21st Century Education Initiative - "You Should Care..."

"If the United States is serious about the commitment of making transformational change in the K-12 educational system, we will have to take seriously the images you see today because it shows you what happens before children get to school," said Dr. Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the University of Washington Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. "The first 2,000 days are critical."

The Hugheses showed a room full of educators at the annual Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics conference in Helena how video games are changing the way children — and even some adults — are learning about the world around them.

"Right now, schools are losing millions of dollars per year because students don’t come to the classroom."

Oregon was the first state to sign up for Google Apps for Education in 2010 and make it available to K-12 school districts. The free software allows students to access their class work from home, the library, or anywhere they have internet access.

We’re quickly headed toward a future in which college students will either be super achievers or unprepared for the workplace.

The idea is simple: the state pays top academic students to attend a public college, and in return they spend at least four years teaching in a public school.

Across the country, electronic textbooks represent less than 10 percent of the textbook market for elementary and secondary schools, said Karen Meaney, an analyst for Simba Information, a market research company. But the share is growing fast. A new Florida law will require schools to spend half of their textbook budgets on digital resources by 2015.

High schools throughout the Inland Northwest are coming up with new ways to help teens gain work experience and/or prepare for postsecondary certification or education through Career and Technical Education classes.

The free sessions are funded by a grant through the Mathematical Association of America.

Two years ago, the district embarked on a five-year journey to transform its classrooms and completely revamp the way San Diego students learn. Since that time, the i21 Interactive Classroom Initiative (i21) has expanded into more than 1,300 classrooms and has distributed some 78,000 netbooks and other mobile devices to teachers and students.