Philly teachers use a lot of technology — from smart boards to AI — but the district doesn’t have a broad mandate for implementing the tech, making it hard to ensure all students are equally exposed to new digital skills. While the School District of Philadelphia offers hardware and instructional support, the technical education can vary based on how much each teacher buys in. When Bonnee Bentum first started teaching over 20 years ago, her classroom didn’t even have a computer in it. Now she can’t imagine not incorporating tech into her lessons.“Educators need to learn how to embrace the new technology so that students can grow their lives with this technology,” Bentum, an English teacher at the Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, told Technical.ly. “To be in front of the technology.”During the pandemic, which forced a switch to online learning, teachers had to learn how to use the technology. While some continue to dive deeper, others are hesitant. Today, all K-12 students have Chromebooks, which many schools use because of the model’s affordability, and all classrooms have compatible smart boards, or digitally interactive whiteboards. Those devices can be used for everything from in-classroom lessons to homework after school.The district calls this the one-to-one model, which is a strategy where every student receives a personal device to use for schoolwork. All teachers are also given a laptop. “We have maintained that model by building processes and an inventory system that allows each student to have that Chromebook assigned to their name,” Melanie Harris, chief information officer for the district, said

Leveraging extensive experience with companies at scale, Rich Preece stepped in as CEO of GoGuardian after Shinde left the role.