A lack of higher Internet speeds in schools could...

President Barack Obama’s recently announced initiative to improve school bandwidth, Duncan said to take advantage of the latest wave of education resources, “most schools will require bandwidth they don’t have right now.” FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said she expects her agency’s efforts to make Obama’s ConnectED initiative happen to be “well under way” by the start of the school year in the fall, though she said it would “take a lot of work.” Rosenworcel said the effort represents a chance to update policies and infrastructure that haven’t been updated since 1998, the era of the “Information Superhighway.” Duncan said the cable industry needed to assist with ConnectED “as fast as you can,” saying providing schools with faster Internet could be accomplished for a small fee added on to monthly cable bills, which he compared to the price of a postage stamp. Duncan said digital textbooks could represent a significant change for students, since typically textbooks are purchased in seven-year cycles. “We know information is changing by the minute,” said Duncan. “In education, we change far too slowly.” Discovery Education Senior Vice President Scott Kinney said that with digital textbooks, educators can “take that content and literally update it overnight.” Duncan told the NCTA audience that he hoped children would look back and “know the cable industry did the right thing.” Technology has changed how teachers and parents deal with education, Douglas Levin, State Educational Technology Directors Association (STEDA) executive director, also said at the show Wednesday. Technology is different because kids have access to smartphones and tablets and the content is rich, said Levin. For educators to make full use of this technology, they must understand how to use it, said executives from Common Sense Media, Discovery Education, STEDA, Cable in the Classroom and Partnership for 21st Century Skills. While 96 percent of teachers think technology programs are important to prepare young people for their future, only 18 percent understand how to bring technology into the classroom, according to the Leading Education by Advancing Digital Commission, a group that advises the FCC and Department of Education. This technology enhances teaching and learning because it speeds up the delivery of content and teachers can get updated information overnight. “We deliver our services over a browser on a cloud platform. When the Higgs Boson particle was discovered, we had the capability with this cloud database to include an article or video that is published overnight so teachers who go back that service, they have access to that content,” Kinney told us. Common Sense Media President Amy Guggenheim Shenkan identified three key initiatives for the organization. It wants to empower parents to make good decisions about what their kids should watch, create learning ratings to assess potential in digital content and deal with education to help kids and educators develop learning inside and outside the classroom, she said. “We want to create a learning system for consumers and make it easy for educators to find great content,” said Shenkan. Creating digital citizenship education was key to Cable in the Classroom and Common Sense Media. “We want to have Internet safety and security and for kids to have a positive media footprint,” said Frank Gallagher, Cable in the Classroom executive director. Close to half of the K-12 schools across the country use Common Sense digital literacy media, said Shenkan. Shifts in technology allow schools to meet long-standing goals that were previously unachievable, said Levin. As school districts continue to slash budgets, schools are “trying to meet their needs with technology” while they are “starting to compete with schools at a global level,” said STEDA’s Levin. “Learning is 24/7 and opportunities need to be available inside and outside the classroom,” he said. Systems need to focus on student needs, said Steve Paine, Partnership for 21st Century Skills president. “Good systems are student-focused and student-centered. Technology in the hands of an unskilled teacher is irresponsible,” said Paine.