This was a "birds of a feather" session - not really a presentation, but a discussion among schools that have
one-to-one laptop initiatives. It was interesting to listen to the successes and challenges they have had. It was striking how all of them emphasized the necessity of continuous, on-going staff development. I've been preaching that for a while even in our non-one-to-one school, but it appears as though it is even more important in one-to-one schools.
Quote 1: We are moving from occasional and random access to continuous access. This is a radical change.
I've been talking about this a lot in our staff development, but I still don't think I've gotten the message across about how big a change this is going to be for our students - and our schools. And I think I am not fully aware of how dramatic the changes are going to be - it's not going to be until we have that full-time access that we'll really see how huge those changes are going to be. I need to keep talking about this with our teachers so we are better prepared when that time comes.
Quote 2: What can I do now with my students that I couldn't do before?
I think we need to spend more time thinking about this question. Instead of simply doing what we've always done but using technology, we really need to think about how this tool can fundamentally change our relationship with information and how we learn.
Quote 3: It's about differentiation.
We've talked about differentiation in schools for a long time, but I think these tools are getting us much closer to true differentiation in our classrooms. One of the key questions then becomes: What does that mean in terms of curriculum if we are truly differentiating based on the needs of each student? Which then leads to this last quote:
Quote 4: Having a passion for learning is more important than curriculum.
If you don't agree with that statement, than we're going to have to do a whole lot of work to integrate these tools into the existing curriculum and justify the existance of the curriculum. If you do agree with that statement, than it has a profound impact on what we should be doing in our classrooms - and we're going to have to do even more work.
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