Michigan Department of Education Awards K-8 Digital Literacy Grant to Sault Ste. Marie Area Public School District – Partners with Learning.com

PORTLAND, Ore. – March 20, 2019 – Learning.com, a leader in providing online digital literacy solutions for grades K-8, announced today that it has been selected by Sault Ste. Marie Area Public School District to implement a digital literacy pilot within 100 selected Michigan K-8 public schools during the 2019/2020 school year. Digital literacy is defined to be “the ability to understand, use and interact with technology, media and digital resources in real-world situations.”

Speaker of the House, Lee Chatfield, stated, “Every Michigan student deserves the opportunity to learn the critical 21st century skills that will increase their success in school, college, and careers. Our state’s economic prospects depend on a prepared and skilled workforce. Programs like this will give Michigan teachers the tools they need to better prepare all students for their future.”

Participating K-8 schools will receive full access to Learning.com’s curriculum, which provides instruction on the 12 essential skills of digital literacy: computer fundamentals, keyboarding, internet and online communications, multimedia, digital citizenship and online safety, word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, databases, visual mapping, computational thinking, and coding fundamentals.

The curriculum includes:

• EasyTech – a complete online digital literacy curriculum that provides an engaging way to teach essential digital literacy skills through interactive lessons, application exercises, discussions, and quizzes
• Inquiry – a supplemental curriculum that takes a project-based approach to integrating digital literacy into instruction with ready-to-go technology-infused projects for all core subject areas
• Digital Literacy Assessment – assessments that provide real-time data to quickly determine how well students grasp critical digital literacy concepts
• Training – workshops and a vast array of on-demand resources such as webinars, downloadable recordings, and online content designed to address schools’ and districts’ unique instructional goals

Sault Ste. Marie Area Public Schools and Learning.com will be collaborating over the next 30-60 days to identify schools interested in participating in the K-8 digital literacy pilot.

“Sault Schools began our partnership with Learning.com after our community graciously supported a technology and security millage. Our goal was to ensure our students understood new technologies such as cloud computing and to verify our students were proficient in digital citizenship and online safety before accessing the regional network each year. We are excited to collaborate with Learning.com on this grant and to promote digital literacy instruction in other K-8 schools in Michigan,” stated Amy Scott-Kronemeyer, Director of Student Achievement at Sault Ste. Marie Area Public Schools.

Keith Oelrich, CEO of Learning.com stated “We are honored to be selected to participate in this K-8 digital literacy pilot. Digital literacy skills are critical for student success in school, college and careers. We look forward to partnering with Sault Ste. Marie Area Public School District to positively impact more Michigan teachers and students.”

Visit our Michigan Funding Page for more information on how to participate in the 2019/2020 K-8 digital literacy pilot.

About Learning.com
Learning.com is a national leader in providing digital literacy solutions that help prepare students for online assessments, school, college and their future careers. The company offers a complete digital literacy curriculum for grades K-8 that engages students as they develop critical skills such as keyboarding, business applications, online safety, computational thinking and coding. Founded in 1999, Learning.com currently partners with one in six U.S. school districts and serves more than 4 million students each year. The company has earned more than 30 industry awards, including ISTE 2017 Best of Show, 2017 Award of Excellence from “Tech & Learning Magazine” and “The Oregonian’s Top Workplace” for 2016 and 2017.

Further Reading