Schools lack Net savvy: Report

American schools have plenty of technology now, but not enough understanding of how to make the most of it in educating students, according to a just-released report from the US Department of Education, "Toward a New Golden Age in American Education: How the Internet, the Law and Today's Students Are Revolutionizing Expectations." "In the realm of technology, the educational community is playing catch-up. Industry is far ahead of education. And tech-savvy high school students often are far ahead of their teachers," DOE says in one of its conclusions, adding elsewhere that "we need to listen to America's students" because of their tech savvy (this is the intro to a section on "Student Voices" that includes a feedback blog). Coverage at USATODAY and CNET cited some arresting stats in the report: "9 in 10 children between 5 and 17 use computers, and even higher numbers of online teenagers use the Net for school-related work"; " 72% of all first graders used a home computer on a weekly basis during their summer breaks" and "the largest group of new Net users from 2000 to '02 were 2-to-5-year-olds, closely followed by 6-to-8-year-olds. In the process, students have become educators' toughest critics" (that last from CNET). The DOE points to ed-tech "success stories" at schools in a dozen states.