1:1 with netbooks

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ed Allen on May 18, 2009 at 4:52pm

Barbara, I am glad to see this thread. I am also curious about going 1 to 1 with netbooks. It just seems to make so much sense. At our school, we could eliminate the calculator and all consumable workbooks which would make the netbook a very economical purchase for our students. (high school)
I just need to convince the rest of the admins that this is the way to go.

I look forward to reading replies from those who have walked this road already.

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Permalink Reply by Nancy Caramanico on May 19, 2009 at 3:11am

Some of our elementary schools are getting netbooks via a grant for next year. I definitely see the value of 1:1 and the cost and portability of the netbooks make it even easier for schools to achieve this. Are your teachers switching to netbooks in place of a regular laptop or desktop?

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on May 19, 2009 at 8:04am

It will be exciting. Good luck.

One of your questions is "how did it change teaching/learning". IMHO many 1:1 initiatives fail to achieve results because the idea of 1:1 computers comes first, rather than having meaningful instructional goals and then determining that 1:1 is the way to achieve those goals. What are your school's instructional goals and why is a computing device for every student the best way to achieve those goals? Do all of your teachers already have laptops and are they using them for teaching? How have they changed the way they teach already and what resources has the school made available to them so that they can teach in a completely different way? Hopefully, this has all been addressed already in your planning.

For 1:1 computing to be effective, you MUST completely change the way teachers teach and students learn. If teaching continues in the way it always has and the netbooks are only used in the same way that your computer labs have been used, then the 1:1 initiative runs the risk of becoming a very expensive publicity stunt. On the other hand, if your teachers already have laptops and have been trained to use computers to teach in a 1:1 environment, then your project will succeed.

Good luck
Jeff

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Permalink Reply by Barbara on May 19, 2009 at 2:07pm

Nancy sound like we will be implementing together. In answer to nyour question..No the teachers ( for now) are staying with their laptops. One we already have them. Two some of them have trouble adjusting to the smaller keyboard. Three they are a little more robust for some final work on video productions etc, although we are planning to convert the old lab to a production zone.

Jeff, YES...you are right and yes we have addressed those questions. Our Social Studies program and our religion program are already textbook free and the teachers have spent three years learning about web 2.0 and implementing it a various levels. By the way the 1:1 intiative (althoug close to my heart) was suggested by the teachers in light of our student learning expectations.

I am very interested however in picking your brains (Jeff, Nancy, Ed and everyone) about some specific ideas about ways to change, ways to go textbook free etc..The more heads we put togetehr the more ideas we can generate. I think it is time to start building portals of good ideas to help others who will be here soon.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on May 20, 2009 at 6:03am

Excellent! You may already be familiar with the TeachPaperless (http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com) blog, but if not, Iwould recommend it to you. He has been teaching paperless for a couple of years. His use of Twitter with his Latin students is a great example of using social technologies effectively in the classroom.

Good luck next year and keep us informed (what's working, what isn't, etc.)

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Permalink Reply by Matt McGoldrick on September 19, 2009 at 12:25pm

I must agree with Jeff that technology by itself won't result in a successful instructional shift. The teachers must buy in to the approach and see the value of using netbooks as a tool to prepare students for the competitive world market rather than using them as a glorified type writer.

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Permalink Reply by Graeme on May 23, 2009 at 8:48pm

Hi Barbara, our Department of Education (here in Victoria, Australia) is currently trialling netbooks across 3 regions, and in our region every Year 5 student has been provided with one. The students use them when needed at school, and if their parents opt to pay a small "lease" fee then the student can have the netbook 24/7. We are still in the early stages of the trial (6-7 weeks in), but already the netbooks have "opened new doors" for both students and teachers. What has been noticeable is that the pace of innovation has increased significantly. Web 2.0 features and tools, which may have been previously been ignored by many teachers, are now being explored and embraced. It is also worth noting that while the trial only pertains to one year level, many schools have opted to provided netbooks across a range of other year levels at the same time. You may find some interesting information on the Netbook wiki at http://netbooktrial.wikispaces.com/. I'm also more than happy to answer any other questions that you may have.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara on May 24, 2009 at 10:45am

Thank you Grame! I will check out the wiki and I would be interested in any teachers who are willing to correspond with our teachers about their experiences.
I did post another discussion thread that s related to this one and any wisdom you ahve would be greatly appreciated.....
In short, how are the math teachers using the netbooks? So often I have seen 1;1 programs that use tablets which works well for math...(albeit it can be an expensive pencil and paper). So how can we tap into the power of web2.0 on the netbooks for math?

