For me there is no single device that has transformed my learning more than my laptop. The mobility, connectivity of this tool enables learning to be ubiquitous.
Are there any of you out there who prefers a desktop computer? I can’t imagine but if so, do tell.
I’ve been pushing for our school division to move towards laptops. I’d love teachers to have a choice in their classroom to have a laptop as opposed to a desktop. Budget constraints and technical support are two stumbling blocks but we are finding ways to make this happen.
I’m looking for testimonials/data/ammo to continue to support my belief that a laptop computer is fundamental in allowing teachers to experience the power of connected learning. Believe me, I understand it’s more than about giving a teacher a laptop but I’m simply arguing that laptops are exponentially more powerful than desktops in the advancement of learning.
Leave a response, link or a challenge to my thinking.
My laptop gives me the freedom to connect home and school. I don’t have to ‘finish’ my school work at school, at my desk, or in normal working hours. It is flexibility in action.
My class blog as a fundamental aspect of their classroom learning – they blog because when I was getting up and running learning how to use classblogmeister a laptop gave me the freedom to take it home and ‘play’.
I wish I had laptops in my classroom (not complaining as I have 5 desk tops for 24 five and six year olds which is pretty great!) as we could take them into our circle on the mat etc.
Dean, I have been teaching with laptops for almost five years and couldn’t imagine going back to a chalkboard. I call my laptop my personal knowledge management tool and I believe it has enhanced my teaching and, like you, transformed my learning. It is my tool for blogging, podcasting, webcasting, instant messaging and using rss feeds besides organizing my files of different media types.
I will be presenting at a conference in New Brunswick next week where they are providing their teachers with laptops – the conference is part of the training for that. You may want to have your school division take a look at how New Brunswick came to the place of providing laptops for its teachers.
As for hard data – the evidence seems to go both ways. The media love to report on the failure of laptop programmes. My experience tells me that a laptop has great potential as a tool for instructional delivery and learning – but it takes an excellent teacher with vision (and lots of support from admin) to reach that potential (as for any tool). You may want to take a look at the Pew Internet studies and Educause’s various reports on the use of laptops – http://www.educause.edu/SEARCH/606.
Thanks for providing stimulating issues – we think alike in many ways. Keep up the great conversations!
Dean,
I totally agree. Being able to “take it with you” is transformative. And now, my iPhone is even more so. True, I really can’t work on it, but I am reading more blogs than ever (prof. development) now that I’m not chained to a computer (even the laptop). Blogs available on my bedside table, while waiting in the doctor’s office, or even in the loo! Life is good!
Bob
I prefer a laptop for sure. My laptop is pretty much a part of my body, and I rarely go anywhere without it. When we started our laptop program in Walled Lake in 1999, the teachers were given a laptop in addition to a classroom desktop – at that time it was nice because our wireless network was not as reliable as it is now. Now the teachers have just a laptop and it works well. Laptops are convenient when teachers teach in a different room for a portion of the day. Our teachers love having their laptops over the summer as well. Laptops cost a bit more, but it is certainly worth it.
Abut a year-and-a-half ago, my school principal, and now this year the District, has made laptops available to teachers. It’s been a great benefit to me, but as for the other teachers, I’m not sure how we can evaluate the advantages for them. Each person does different things with a computer. How would anyone determine, among so many possibilities, what benefit has been derived? Something to think about, I guess. I’m glad I don’t have to figure that one out. Consider my response a testimonial; but even though we seem to be doing what you’d like to see happen where you are, I have no data. And I don’t know if anyone does, because nobody has asked me for any feedback. Seems all too typical of administrative decisions, now that I think of it. It just happened to work out in my favor, this time. 🙂
Doug,
So true…In education we implement and implement but rarely get the feedback that would tell us what’s important. (Does this sound like NCLB?)
For me the anecdotal data is valuable and while it may not fit nicely in a spreadsheet, tells me much.
Thanks.
The best thing that I believe I have done for our district is to get laptops for each teacher. Believe it or not we had a few teachers who fought it. Each teacher has had a laptop now for 2 years. They have become quite proficient and we are able to institute policies related to the use of computers district wide. There are no more excuses like, I don’t have a computer. We have also seen the use of computers in classrooms increase. Teacher inservice has increased as well. I really believe that, “If you give it to them, they will learn.”
If I can be remembered for one thing I hope it’s the idea that I helped to bring computing to each and every classroom in our district.
