 Your active engagement and leadership has helped North
Carolina continue the hard work of transforming teaching and learning through
smart and effective use of digital technology.
As educators, we understand that the day is long past when
we could choose between the learning resources essential to our parents’
educations and those created by and for a generation of 21st century
learners. We no longer have that choice. The future is now.
Since Home Base was introduced in 2013, we at the Department of Public
Instruction have been focused on making that set of digital tools work as well
as possible for all educators and students across the state. This school year
alone, we’ve set digital learning competencies for educators, and we’ve launched
a Digital Learning Initiative that is aimed at building on our progress so far
– learning from our experience and listening to you.
Part of that effort includes the development of a Home Base
Roadmap, with the goal of evaluating the effectiveness of Home Base and to
guide the development and improvement of the product to meet the needs of
educators, students and the community.
Home Base provides critical technology components supporting
the state’s Digital Learning Plan, which is guiding North Carolina’s shift to more
personalized, student-centered instruction that will better prepare more
students for success after high school.
We’ve been encouraged by the participation of all districts
in the full array of Home Base applications, including Schoolnet, that is helping
North Carolina educators and students take advantage of these valuable
resources for teaching and learning.
This year there are many added features, including new and
improved digital content through collaboration with state partners and Digital
Learning initiative, formative assessment items for many high school Career and
Technical Education courses, and additional assessment and reporting features.
I urge your continued participation for the 2017-18 school
year. It’s a good investment.
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