what kind of world do you want?

Perhaps you've already received an email about this, but I thought it couldn't hurt to shamelessly promote such a worthy cause here as well.

Autism Speaks created a music video of the Five for Fighting song, "World", which features images of autistic children and their families. It is a truly moving video and was the work of Bill Shea.

The band is generously donating $0.49 to Autism Speaks for each time the video is viewed - the funding goes toward research studies to help find a cure. When you have a moment, please visit the link below to watch the video and pass it along to your friends and family. They are aiming for 10,000 hits, but hopefully we can help them to surpass this goal.

To view the video, click here.

Can you tell me please where I ought to go from here? That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.

Says the Cat in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. A lead teacher and technology coach quoted in my inspiration for this post has this to say, "Thre isn't any other option. I cannot imagine going backward." I couldn't agree more. We've already taken a giant first leap in implementing the laptop initiative. Why would we want to take another step back and give them up?

I thought it would be a good idea to look at the future of these intitiatives as I round out my blog postings for the course. In THE Journal, September 2006, Neil Starkman examines the future of one-to-one initiatives.

Why give them up? Because there are difficulties. But, there are difficulties every day, in every classroom, and in every aspect of a district. We just need to learn to manage those difficulties more effectively. This author outlines two of the major "felt difficulties" surrounding these intitiatives:

• A reluctance to deviate from traditional pedagogical norms and adopt a more "constructivist" approach to teaching and learning

• Lack of money

The future of these programs then boils down to what the author sees as the "Believers" vs. the "Funders". As we've seen in my previous posts, there exists a lot of literature pointing to the benefits of these programs. One teacher sums it up with this statement, "It’s definitely changed the dynamic of my classroom,” says Harless. “I’m not the know-it-all anymore. And that’s a good thing.”

NCLB established a primary federal goal for technology in education: To improve student academic achievement through the use of technology, or to "assist every student in crossing the digital divide by ensuring that every student is technologically literate by the time the student finishes the 8th grade regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, gender..." We can meet that goal with ease and students can learn content and technology skills at the same time if 1:1 initiatives are developed with the right goals in mind, provide continuing and meaningful professional development, timely and useful tech support, and are launched with the full support of all the primary stakeholders.

It's a daunting task, but...I'm a BELIEVER!

Ann

It's Not Whether Every Student Gets a Computer, It's When

This is the vision of Andrew Zucker, whose article on one-to-one computing is one of the resources listed on the Oberlin blog I mentioned yesterday.

How long will it take? People will say that it is ridiculous to give kids "free" laptops when they can't possibly take care of them. People will say there's no money. People will say we're stockpiling technology for technology's sake. Let's wait till there's more research. Zucker would respond with, "We should not expect more of research than is reasonable. In the context of one-to-one computing,
we should realize that many of the benefits are barely visible now, let alone well documented by high-quality research."

He also discusses the possibilities e-textbooks could offer,"Suppose, for example, textbooks stored on a disk or a USB drive could replace the contents of
students’ heavy, bulky backpacks. Students could mark up and interact with electronic texts without damaging them. And their backpacks would weigh far less." This is a huge consideration for the future. You could just purchase the "update" when the information became outdated as opposed to buying all new textbooks. Does anyone have any experience with these?

Zucker also points to the necessity of quality professional development if a 1:1 program is to be successful, "Critics also claim that many teachers are not yet ready to integrate computers into instruction, and it is true that one lesson learned about one-to-one computing is how important it is to prepare teachers and provide them
with high-quality resources and professional development. But the same is true of any serious instructional innovation." If the same is true for all instructional innovation, why does so much of the professional development out there barely scratch the surface?

He closes the article with the idea that we may not be able to predict what the technology will look like 5 or 10 years from now but that the ultimate question is, "Will be prepared to make good use of it?"

Connections

This topic has come up a lot in our discussions lately. The connections that are possible through the Internet and especially through blogging. I can proudly say that I am now a member of the humble ranks who have "connected" with someone outside of our class. Not only did they take the time to post, but they have asked if I would comment on the community blog they have established to discuss a laptop initiative their school district is considering and have my blog as a link on their site! I am flattered beyond belief and although I have not yet had a chance to comment there, I plan to do so this week. This really brings that "authenticity" factor we so often discuss to life. I hope my own district is as interested in my findings!


This initiative proposal is taking place in Oberlin, Ohio. They have titled the initiative LEAP or Laptop for Equity and Achievment Program. The program wil require a tax levy and as is usually the case where taxes are involved, there is some contention involved. There is a detailed post about the objective itself and some other avenues that are being pursued in conjunction with the initiative, including work with Dr. David Rose and the CAST (Center for Applied Special Technologies). They

"have done remarkable research in the areas of neuroscience, brain cognition and instructional technologies. Their research shows us that every child -can -learn. Their research also shows us that not every teacher can teach in a way that allows every child to learn and not every assessment tool measures whether a child is learning or not. This is the essence of the curriculum called Universal Design for Learning (UDL). CAST is prepared to contract out its services to train Oberlin teachers and to help Oberlin teachers remap their curriculum and their teaching so that academic success is possible for all children in our district."

