A NY Times tech reporter goes to the classroom

Natasha Singer, a tech reporter for the New York Times, writes about her experience in reporting a series of stories on how education in the United States has been changed by technology.

Singer writes, “Since I am a tech reporter for the Business section, editors asked me to focus more on tech industry efforts to remake public schools than on how technology is changing pedagogy.

“In two years of research, I interviewed several hundred teachers and tech billionaires, students, superintendents, start-up founders, parents, principals, professors, politicians, philanthropists and investors. In addition to the one in Mapleton, schools in California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan and New York kindly hosted my visits.

“Then there were the companies that welcomed, or at least tolerated, my interest. Microsoft let me tag along with a group of schoolteachers visiting its headquarters in Redmond, Wash., where they learned how company products like Skype could be used in the classroom. Google set up interviews for me with its education executives at its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

“Apple invited me to visit Apple Camp, where I interviewed elementary school students as they programmed a robot to move through a maze. And I visited Oracle’s headquarters in Redwood Shores, Calif., where the company is constructing a multimillion-dollar building to house a charter school for budding innovators.”

Read more here.