In New Zealand the govt has provided a laptop to every teacher. Fantastic! I wouldn’t be without it. Jody makes the point above about breaking down the school home divide. Some people may not see this as a plus but for me it allows much greater flexibility. I can access the school network from home. My school email and all network files are available. What has become equally freeing for me is the use of tools like del.icio.us, my blog, itunes, bloglines, wikispaces etc which mean I am working online and have the security of knowing my stuff can be accessed anywhere. In saying that I actually don’t often access anywhere else other than on my laptop.
We have wireless access in our class and that makes a huge difference to us in terms of moving around the room and using the laptops in a variety of settings. I eagerly await OLPC and find it great to hear from schools that are integrating laptops into classroom programmes.
I have no hard evidence but I do have some anecdotal evidence. I work in 11 schools as an ICT Facilitator in NZ. As Paul and Jody have mentioned, the government has rolled out laptops to every teacher in NZ. It is a clever use of funds on their part as teachers then engage in more professional development outside of school hours.
But the thing that I have found is that having a laptop is not enough. Teachers need to feel that they own the laptop. Some of my schools mandate these laptops too tightly – they are for school use, they must be at school each day, nothing personal is to be kept on the laptop etc etc. The teachers in these schools leave the laptops at school and don’t even bother trying to use them.
Laptops are personal. If you want teachers to embrace technology their laptops have to be a personal item. Their personal life and school life must entwine on them, family holiday photos mixed up with school events, your favourite music mixed up with tunes you sing in class. That is the way to get the most out of one laptop per teacher schemes. If teachers find reasons to use laptops for personal use then they will also figure out how to use them for academic use.
Jane,
Great point. Learning is personal. The idea that school and personal learning are separate issues is quickly becoming a thing of the past. If we truly want students to experience relevant, engaging and authentic learning, we as teachers must experience the same thing. Our learning is not exclusive to school or education. This requires us to have access to learning tools when it works for us.
I hope those schools mandating the use of laptops in such a restricting environment will see the error in their thinking.
In our primary school in the uk we use laptops with children aged 6 yrs upwards and wouldn’t be without them! They open up the world of learning to all learners and claify the learner’s responsibility in this process. The laptops, coupled with a creative approach to learning and teaching, have engaged all learners, pupils and staff alike. We couldn’t move forward without them.
It depends on what i’m using either for. When I’m doing something that requires graphics, I prefer a desktop. Although, it wouldn’t matter at all if I had a hub and I could plug in to a good monitor, keyboard, … heck… wacom pad. If I’m doing something else, it doesn’t matter as much.
In the classroom, I haven’t enjoyed the laptops as much as I thought I would. They’ve been a bit of a logistical nightmare for me. Setting up from the carts takes 10 minutes of class time. Maybe because we have a lousy cart and it’s hard to get to all the plugs, etc. Also we don’t have lots of places to plug in, so the batteries need to be recharged in the middle of the day. If a teacher forgot to plug in the laptops, there’s nothing we can do about it. Our wireless internet access isn’t always as reliable as I’d prefer, and our set up is such that I can’t use my smartboard and the carts at the same time, so I have no way to demonstrate.
I’d like to like them though. Maybe when we’ve got a better handle on it.
thanks a lot for your post, but i always use the common computer
Yah the New Zealand government. The TELA (Laptop scheme) has greatly improved my life as a teacher. No longer am I tied to my desktop until 4.30, but I can go home, have a life and then sit down and do the work while/instead of watching TV. Having a laptop has allowed me to explore and play with software and applications that I can then use in my classroom. I can create movies, webquests, animations, worksheets…..the list is endless!!!
If I ever had to go back to just a desktop, I would be more than happy to purchase my own laptop….I guess we are spoiled down here!!
Hi Dean,
We just went through a massive tech upgrade at our school – wireless campus, tablet PCs for faculty and staff, wireless projectors and screens in classrooms, the whole 9. After an entire school year in that setting, I have to say that while I do like my tablet, I think the more essential component to my teaching is the projector. I actually reflected on this as part of my professional improvement plan for the year, and to the best of my recollection, there was nothing that I did with my laptop that I couldn’t have accomplished with a desktop PC and my 2 gig thumb drive with my personalized suite of programs plus documents, bookmarks, video (with which I’ve had serious problems transmitting wirelessly), audio, etc. I did use the tablet function a bit, but if I were forced to choose tomorrow between giving up the laptop and giving up the projector, I’d have to hand over my tablet. That said, I REALLY liked having computer access on my study hall duty, but like I said, IF I had to choose…
As far as laptops for students go… We have a few carts around campus with enough laptops for about one class apiece…when they’re all functional, and when the teacher who used them before you remembered to have their kids plug them back in, and when the teachers remember to return them to their storage spot. They’re only as good as their level of functionality. I think we need to get the laptop:student ratio a little lower before that’s as effective as it could be (like Flexie, I’m afraid I’m starting to sound spoiled).
