Tina Barseghian
Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski announced this morning that the FCC will "reboot" the E-Rate program, which offers discounted Internet service to schools and public libraries and promoting increased access.
"We fail our students if we don’t teach them basic digital skills," he said. The move, he said, is expected to boost the mobile broadband movement for digital textbooks.
"I'm very excited about e-textbooks," he said. "Why shouldn't every kid have an e-reader that not only has the most up-to-date textbooks but also the best interactive [content]? You gotta go where the kids are. The kids are on these devices, let's use them."
Genachowski is speaking today at the Back to School: Learning in a Digital Age conference in Mountain View.
The conference is sponsored by Common Sense Media, the Children's Partnership, PBS Kids, the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, and I'll be live blogging from the event.