There are a number of responses already and the site offers an extremely comprehensive set of resource links regarding 1:1 initiatives. There is an obvious commitment on the part of some stakeholders to make this decision "public" and to give the community a chance to easily view research and give a "voice" to their ideas and concerns.

Goals

I posted earlier in the week about the fact that I think one of the major flaws in my school's laptop initiative is the lack of a clear long-term goal. No one can easily tell me what the initial goal of the program was. I'll have to check with..... Um...you might want to ask.... My latest resource, Implementation and Effects of One-to-One Computing Initiatives: A Research Synthesis, from the Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Spring 2006 (This is from a UF library database so I don't know if you need to be logged into the library to access it?), discusses the importance of knowing what your goal is before you embark on a 1:1 initiative.

The author found that the goals tended to focus on these outcomes:

1) Improving academic achievement with the use of technology
2) Increasing equity of access to digital resources and reducing the digital divide
3) Preparing student's more effectively for today's technology-saturated workplace
4) Transforming the quality of instruction


Not much information exists as to the effects of 1:1 initiatives on student achievement, so it would seem unlikely that districts would be basing their decisions on this goal. Although, NCLB is certainly making "student achievement" front and center, so many schools are probably looking for any route that may take them to the "better test scores" exit. To me, the last three seem like more viable alternatives. Especially, numbers 3 & 4. There's been some discussion as to the fact that although we may be reducing the digital divide, we are still not solving the root of the "division" problem. The problem with number four will revert back to my favorite mantra...the current professional development program stinks. If schools are not willing to recognize that not only will they have to shell out the funds for the hardware and software, and that they will have to carefully plan and fund the requisite professional development to aid in the chances of success, they have failed from the beginning.

Miss Manners...Media...Media...Miss Manners

I have not yet named my computer, but I know people who have. I have yelled at it, cursed it, and threatened to throw it out the window. People are polite to computers? Media equal real life? I don't have a hard time finding clarity in these arguments. People might occasionally confuse media and real life? My husband thinks it happens every Thursday night when I (would like to be able to) forget my "real" family and become absorbed in Grey's Anatomy.

I find it fascinating that "people respond socially and naturally to media even though they believe it is not reasonable to do so, and even though they don't think these responses characterize themselves." Why else do companies spend millions of dollars on advertising, politicians on savvy media advisors, and tv and movie moguls on the best producers/directors? Does our ignorance of these outside influences make us more vulnerable to them? What does it say that the media is able to control our decisions wihout our conscious awareness? Is this phenomenon only snowballing as we get busier and busier and look for more and more ways to not put forth more effort? Are those in this media infused generation more susceptible to this automatic response?

In terms of improving media design for educational purposes, the Media Equation has interesting implications. If it works, why not consider it when designing interfaces? Perhaps as broad as these social rules are (politeness,proximity and personal space), however, we should consider the context of the learning situation. I wonder if a little tweaking would make the students take better care of their laptops?

You might also want to check this out. The authors are also involved in Media X, a project joining industry and academia with a " belief that we serve two customers: industry partners that affiliate with our program, and the research community within Stanford University. Media X puts in place the building blocks that make these interactions work and make possible new models of innovation."

Evaluation Framework

Of particular interest to me as I am studying my school's 7th grade laptop initiative as part of my teacher inquiry project was this Evaluation Framework for 1-to-1 Computing. It provides prompts for research questions to use in evaluating a 1:1 initiative and to help guide the evaluation process. It looks at critical features of the 1:1 program such as the technology used (something I've discussed in my wondering about the "durability" of our ibooks); the setting;the implementation plan and the goals and objectives. The goals and objectives section will be especially critical in my research. I think this is where my district has dropped the ball. In my attempts to find out anything about the initial launch of this program, I have come up short. No one seems to understand completely what the vision was behind the program and what they wanted to see happen as a result. In the four years since its inception, no data has been collected to measure achievement/attitudes/challenges, etc. It also looks at interactions and immediate outcomes in terms of teaching and instruction, school leaders, infrastructure and support, schools and systems, schools and community and costs and funding. Finally, in terms of ultimate outcomes, it leads the researcher to look at the impacts on students and their learning, the "digital" divide, and economic competitiveness.

There is also a lit review link which offers reports on ubiquitous computing from 2003-2006 which I will examine in more detail. I had been thinking that it would be a good time to start putting some of the pieces together and figuring out how I wanted to organize my final paper and this seemed like a good organizational tool.

Ann