1:1 Vision thoughts

I have been paying a fair amount of attention to the ideas, successes, and failures that surround 1 to 1 (1:1).  I want to write this blog in order to open it as a discussion point for those involved in this grant program.  The guiding questions for this discussion would be:  What would your students be able to do if each kid had access to a computing device throughout the day?  How do you think this type of school environment or philosophy would impact student achievement?

So here are a few of my initial comments regarding some of these issues.  I attended a conference work session that discussed the idea of a true 1:1 scenario with every kid having a fully functional laptop and that any other device would not be acceptable.  I am not convinced.  I feel that the idea that every kid needs a full blown laptop with a slew of locally loaded applications is short sighted to the needs of the students in balance with the costs associated.  For instance, perhaps the bulk of high school kids need access to a device they can take notes on, write papers, and (most importantly) access the internet.  The idea that the students can do the vast bulk of their work through the use of cloud computing is not new and is gaining momentum.  We want the students to be publishing, collaborating, and archiving their work so the use of the web and some of the great service out there is essential.  Text book publishers are coming along slowly and but other than that what do we need for the kids?  My point is, we have so many resources and tools at our fingertips so lets put it at the kids fingertips on a regular basis.  Close the gap between haves and have-nots.  What are your thoughts?

This entry was posted on February 19, 2010 at 11:08 am and is filed under Education, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.