Business, Government Legal News from throughout WVWV schools participate in Digital Learning Day

WV schools participate in Digital Learning Day

Many students and teachers across the nation celebrated technology's role in education Feb. 1 for a first-ever Digital Learning Day.

However, the event also served as a way to highlight struggling schools across the nation, including one close to home.

A portion of the National Town Hall webcast on Digital Learning Day focused on improving education in McDowell County schools.

The Reconnecting McDowell project is a three- to five-year effort aiming to make educational improvements in McDowell County. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers said officials are ready to implement the plan starting in June.

"What you had was a thriving community that once coal became mechanized, people left," she said. "But you still have a community that really loves McDowell. The question is how you take rural America like McDowell and reconnect it."

Weingarten said officials have to deal with other problems simultaneously such as the drug addiction, unemployment and housing problems.

"We can't just say teaching and learning if we don't focus on all issues together," she said. "We need to make sure teachers not only come to McDowell County but they stay there. How can they do that if there's no housing?"

Gayle Manchin, vice president of the West Virginia State Board of Education, agreed with Weingarten saying everyone needs to become involved with the county's success.

"If it takes a village to raise a child, who will raise the village? In McDowell County, we need to raise the village to support the child," Manchin said. 

Jim Brown, superintendent of McDowell County schools, said many of the schools lack broadband and do not support the utilization to integrate instruction in the classroom. However, Brown remained hopeful that this would change shortly with Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin's commitment to provide more broadband to McDowell County.

"The next step is to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers," Brown said. "How do we tackle that? Failure is not an option. I'm convinced that great things will happen in McDowell County."

Digital Learning Day stems from the ideas of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise. Co-chairmen of Digital Learning Now, Bush and Wise released the "Roadmap for Reform: Digital Learning" in October 2011 to provide lawmakers with ideas to ease students' transitions into colleges and careers.

Wise said the national event served as a way to get lawmakers and education professionals to come up with plans to integrate technology into a more engaging form of education. 

"Digital Learning Day is more than just a day," Wise said in a news release. "It is about building a digital learning movement that provides teachers with better tools to truly provide a quality education for every child. … Effective technology combined with great teachers and engaged students have the potential to transform the world of learning."

As part of Digital Learning Day, the World Wide Workshop along with the Alliance for Excellent Education showcased digital learning in a program called Globaloria, which is the largest social learning network for developing digital literacy through game design.

Approximately 2,000 Globaloria students in 60 schools and community centers participated in the Feb. 1 event. Although the Globaloria program reaches across the nation, its roots are rich in West Virginia history.

"I'm proud that it started here in West Virginia," former Gov. Gaston Caperton said to students at George Washington High School. "It shows that we in West Virginia can be first when we want to be."

Caperton's wife, Idit Harel Caperton, founded World Wide Workshop in 2004 to help students and educators participate as leaders in the "global knowledge economy."

Globaloria sprung from the workshop's mission statement in 2006 and now has reached more than 5,000 students and educators in seven states.

"Why is this so important?" Gaston Caperton asked students. "Today, it isn't about reading writing and arithmetic. It's really about reading, writing, arithmetic and technology skills."

Karen Kail, a math and Globaloria teacher at George Washington High School, explained Globaloria is a self-directed class that teaches kids more than an average lecture.

Kail explained her class has worked on Flash games teaching everything from trigonometry to the affects of cyber bullying.

"This class is so important," she said. "I have a passion for this class because these are skills they are going to use in everyday life."

The first semester, Kail teaches students how to write codes. Kail said she is not a Flash programmer but if students have problems, they learn how to problem solve through research. 

"We Google a lot," she said. "Sometimes we find the answers. Sometimes we don't."

Austin Susman, a Globaloria student at George Washington, is working on a program to educate people about cyber bullying. Susman said the program is easy to learn.

"It takes time to learn but anyone can learn it," he said. "The purpose of this program is to create games that are fun and educational."