a bring-your-own approach, which we've sort of evolved into over the years
anyway. For those apps that aren't available from the cloud (and there are
still plenty, even for those of us with lots of bandwidth), the prospect of
building your own internal cloud has never been more achievable with
application and desktop virtualization products, especially those from
Citrix, that enable the distribution of just about any Windows app to all
the major OS platforms in full fidelity.
____________________________
Ben Schworm
Director of Information Technology
Berkshire School
413-229-1270
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 8:59 PM, Christina Devitt <cdevitt@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
> I am very, very grateful for all of the replies and perspectives shared so
> far and I hope you keep them coming. To me, this listserv is a great
> example of technology enriching learning.
>
> To provide some context, this is now the 3rd time I have been part of
> implementing 1:1 in over a decade, (the first time resulted in a
> x-platform
> program, the most recent ended in a recommendation for the "bring your own"
> approach) and each exploration has been unique in some respects. Every
> iteration has involved establishing a vision and engaging teachers with PD.
> That aspect of going 1:1 is no different this time. What *is*
> significantly
> different this time around is limited access to the cloud, so that's
> probably the main driver for my question.
>
> I do think that going 1:1 gets easier every year -- technology in schools
> is
> less of a lightening rod and there is more tolerance for the logistical
> challenges the change presents. In my previous school and now at JIS, we
> have sampled/are sampling our population regarding their ownership of
> laptops and a high number of students already have their own, but curiously
> *they* are the ones who choose *not* to bring them to school.
>
> For our faculty, access is a key concern. Many are happy to start with the
> ability to support writing and research in the classroom, and let more
> innovative uses evolve. The question that keep arising, however, is how do
> we resource the program in a way that will provide all students with the
> opportunity to develop that "evolved," sophisticated digital fluency over
> time, much like we focus on equity of access to quality curriculum. I know
> the mantra "technology is just a tool," but we make choices about our tools
> all of the time, including which ones to standardize and which to leave to
> personal preference. If one of the most powerful benefits of a
> tablet/laptop/netbook/PDA at one's fingertips is the ability to personalize
> learning, then the "bring your own approach" still seems to make a lot of
> sense.
>
> Isn't it fun experiencing the evolution of the notion of school?
>
> Thanks again for all of the insight!
> Best,
> Christina
>
> ps - Hi Joel (what, I'm overthinking this? <smile>), Pam, Gary and other
> friends lurking out there.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Pamela Livingston <livingstonp@mac.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Dear Christina and ISED-L colleagues,
> >
> > I wanted to add a couple of things to this conversation. When
> interviewing
> > teachers around the U.S. and overseas the overwhelming response has been
> "we
> > would not want to go back to not using laptops." And when I surveyed
> > students around the U.S. and 5 countries, over 700 responses so far, the
> > overwhelming response has been "we want to learn with laptops." Also,
> back
> > in May 2007 the New York Times reported on 5 laptop programs that were
> > discontinued. Several colleagues and I independently looked into the
> > schools mentioned and the commonality was 1. leadership was not behind
> the
> > program 2. very little continual professional development of teachers
> ensued
> > 3. tech support was cut back and nearly non-existent 4. little happened
> in
> > the classroom other than note-taking (see 1,2,3) and 5. student
> expectations
> > were not clear. What school-wide innovation or improvement initiative
> would
> > survive 1,2,3,4 and 5?
> >
> > As to the platform/hardware issues, when I interviewed teachers/tech
> > directors back in 2005/06 the word was "same platform/same model" and the
> > reason was complexity of support. Now it might be different and the
> reason
> > is "the cloud" plus any hardware manufacturer selling to schools
> absolutely
> > should have an extended warranty - and ought to in some way give advice
> on
> > damage or loss of equipment. I know before Jim Hendrixx went to the
> American
> > School in London, he had multi-platform going quite successfully at the
> > Oregon Episcopal.
> >
> > The Urban School/Howard Levin had a really interesting take on getting
> > laptops. They polled their parents and asked who either devoted a
> computer
> > to their child or was planning to do so. A really high percentage said
> yes
> > they would. Urban School said let us buy the computers, let us load them
> > with the applications, let us use them in the classroom, and one device
> will
> > go from home to school. Howard gives some really cool presentations
> which
> > include sample screenshots of how students customize their laptops with
> > folders, colors, etc. because - they own the learning, the tool for
> > learning, the structure, the access, the retrieval, the whole thing.
> It's
> > not distributed and taken away for 40-60 minutes, it's theirs all the
> time.
> >
> > So I guess you can see where I stand on this (grin) and hi Joel, Gary,
> > Christina, Peter, Alex and everyone by the way. It is always a pleasure
> by
> > the way to interact with you all!
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Pamela
> > --------------------------------------
> > Pamela Livingston
> > http://www.1-to-1learning.blogspot.com
> > http://www.pamelalivingston.com
> > Author of "1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work"
> > Twitter: plivings
> >
> > -
> >
> > [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> > Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> > non-commercial, share-alike license.
> > RSS Feed, http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?RSS&L=ISED-L
> >
>
> [ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
> Submissions to ISED-L are released under a creative commons, attribution,
> non-commercial, share-alike license.
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>
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