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Permalink Reply by Roland O'Daniel on June 8, 2009 at 11:57am

Barbara, I must express my agreement with Jeff above, but since you've identified that teachers are asking for the netbooks then there are several things the teachers can use to enhance the mathematics instruction in a 1:1 setting.
1) Use Voicethreads to help students express their understanding of processes to solve problems, to explain concepts, analyze graphs, to create examples of sentences or real life explanations of equations/functions, talk about characteristics of shapes, etc. The nice thing about voicethreads is that teachers can easily pull up the conversations on the iwb and show examples that include writing if students want to/have access to pentabs.
2) Fooplot and any other dynamic graphing application can be used to have students investigate transformational approaches to graphing, again create situations to analyze graph characteristics (that can later be used to create voicethreads if they want)
3) The use of threaded discussions to reflect on processses/content. Not a 'flashy' context, but a critical feature to getting students to be able to understand problem solving and abstract application of concepts.
4) Geogebra is a great tool developed by the European version of the NIH to create dynamic graphical interpretations of aglebra. A great tool for showing students concrete examples of abstract concepts and for those students with design abilities a great tool to get them to understand some simple programming applications. (if teachers/students are so inclinded)
5) National Library of Virtual Manipulatives and other sites like interactivate, explorelearing.com (a pay site) for getting students to explore applets and to create greater understanding of concepts. IN themselves not very powerful, but when coupled with discussions, reflections, and cultivated great stuff.
6) I'll leave you with the last sites that are great sources of data; swivel.com, the-numbers.com, zipskinny..com. These sites are wonderful places to have students look for data or track data that students can look at for mulitiple reasons (analysis of trends- regression, identifying key characteristics of domain/range, creating represenations that tell the story of the data, identifying outliers and why those data points are not representative of the overall data, etc.

I will leave you with some of the best research I've read on use of technology and it comes from Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow in 1995: there will be a spike in student engagement with the new technology but if the reason for going to the technology does not enhance the interaction for the student or ask them to perform multiple/challenging tasks the engagement will quickly dissipate and be replaced by less engagement that was previously noted. Make sure teachers allow students to use the tools!!!

This is obviously not an exhaustive list but at least it's a place to get started. I will add that I'm a huge fan of developing student thinking around digital graphics: creating, manipulating, and filtering. There are all knids of content that can be structured around digital graphics if anyone wants to start another conversation.

Let me know if this is what you are looking for.

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Permalink Reply by Jason de Nys on May 25, 2009 at 8:37am

NSW (Largest state by population in Australia for those unaware) Is rolling out 267,000 Lenovo netbooks to all students and teachers in years 9-12.
I think we will be seeing a lot of real work done on tailoring educational programs to make the most of the netbooks over the next few years. That will make it much easier for everyone else to adopt and integrate the technology.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara on June 8, 2009 at 12:45pm

Roland- Thank you for all of the ideas. I will be exploring them with our math teacher. we have used voicethread to tell stories in the lower grades but I had not thought of applying it in the way you suggested. (BTW do you know anyone with an example).
Jason i am really looking forward to seeing the work from NSW...I hope we can learn side by side.

Roland stay tuned i am sure I will have more questions!

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Permalink Reply by Roland O'Daniel on June 8, 2009 at 1:18pm

Try the mathcast wiki and look for the voicethreads wiki which has some examples. The only examples I have right now are part of a research project and I'm not able to share (I don't have permission to share). It's part of a REL randomized control trial.

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