Boise, ID – Idaho’s Technology Taskforce meets Monday and Tuesday. The group has to make recommendations on how the state should implement the technology mandates in the New Students Come First education laws. This is the last meeting of the task force.
Nearly 40 people sit on the tech task force. They are from all over the state and include law makers, teachers, and school administrators. They’ve met for two days a month since June. Lucy Willits the chief of staff for superintendent of education Tom Luna says by lunch time Tuesday the group will have a long list of recommendations. Take just one mandate of the Students Come First laws, one “mobile computing device” for every student.
Lucy Willits “Procurement of the mobile computing device, what kind of use policies, whether the mobile computing device is checked out or whether it goes home, and what kind of software should be loaded when the school districts get them.”
The task force will include recommendations for what the state department of education should require and what decisions should be left to districts. Willits says if any of the recommendations contradict the laws, they have to be voted on by lawmakers.
Lucy Willits “Right now the law recommends a third of students get the computers at a three year rollout, the question is should that be a shorter timeline? Instead of students should it be schools? Should it be districts? And maybe there’s some suggestions there that the committee’s going to have to look at Monday and Tuesday.”
This morning the task force hears reports from members who recently visited Texas and Oklahoma to study computer use in schools there.