What Is Future Ready?

What Is Future Ready?

The Alliance for Excellent Education Invites You to a Webinar

What Is Future Ready?

Panelists
Rafranz Davis, Author, District Instructional Technology Specialist, Arlington ISD (Texas)
Ben Grey, Assistant Superintendent for Innovative Learning and Communications, CCSD 59 (Illinois)
Jeremy Macdonald, Director of Technology and Innovation, Redmond School District (Oregon)
Tom Murray, State and District Digital Learning Director, Alliance for Excellent Education

The Alliance for Excellent Education hosted a kickoff webinar for its Future Ready leadership series. Future Ready is a free, bold new effort to maximize digital learning opportunities and help school districts move quickly toward preparing students for success in college, a career, and citizenship. The initiative provides districts with resources and support to ensure that local technology and digital learning plans align with instructional best practices, are implemented by highly trained teachers, and lead to personalized learning experiences for all students, particularly those from traditionally underserved communities.

This effort comes at a critical time as districts embrace college and career readiness as the goal for all students and recognize the potential of digital tools to help teachers personalize learning for each student. While less than 30 percent of U.S. schools have the bandwidth they need to teach using today’s technology, federal and state efforts are expanding this capacity to ensure that at least 99 percent of the nation’s students have access to high-speed internet in their schools within the next five years. Such connectivity, along with strategic planning by districts to maximize its availability, has the potential to transform the educational experiences of all students, regardless of their background.

During this webinar, Rafranz Davis, Ben Grey, and Jeremy Macdonald discussed:

  • the Future Ready School District Pledge;
  • what constitutes a future ready school;
  • the “ConnectED to the Future” Superintendent Summit kickoff event at the White House;
  • various roles educators play in a Future Ready School; and
  • how school districts and educators can become part of the Future Ready effort.

Ms. Davis, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Macdonald are respected educators who are experts in school transformation, culture, and systemic change.

An archived version of the webinar can be found at http://www.all4ed.org/webinars