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InformationWeek | Next-Gen IT Workforce: Chicago High School Will Give Every Student A Tablet PC This Fall

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DelassalFor several years, I have felt that the education market was a great place for vendors to spend time “seeding” Tablet PC’s.  Not necessarily “marketing” Tablet PC’s, just making sure that students got a chance to use them.  Why?  Because as a student gets used to using the Tablet PC functionality, proceed through their high school and then college careers, and finally into the workforce, they will have already made a Tablet PC a major part of their work and play processes.

This story from Information Week is a good example of a group of Catholic high school freshman students who are getting that experience.  Not only are they all going to have a Tablet PC, they also are being given the opportunity to study advanced computer networking and earn an A+ certification.

I applaud this (applause, applause).  These are students who will know something not just about Tablet PC’s, but how to integrate them into their lives and support them, before getting a job. In addition, teachers will also benefit from the use of this tool in the classrom.  Everybody wins.

“”God is going high tech.” That’s how Jorge Peña, an associate principal of De La Salle Institute, a Catholic high school in Chicago, describes the school’s decision to have all of its 360 incoming freshmen lease tablet PCs. It’s the next big step in a program started about five years ago to equip teachers with laptops. Among the reasons the school switched to tablets for teachers: They can write on them while facing students and use projectors to beam lessons on a whiteboard…

….At De La Salle, the tablets (which students lease for $56 a month over 46 months) are also part of a new program for those interested in studying technology. It’s offering a computer network class in which students can obtain A+ certification, after which they will work in the school’s computer repair center. “We are building a workforce of IT students,” Peña says. So far, 18 boys and 12 girls have signed up for the classes

(via InformationWeek)

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