Student Technology Bill of Rights

On my other blog, I asked for feedback for creating a student technology Bill of Rights. Here is what I have so far. What would you add?

From feedback and from my own experiences, here is what I have gleaned so
far for the Student Technology Bill of Rights. Thanks to everyone that has contributed so far. I have tried to keep the topics general in nature, for instance, I wouldn’t say “use iMovie” I would say “Use video” because we all know that technology changes on a daily basis and what is hot today may be cold tomorrow.

So please feel free to add. This is a work in progress.

As students in the 21st century, and as citizens of the digital information age, schools can no longer teach the way they have, or as they were designed to teach, since the eighteen hundreds.

No longer do we go to school to create a workforce to populate the facotries and farms of the Industrial Revolution. We are students who were born, and who live in an age designed to be fast, designed to be multi-pronged, multimedia, and multicultural.

We therefore have certain rights that students before us did not have, just as they had rights students before them did not have.

These rights are a starting point.

These rights are for all students.

We have the right to have…

unfettered access to the Internet for the purposes of education.
administrators that understand that our methodologies of learning may not be the same as the school’s methodologies of teaching.
collaboration with fellow students no matter where they may be.
the ability to communicate for the purposes of education, in as many forms as possible.
teachers that are at least as technologically as literate as their students
access to new technologies in order to improve our learning.
the ability to explore new technologies.
the use of technology for higher order thinking, not for low level remediation
the use of technology to present products that are not considered “traditional.”
the use of technology to develop our own learning and communication styles.
be stimulated by technology, not bored by drill and kill.
if there is no other compelling reason, classroom projects created using a variety of media from video to text.
been taught processes not programs.
teachers that are properly trained on how to use technology to make our learning a richer and more meaningful experience.

0 members like this

Comment by Tim Holt on May 28, 2007 at 8:43am: Great idea. Something they also could give to their teachers and Principals...
(Now if I can just get them to say "Every kids needs a Mac...)
hahahaha
Thanks

Comment by Scott S. Floyd on May 31, 2007 at 11:42am: Tim,

Thanks for adding me as a friend. Your videos for the school site is what first introduced me to you back when either Wes Fryer or Miguel Guhlin blogged about them. I shared them with my IT and super and we began an extensive site overhaul. No videos on our end yet, but I did get the go for a $12,000 podcast/vodcast Mac server project (and no, we are not a Mac district, but I just love my MacBook).

If you don't mind, I will join your Mac Classroom group as well to keep up with what is going on over there in Mac world. It looks as though I am starting a new position for my ISD which is basically a technology integration specialist so teachers have someone to turn to locally. We'll see how it goes. My super offered to buy 5 or 10 MacBooks for teachers that I find would use them to spread the "new stuff you show them virally." Hey, it's a great start.

By the way, this list you are working on would be well spent within the TEC-SIG group when they meet with TEA for future planning. Sharing it with state legislators is a waste too many times. Maybe with the regime change we are sure to have in 2009 in the House we can make some progress with technology funding. Thanks again for the inspiration with the videos and the list.