I must admit, we are spoiled in New Brunswick. As I get to connect with learning leaders from across North America and around the world, I realize just how much further ahead of the curve we here in my home province are in terms of creating flatter learning spaces for our students. We have wireless broadband into every school, every teacher has a laptop, and a few schools even have 1:1 projects. But – and there’s always a but – I sense a bit of a stall.

A couple of stories on the local newswire caught my eye in the past week. First of all, Premier Shawn Graham announced that his government will be implementing a plan to bring residential high-speed Internet to EVERY household in the province in the coming year. Despite not being in such bad shape – over 95% of homes currently have access to broadband – this vision will do much to level the playing field for those citizens who live in the more rural and remote areas of the province. As we move forward, access to web-based tools and services will be as important – maybe even more – than is a telephone currently.

Then, just yesterday, my hometown of Fredericton was one of four Canadian cities named as one of the 21 smartest cities in the world.  In addition, our sister city of Moncton – just over an hour away – was included in the list.  This speaks highly of the vision and innovation of both public and private sector leaders at all levels.  I’ve written about this before, but one of the crowning jewels in Fredericton’s municipal infrastructure is it’s Fred-e-zone, a FREE, city-wide wireless network.  Civic leaders view this investment as basic as sidewalks, streets, water and sewer.  Citizens (including our students) and visitors can access this network anytime for work, play or learning.  Viewing technology as a basic service shows tremendous vision of the future needs of our community.

So, our communities are Smart (connected), but what about our schools.  Granted, the school I am most closely associated with is 1:1, but this is the exception.  Most of our schools struggle with access.  Teachers have computers, but most schools have huge students/computer ratios.

Teachers approach me all the time about doing connected, collaborative projects.  The barrier?…access.  Many schools have no access outside the labs they use to “teach computers”.  Others have one writing/research lab shared amongst a couple dozen classes.  With the demands of learning in the 21st century, one class a week just won’t cut it anymore.

What about home?  Just as a measure, over 95% of students at my school currently have high-speed Internet computer access at home. We place a huge reliance on this resource as many teachers require students to do web-based homework in one form or another.  We do try and make allowances for those students who legitimately have access issues but, frankly, access to the web is as necessary a basis service as telehone and television.  But unless they can find other avenues for students within the school, the other buildings can’t depend on home access to carry learning.

So, where does that leave education?  We are preparing our kids to work, play and learn in a connected world, but what are our schools doing to support their learning towards this end?  Do teachers have the resources to teach students how to safely and effectively live in this world? We can start by not resting on our laurels.  Keep moving.  Drive 1:1 across the province from 7-12.  Have laptop pods or labs in every K-6 school. Keep the student/computer ratio lower than 5:1. Our kids are connected at home.  They will be connected when they leave.  They need to be connected at school.

As Chris Lehmann so aptly states, “School is not practice for real life, it IS real life”.

Do our schools reflect this?

Technorati tags: technology, education, whipple, learning

Photo credit: Fibre Optic, Creative Commons non-commercial use, Uploaded to Flickr on February 4, 2008 by Twilight Jones