Watch today's Speak Up Congressional Briefing LIVE at 2PM ET/ 11AM PT

Please join us for the release of the Speak Up 2013 National Findings for Teachers, Administrators and Parents via our live stream feed.

Go to the following link: http://bit.ly/SUCBLive today at 2PM ET/11am PT to watch it live!

This is the second of two Congressional Briefings on the data results from the 403,000 online Speak Up surveys submitted from education stakeholders nationwide in fall 2013. The June 2nd briefing will include a presentation of the national findings and a moderated panel discussion on the impact of digital learning tools to support college and career readiness in K-12 schools with leaders in the education field. This year’s national report, “The New Digital Learning Playbook, Advancing College and Career Ready Skill Development in K-12 Schools” will be available for download to all those tuning in.

Special Guest Speakers

Joseph South, Deputy Director, Office of Educational Technology, U.S. Department of Education

Mark Belles, Senior Vice President, K-12, Blackboard

Panelists

Dr. Katherine Bihr, Vice President and Executive Director, Tiger Woods Learning Center Foundation

Tamika V. Culbreath, Reading/ English Language Arts Teacher, Prince Georges County Public Schools

Monet Deadwyler, Rising Senior, Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy at Capitol Hill

Breck DeWitt, CTO and National Director K12 and Higher Education, EMC Corporation

Dr. Patrick Murphy, Superintendent, Arlington Public Schools, 2014 Virginia Superintendent of the Year

We encourage you to take the conversation online and live tweet during the briefing! Don't forget to mention @SpeakUpEd/@ProjectTomorrow and/or#SpeakUpBriefing so we can see what you have to say!

To download a copy of the first report on K-12 Student data, "The New Digital Learning Playbook: Understanding the Spectrum of Students’ Activities and Aspirations” please click here.

If you need additional information about Speak Up or the Congressional Briefing, please contact: Jenny Hostert on the Speak Up Team at jhostert@tomorrow.org

2014 Congressional Briefing National Release of Speak Up 2013 K-12 Students

On April 8, 2014 Project Tomorrow released the report “The New Digital Learning Playbook: Understanding the Spectrum of Students’ Activities and Aspirations” at a Congressional Briefing held in Washington, DC and for the first time, online in a special live stream of the event. Julie Evans, Project Tomorrow CEO, discussed selected student national findings from the Speak Up 2013 report and moderated a panel discussion with students who shared their insights and experiences with digital learning.

Key Findings from this year’s report include:

• 

  Infographic- The New Digital Learning Playbook: Mobile Learning

• Girls outpace boys in use of many digital tools for learning, particularly the socially based tools like texting and collaborating online.
• 29 percent of high school boys say that they are very interested in a job or career in a STEM field, but only 19 percent of girls say the same. This gap remains even among girls and boys who self-assess their technology skills as advanced. During the seven years that the Speak Up surveys have polled high school students on their interest in STEM fields, the level of student interest has not increased significantly.
• Students continue to report less regular interaction with traditional social networking sites like Facebook, while 44 percent of students in grades 6-12 report using social media apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Vine. Nearly one-third of high school students reported using Twitter.
• One-quarter of students in grades 3-5 and nearly one-third of students in grades 6-12 say that they are using a mobile device provided by their school to support schoolwork (these percentages were greater among Title I schools than non-Title I schools).
• In four years, the percent of middle school students taking tests online increased from 32 percent to 47 percent.
• High school students reported a mean average of 14 hours per week using technology for writing.
• Only one-third of middle school students say that for schoolwork reading, they prefer to read digital materials rather than printed materials; more than half, however, say online textbooks would be an essential component of their “ultimate school.”
• Digital equity, including to student access to the Internet outside of school, is a growing concern among district technology leaders with 46 percent saying it is one of the most challenging issues they face today (compared to just 19 percent in 2010).

Click here to download the PDF of the report.
Click here to view the report in HTML.

Over 100 people attended the Congressional Briefing including congressional staff members, student and staff representatives from some of our Speak up schools, and staff from many of our sponsors, champion outreach partners and non-profit partners.

Project Tomorrow was very pleased to welcome staff from American Association of School Administrators, Alliance for Excellent Education, Apple, Inc., Arlington County Public Schools, Baltimore City Public School System, Baltimore County Public Schools, Blackboard, Inc., Colonial School District, CoSN, EdTech Strategies, LLC, EdTechReview, Educational Testing Service, Elmore County Public Schools, Fairfax County Public Schools, Federal Communications Commission, Frederick County Public Schools, Fulton Creative Counsulting, Impact Aid Association, iNACOL, Institute of Museum & Library Services, International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), Learning First Alliance, Morgan State University/NASA Office of Education, MWW Group, NAFIS, National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE), National Council of Teachers of English, National Museum of Natural History,  National Science Foundation, Prince George’s County Public Schools, Qualcomm, State Education Technology Directors Association, The Center for Education Reform, US Department of Education, US House committee on Education, US House and US Senate.

Students and parents from Baltimore City Public Schools (MD), Baltimore County Public Schools (MD), Fairfax County Public School District (VA) and Frederick County Public Schools (VA) shared their insights regarding personalizing their own learning.

Report Release:

Making Learning Mobile 1.0:
Leveraging Mobile Devices to Transform Teaching and Learning

“This project represents a landmark study in the developing K-12 mobile learning space, this study is important because it gets beyond simply putting a tablet in the hands of students, and it examines how to effectively implement tablets within instruction to improve student learning”   —Julie Evans, CEO Project Tomorrow

As part of the Making Learning Mobile study, Chicago 5th grade and Fairfax County 8th grade students were provided with educationally-managed broadband Android tablets using the Kajeet Sentinel® platform to connect kids in school and at home. The objective of the study was to evaluate how the students used the devices, in school and out of school, to support their schoolwork and extend learning beyond the classroom.  While the majority of 8th graders in the Fairfax County study had high-speed Internet access at home, only 39 percent of the Chicago 5th graders had similar access.  Therefore, the Chicago study represented an opportunity to provide first-time home access to the Internet for many families, a ground-breaking initiative within Chicago schools.

While each study resulted in different findings based on the student grade level and demographics, some common results included:

• Students appreciated having a personal tablet because it made it easier for them to get online at school, review class materials whenever they wanted and read online textbooks outside of school all without competing for home computer access.
• Teachers creatively used the tablets in a variety of ways to engage students in learning, to increase student-teacher communications, and to support instruction.

The Making Learning Mobile study is continuing this school year within Chicago Public Schools.

Register for the webinar at http://tinyurl.com/webinarMLM and download the complete report from both school districts on the Kajeet website at: http://www.kajeet.com/4u/education/MLM-form.html.

About Kajeet®
Kajeet, the only wireless service provider dedicated to kids and education, is solving the digital divide in schools. Kajeet for Education provides portable Wi-Fi hotspots with school-managed off-campus Internet connectivity.  Giving teachers or administrators the ability to set access hours and filter out non-educational content, the Kajeet Sentinel® platform, gives students the access to essential academic resources on the Internet anytime, anywhere. The Kajeet SmartSpot™ is compatible with all devices students use today and is 100 percent compliant with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). For more information, please visit us at www.kajeet.com/education.

About Project Tomorrow

Project Tomorrow®, the national education nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering student voices in education discussions, designed and implemented this program evaluation for Kajeet for Education.  Project Tomorrow has 17 years of experience in the K-12 and higher education sector and regularly provides consulting and research support to school districts, government agencies, business and higher education institutions about key trends and research in science, math and technology education.