the myriad of information that has become available to them. These are skills that they will use as adult Internet users. The Internet-savvy children of today will be the Internet-savvy adults of tomorrow, who are hopefully appreciative of the wealth of available information and are utilizing the Internet for the good of themselves and of society as a whole.
As TechPresident points out, this would “transform education from being something that happens primarily only in school buildings into an ongoing process that facilitates learning moments happening wherever and whenever possible.”
