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Raleigh, NC
Rebecca Fernandez is a Principal Program Manager at Red Hat, leading projects to help the company scale its open culture. She's an Open Organization Ambassador, contributed to The Open Organization book, and maintains the Open Decision Framework. She is interested in the intersection of open source principles and practices, and how they can transform organizations for the better.
Authored Comments
Nice! I'll add it to the events page...
You know, I'm actually seeing a lot of this already in my son's kindergarten classroom. He loves school so far, and talks all the time about the smartboard and the math games they play on it. His teachers also do a fantastic job of captivating the kids' interest while reinforcing learning concepts and meeting learning objectives, and they use assessment software (but not computerized or paper tests) to keep tabs on all 20 students' progress.
Paper isn't gone--they still read plenty of books and spend a lot of time drawing and coloring--but technology is incorporated in ways that facilitate learning and exploration.
The school also uses Twitter, SMS messaging, automated voicemail messages, and class websites to keep parents in the loop, both for emergencies and ongoing information about what our kids are learning.
One of the most valuable (IMHO) technologies that is still making its way into the classroom is touchscreen computing. This type of interface is so intuitive for children, and they naturally "tinker" with it to figure out how it works. The smartboards are great, but the new smart-tables that are coming into preschool and kindergarten classrooms have real potential for interactive learning games.