“Now we integrate technology in all of our courses,” said Missy Ruddle, Kanawha’s assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. “We don’t consider it an add-on as we did in the past.”
She said that if the board eventually approves the change, it will take effect next school year.
Ruddle said that years ago, the technology credit was fulfilled through taking a business computer applications course where students would learn how to use Microsoft Word and PowerPoint and other programs. She said there were eventually a list of courses that would award that credit, including certain business classes and computer science.
“We just really don’t have the need for that now, because it’s integrated with kids in first grade doing PowerPoint,” she said of the commonly used digital slideshow presentation program.
With the school system’s distribution of tablet computers to students and teachers through its Learning 20/20 initiative, Kanawha’s middle and high schools have gone “one-to-one” -- there’s at least one computer per student. In the fall of last school year, the county’s elementary schools had about one computer for every four students.
Ruddle said the school system still teaches a lot of the courses that granted the technology credit, but she doesn’t want to require it. She noted students at Capital High, the system’s “fine arts magnet,” would often like to take another fine arts class.
The board had its official “first reading” of the proposed policy change Monday, and the change will now go on a public comment period that usually lasts 30 days.
©2016 The Charleston Gazette (Charleston, W.Va.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
