“For the past several years, something quite extraordinary has been happening in Michigan’s middle schools: Almost 21,000 students have participated in the state’s Freedom to Learn program, in which each student has access to educational technology such as Hewlett-Packard laptops and software such as Encarta Encyclopedia and Discourse. And 1,193 teachers in 188 buildings across 95 school districts have facilitated this program by doing something many teachers find extremely difficult: They’ve given up some control to their students.
The idea was to focus on districts in need: those qualifying for federal funds and those not meeting Adequate Yearly Progress goals for academic achievement. The idea was to introduce wireless technology to the classroom and engage students in their learning. The idea was to change the structure of education so that students would not only be learning how to use the technology but also, in a sense, be creating their own curriculum.
And now in the spring of 2006, what are the results? How effective has Freedom to Learn been? Three articles will provide a picture of how school communities have reacted to this innovative program.”
Source: Freedom to Learn: Part I
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