A new $10,000 grant will allow the Eagle Academy for Young Men to jump-start its Digital Literacy Institute, a program that will fund computer education classes for students and their parents on Saturdays. The twist—kids will teach the adults.
“The development of technology education is so important today,” said David Banks, President of the Eagle Academy Foundation. “We know our kids are always so ready to engage themselves with technology, but their parents are coming from a different generation and aren’t always as apt to use this stuff.”
Banks went on to caution that the Eagle Academy administration doesn’t think all parents are ancient dinosaurs who don’t know how to use a computer, but it’s the newer Internet platforms that they’re interested in, like Twitter and Facebook. “He said, “It’s a different world out there now for kids, due to all they can do on the Internet, and parents need to know.”
The technology classes aren’t the only new addition to the school as part of their Digital Literacy Institute. The Eagle Academy also recently began using Teacher E, a software program through which parents, from home or from work, can go online and check their children’s grades. All the grades for all classes now go online with comments from teachers, and each parent gets their own code. “But unless you’re providing the right training to the parents,” said Banks, “it’s just bells and whistles and they don’t know how to use it.”
The $10,000 award came from Verizon, which is always looking for new educational opportunities to fund, according to Verizon representative April Horton. “Eagle Academy was a school already making great strides in a district where a lot of young men were going to jail or not getting a great shot at success,” explained Horton, “so this was a nice opportunity for us.”
This summer, the Eagle Academy will move from its current Grand Concourse location into a brand new, $50 million dollar facility on Third Avenue and East 176th Street. The new school is equipped with all the latest technology and will be more than suitable for these parent-student Internet classes.
Reach Daniel Roberts at (718) 742-3383.
