Guest Commentary Educational Technology Bill of Rights for Students

Brad Flickinger is a technology integration specialist who teaches technology at Bethke Elementary in Timnath, Colo., and is the founder of SchoolTechnology.org. Recently, he wrote a student's edtech bill of rights that was published as part of the Digital Learning Environment Blog.

Taking the viewpoint of a student, Flickinger believes an edtech bill of rights should include:

• The right to use technology at school. I should not be forced to leave my new technology at home to use (in most cases) out-of-date school technology. If I can afford it, let me use it -- you don’t need to buy me one. If I cannot afford it, please help me get one -- I don’t mind working for it.
• The right to access the school’s WiFi. Stop blaming bandwidth, security or whatever else -- if I can get on WiFi at McDonalds, I think that I should be able to get online at school.
• The right to be taught by teachers who know how to manage the use technology in their classrooms. These teachers know when to use technology and when to put it away.

Click here to read all 10 of the rights Flickinger believes students need to have.