ITFlorida - Laptop Initiative

MIAMI, Fla., January 23, 2006—ITFlorida applauds the sustained commitment that Governor Jeb Bush has made to harnessing technology to improve the state’s educational infrastructure. His latest initiative, to provide laptop computers to all of Florida's nearly 164,000 public-school teachers, will empower Florida’s educators to continue to improve the learning experience.

Florida has made great strides in improving its educational system. Laptops for all of Florida’s teachers will ensure that all of our educators – not just some of them – have at their disposal a greater range of resources to enable them to continue to improve their lesson planning and preparation, classroom-management, administration, and communication with other teachers, administrators, and parents.

"Governor Bush has demonstrated a consistent focus on improving student achievement in Florida, including most recently in the adoption of Florida’s Sunshine Connections – a comprehensive set of user-friendly, online resources for educators to help their students improve," said Charles Davidson, Chair of ITFlorida. "This initiative to provide a laptop to every teacher will be a critical catalyst to ensuring that all of Florida’s teachers have the opportunity and the ability to harness the benefits of technology."

The timing of the Laptops for Teachers initiative is right. New technologies are continually being incorporated into the learning experience. Recently, as part of his ongoing focus on improving student improvement, Governor Bush announced the implementation of Florida’s Sunshine Connections – an online, interactive, user-friendly set of resources for teachers that is targeted to improving student achievement and improving the teaching experience. Equipping teachers with laptops is a critical next step in developing Florida’s education infrastructure.

In other states and countries where similar initiatives have been implemented, the benefits were numerous and included: improved access to the global teaching resources on the Internet; ability to produce better teaching materials; enhanced ability to teach specific skills to students; increased teacher confidence levels; enhanced communications with parents and other educators; improved time management skills; and increased administrative efficiencies.

Importantly, the Governor’s initiative recognizes that not all school districts have the same needs. Some schools and districts have already purchased laptops for teachers. In such cases, funds can be used for hardware and software upgrades. For those schools and districts that have not yet equipped their teachers with laptops, however, the initiative is essential.

Providing a laptop to every teacher will be a critical catalyst to ensuring that all of Florida's teachers have the opportunity and the ability to harness the benefits of technology. While implementing this initiative will, like any major public policy, encounter a host of challenges, those challenges, however, cannot detract from the critical mission at hand.

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About ITFlorida

ITFlorida is an umbrella, not-for-profit, membership organization that represents Florida's diverse information technology communities on a statewide basis. ITFlorida was formed in October 2001 after the dissolution of the Information Service Development Technology Task Force (IT Task Force), which focused on developing state policies to enable Florida to compete in the information age. ITFlorida built on the momentum of the IT Task Force and fills the need for a single statewide advocacy organization to represent Florida's IT-related technology sectors. It is organized to provide its members with access to lawmakers, businesses, capital, and domestic and international technology leaders. More information is available at www.itflorida.com.

Contact:

Matt Doster, Executive Director, ITFlorida

850-294-0950

mdoster@itflorida.com