President Obama visited Buck Lodge Middle School in Adelphi, Maryland to announce major progress on the ConnectED initiative. Before his announcement, he took some time to visit a classroom, and had some fun taking and narrating a video using a student’s iPad.
Borrowing a student’s iPad, the President recorded a quick video inside the classroom, highlighting one seventh grader’s “outstanding calculations … describing right angles” while complimenting another student on his tie.
Every student at Buck Lodge has access to their own iPad.
In a speech to the rest of the school, the President discussed how schools that are instituting new technologies are helping students and teachers achieve better results:
Now, here at Buck Lodge, you are showing how we can use technology to teach our young people in innovative ways. And by the way, the principal told me that part of how this got started was some of the stimulus dollars that we put in place almost five years ago now. But every student here has access to their own iPad. And you don’t just write papers or take tests; they’re animating movies, they’re designing blogs, they’re collaborating on multimedia projects. In the world of an 8th grader, Annie Gomez, she says, “You can learn even more, you can take in more, and then you know more about the world.”
Mr. Obama went on to detail how technology is assisting teachers as well, saying teachers can have students take quizzes on their iPads, while teachers can view the answers in real time, giving them the ability to know who needs extra help.
The ConnectED initiative is designed to enrich K-12 education for all of America’s students. Under ConnectED, 99% of students will have access to next-generation broadband by 2017, transforming the classroom experience for all students, regardless of income.