Let Students Build, Not Just Browse

This is the age of ideas. Students should know how to execute one. That means time with real equipment: computer hardware, assembly, and robotics, not a cart of devices that stays locked.

Students love to build, and they especially love giving life to hardware that looks finished. A workshop where they take machines apart, repair them, and make them do something new builds an interest that a lecture about technology cannot.

I have spent 20 years as a software engineer, and I have taught as a lecturer. I know the difference between a purchase order and a skill. Practical technology in New Haven classrooms should be something a student can hold, wire, and explain.

What I'll push for

• Add hands-on computer hardware, assembly, and robotics workshops
• Teach students to execute an idea, from a sketch to something that works
• Give teachers paid time to learn the same tools before they are asked to teach them
• Judge new technology by whether students use it, not by whether the district bought it