Background

In the past two weeks I’ve moved from a school with just 3 projectors in a 4 floor, (no wireless), school to a school with:

• Projectors in every classroom (that we will be using next school year).
• Netbooks for every teacher.
• Wireless in key rooms and common areas.

AND…

• Beginning next September our Grades 7-9’s will be bringing their own laptops to school!

The pitch

Sometime soon I’ll share the 50+ page/slideshow presentation that I presented to my boss to pitch the idea of moving in this direction. (I need to change some copyrighted images & track down some more image credits first.) I’m sure some of it will be useful to others for the same reasons.  My boss asked me great questions, provided me with the budget, and helped me get things moving with some tech support- (even more than I asked for!) I’m thankful for the faith he has put in me and I’m confident that my staff will convince him a year from now that this was an excellent move towards a new kind of teaching and learning.

From idea to implementation

I created this question and answer page for my parents:

Grade 7 to Grade 9 Bring Your Own Laptop Program Outline for 2010-2011

…and I’ll highlight a section of it, and a section of my newsletter introducing the program, here. I have to thank Matt Montagne for sharing resources with me & saving me a lot of time and effort building things from scratch.

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From my newsletter:

Why laptops? (or netbooks)
I have been very involved for the past 4 years in researching and writing about the effective use of technology in schools. I firmly believe that a current education is one that prepares children to engage in intelligent, safe technology use, where students are prosumers of information, (those that don’t just consume, but also produce information and content). Information is becoming more and more abundant and ubiquitous. Resources available online can both greatly enhance what students learn in class, and also extend the classroom beyond the walls of the class and school, allowing for a rich and global learning experience. The goal of this initiative is to provide our Seniors with a true 21st Century, international learning experience.

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From the link I shared above:

Will the use of computers affect my child’s learning?
Yes… in a good way!
Some of you may ask, “What about learning the basics, like Reading, Writing, Math and Science, and in an International School, English Language Learning?”
A 21st Century learning model starts and ends with these subjects! The use of technology in the classroom is to provide current, interactive and collaborative tools to help students communicate better and demonstrate their creativity while improving speaking, reading and writing, as well as learning in Math, Science and other key subject areas. Our technology goal is to enhance and enrich the great learning experiences students already get at our school, not to replace those experiences. We already have students from many parts of the world at our school, but now we can truly bring an interactive, global learning experience into our classrooms as well.

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Background (Part 2)

I’ve read about laptop programs failing, and it seems to me that most if not all of them were the result of overspending on ‘hardware’ and not spending enough on what Ian Jukes calls ‘headware’. The fact is that when you commit to purchasing laptops for every student, you need to spend a lot of time and effort being product managers rather than educators. But “Bring Your Own” programs were not viable before the OLPC $100 Laptop Initiative helped to drive laptop and netbook prices down. Now the focus needs to be on orienting teachers and students into a new way of thinking about using these tools in class. Still, there is a lot of logistics and planning needed to make a BYO Laptop program successful.

The pitch (Part 2)

Thinking about this, I stumbled onto a post by Will Richardson about a plp team.  On a video clip in the post Ellie Preston said her team had made a final project video about their school becoming a BYOLaptop school next year. But, there was no link to the video so I requested one and Will put me in touch with Cary Harrod. Shortly after that Cary and I connected on, and started chatting on, Twitter and she said:

From idea to implementation (Part 2)

So, here is a new group I started for anyone interested in sharing their BYO Laptop (and also 1-1 Laptop) experiences and resources.

I see three possible goals for such a group:  (Please suggest others)

1. Create a resource useful to anyone interested in starting or developing a BYO Laptop program.

2. Develop a resource of 1-1 teaching and learning strategies.

3. Provide support for all those little challenges that come up in a BYO Laptop or 1-1 school.

So if you are interested, please join this group, share, and learn along with us!

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Related posts:

Just last year I was presenting on bringing POD’s (Personally Owned Devices) to school, but I was thinking this would be iPod’s, iTouches and cell phones.

And now for the same reasons that I’m not a fan of the iPad in schools, I think laptops and netbooks are a much better approach!