A vanguard of schools around the country is sending students home with the same advanced technology they work with in the classroom, reports the Dallas Morning News. Every netbook is a potential eBook reader and Wi-Fi portal, research tool, and classwork file. It’s a trend that education experts say is inevitable, as prices and durability of the equipment improve along with the educational opportunities accessible online. Last week, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at the Math, Science and Technology Magnet Elementary School, part of the Richardson Independent School District, carried school-owned netbooks home. A few weeks earlier, students at Richardson West Junior High Magnet School were assigned similar computers. “Kids that age are the ones using iPhones at 8 years old,” said Angela Vaughan, principal at Richardson’s MST elementary school. “This is a natural thing for most of them.” The real hurdles have more to do with the teachers, said Alan Foley, an associate professor of instructional design, development, and evaluation at Syracuse University. Instructors need to learn how to work the new machinery into lessons, and about new issues of classroom management…
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