Social Networking Site for One-to-one computing

The Stephens Group has started a social networking site for people interested in one-to-one computing. The purpose is to share resources with one another around this topic.

If you would like to join go to the main website at http://one-to-one-computing.collectivex.com/main/summary .

Site Visit to Westerly School

Today I had the opportunity to visit Westerly School in Long Beach, California. Westerly is in their first year of implementing a 1:1 Tablet PC program for middle school students. I met with Dr. Victoria Lovejoy, the Director of Differentiated Learning Solutions (love that title!) for the school. She explained that the program was a gradual evolution. Five years ago the school had a cart of laptops and two years ago they added a second cart. Last year the technology committee started visioning a 1:1 program.

We visited a guided studies class where students were doing homework. Many of the students were using their tablets and were eager to share how they use them. When I visit schools to see how students are using technology, one of the most common uses I typically see is students surfing the Internet to do research on a topic. One of the unique things about the tablet is that students can write and draw on it and their handwriting can even be turned into text. When I asked Dr. Lovejoy why they chose tablets over a traditional laptop, she said that they felt that the tablets would give students more options and would be a better tool for meeting diverse learning styles. In this class I saw very little of students using the Internet and far more of students using their tablets to help them do authentic work. I saw them illustrating concepts that they were learning about in ink art, or animating their drawings to show cell mitosis using Flash, or creating graphs in Excel for presentations they were making.

Teachers and students talked about how the tablets were allowing them to become more paperless. For example, in class students will bring up their homework assignments. They will go over the answers and the teachers will ask them to use their stylus to “correct” their work. Students can circle things, highlight key things, and make notes to themselves. The emphasis is less on getting a perfect paper, but to show the process and to show what you’ve learned. Teachers also encourage students to use these techniques when taking notes so that they are more actively engaged in higher order thinking during the note-taking process.

The school also has its own online portal. Students have access to private folders that only they and their teacher have access to. They also have pen pals in another country that they can upload their letter to inside the portal. Teachers can also use the portal to post their homework assignments.

One of the things I was most impressed with was how well the tablet program the supported the mission of the school. The school focuses on the “whole” child. In their mission statement which is posted throughout the school it listed 21^st century skills such as digital literacy and creativity. This fits a lot of the research I’ve been reading about how some teaching learning environments, such as the one at Westerly, are much more conducive to 1:1 programs than more didactic skill based environments.

When I asked a group of eighth graders what would happen if the laptops went away, they replied, “I would have to write everything”… “everything would take twice as long”… “I would die!”.

Finding Funding for Student Laptops

A number of you have asked me for information on how 1:1 initiatives are being funded. Here is a great article by Bruce Dixon on this subject http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1097

More on 1:1 Computing

On Friday, May 8th I attended the TechEd Conference in Long Beach, CA and learned some more about 1:1 Computing.

The Fullerton School District, in Fullerton CA has implemented many innovative ideas in their 1:1 initiative, which has been in place for three years now.

In order to keep access to the internet running smoothly they deployed a caching server. Every time a new web site is visited it is cached for the future. This takes an enormous load off the network. The district also uses free open source software called Squid, which provides a log of student web activity. Each night a report is sent to building principals so that they can head off problems. They also use another open source application called Squid Guard for filtering internet content. It allows content to be blocked at the school level. They also use Dan Guardian a filtering software on the computers going home, which is also free.

Another consideration when planning a 1:1 initiative that often gets over looked is the increase in workload for the district business department.

In Fullerton, principals raises are dependant on demonstrating competency in technology.

Gigi Kelly, a fifth grade teacher at Fischer Elementary in Fullerton, shared some of her classroom management strategies for teaching and learning in a 1:1 classroom. She enlists students in helping her by having “computer checkers” who monitor the charge levels of the laptops. Other students who are experts on different applications wear “ask me” buttons and assist other students. Students bring their laptops when they meet with their Kindergarten buddies and do projects together. She also has students record themselves reading as a way to monitor their fluency. Students use a rubric to self-assess their reading. Then they put the file in their teacher’s drop box. These files can be shared at parent teacher conferences. Laptops are also used to differentiate instruction. Students have different activities that they can choose to do on the computers when they complete work, almost like centers.

Some of the software applications that have been popular in the 1:1 initiative at Fullerton has been Comic Life and Notetaker (both programs only work on a Mac).

Eva La Mar also shared some of her innovative strategies for managing a 1:1 laptop program. If a student damages a computer they have to make a public service announcement to share about the care of the laptops. Students are also graded three times a year on the condition of their laptops. An “A” means that their computer is in pristine condition, “B” means it is pretty good etc. Initially students were popping off keys from the keyboards to see what is underneath them. The school now fines students $25.00 for popping off keys from the keyboard and this has no longer been a problem. La Mar also says that schools with new 1:1 laptop programs will need to redo their Acceptable Use Policy so that it is in kid friendly language. La Mar also does short screencasts and uploads them to a web site show staff how to do different things on the laptops.

La Mar also talked about the importance of providing rubrics and expectations for students and using tools such as iCal to post homework assignments.

More strategies She has matched up Marzano’s strategies in a matrix http://www.techlearning.com/techlearning/events/techforum06/EvaLaMar_Handout.pdf . She also has a lot of useful resources on her web site on Literacy and Vocabulary Tools at http://web.mac.com/lamarsd/iWeb/SD/Main.html . She also uses the Intel Seeing Reason online tools at http://www.intel.com/education/seeingreason/index.htm to promote higher-order thinking in her classroom.