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Video: Digital Literacy, Part 18
Bonnie Reiss
Secretary of Education
State of California
December 19, 2010
MS. REISS: Well, as Secretary of Education, the thing that I'm most focused on is the governor's digital education initiative, which is part of -- an important component of our digital literacy campaign in this state. And the reality is that digital education and technology has the opportunity to transform public education as we know it. And if the goal of public education is to make sure that every student gets the kind of education that allows them to be college and career ready, then technology and digital content will be play an important role in that.
And it's not a question of if it's going to transform public education, it's a question of when and how. Because all the leading educators know that our kids outside the classroom, whether they're texting each other, or emailing each other, or going to Facebook, or going to YouTube, they're all using digital content outside of the classroom. And when they get in the classroom right now, they're told to power down, sit down, and go to page 42 in the textbook.
So the ability to use innovation and technology and digital content will allow for a transformation of public education into what's called personalized education. Because right now a teacher with 30 kids in their class has to kind of teach one lesson plan to all 30 kids, and every child learns differently. And the ability to be smart about how to incorporate technology and digital content into the classroom and into professional development of our teachers will really transform our ability to teach all our kids.