@Jane – I absolutely agree that teacher laptops should be personalized – I know I’ve tweaked the heck out of mine in the last year. Would you be in favor of allowing students the same freedom to engage on that level, or do you think they should have more restrictions?
@Damian (I can tell you are a twitterer 🙂 )
At our school we don’t have laptops for the students but we do have a ratio of 1:2 desktops. The way we have our server set up the students log into their name to get to their bit on the server. This gives them the sense of it being their desktop as they can customise the folders, background, settings etc. They can keep their music and photos on there as well. So it doesn’t matter which computer they sit down at when they log in it is their own desktop. This has been a new innovation this year and the students think it is wonderful, they are really owning the computers and finding out how to do things that we wouldn’t necessarily teach them. Things like design and finding their way around the preferences etc. The best thing about this is that they can only make changes to their own piece of the server so there is no risk to anything.
Laptops provide job-embedded professional development! Planning, teaching, learning at anytime. Our school provides teacher laptops in exchange for a commitment to professional development of 16 hours per year!
BTW…. I am tagging you for “8 random things” meme.
Enjoy!
Dean – First – yes my laptop is simply indespensible. I got this Macbook laptop provided for free – it came with an 80GB harddrive and the first thing I did was go out and put a 160GB in it. Why? Because I want to have everything with me all the time. I hate, hate, hate, thinking, “Oh damn! that’s at school or home or at least – not where I am.” I have wifi at home and at school so I’m connected most of the time.
At my school about 16 teachers recieved laptops during the last year. I bet not one of them goes home almost ever. I’ve even said to teachers, “you know you can take this home and use it and save your files and prep your lessons on it.” They can’t imagine using it at home or what they would do with it that would help them at school. AND they’d have to carry it and be responsible for it. So they use them pretty much only at school to run their ActivBoards (which is why they were provided), and they prep what little they need to do that before they go home – why would they need to take it home?
If I get to do much training this year with our staff I’ll do what I can to change that attitude. But that’s tough to overcome.
Brian
Dean,
In my view one of the challenges of getting the school to move to laptops is to show them specifically how the portability can be a huge advantage in bridging the gap between the wired classroom and modern learning methods. Alot of things come to mind in this regard:
-the ability to rapidly reconfigure the physical classroom to meet the demands of a particular project based lesson
-the ability to for the students to take the laptop home in order to complete lessons, engage in self-directed exploration, and to feel a sense of ownership of their computer-based learning experience (the laptop becomes their favorite learning tool). studies show an enormous percentage of teens are already accessing, creating, and sharing knowledge on the web at home, as well as developing social networks, and I think we must begin asking why aren’t these new competencies more integrated into the institutional educational experience. By having laptops that kids can take home, assuming the laptops are combined with web 2.0 based lesson plans such as blogging assignments, then we start meeting the students where they are already at.
-the ability for children who are sick or unable to come to class to work remotely–something that is easy depending on which software learning platform the teacher is using. In fact, one school I know of was discussing last year how in the event of a pandemic laptops combined with an online learning platform could give them a viable plan for maintaining continuity of their educational mission–a unlikely scenario perhaps but something that the administration was dealing with, I felt, quite perspicaciously.
My background is in Communication Studies and college level instruction, but lately I’ve been helping out a company in Chicago called, Ecto (www.ectolearning.com ). Basically they have created the online learning platform that I was describing earlier. I feel it really has the potential to laptop based instruction to life and it seems like the teachers who are using it agree. If you have a moment, I think that this short video that they made might be something that could help you develop your pitch for laptop classrooms–it doesn’t speak directly to each of those points but it does feature a number of teachers sharing their experiences (and unbridled enthusiasm) with regard to their use of laptops and EctoLearning in order to merge social networking with their classes.
http://www.ectolearning.com/ecto2/Page.aspx?p=yqknbdluyk
I look forward to seeing what you and the other think.
Cheers,
Stephen
We just managed to get a laptop into each classroom in our school to supplement the existing supply of desktops in each room (primary/elementary school). For the first time ever we were able to say last week “for this week’s staff meeting you’ll need to bring your laptop with you”. A number of our staff have also bought laptops over the past few years as our school system has made them available through a salary sacrifice scheme.
For us, laptops have provided flexibility of access and an ability for learning to take place anywhere. For us, laptops have been a solution to several problems. Originally it was sharing laptops between classes because we couldn’t afford additional computers for each class. Now it’s buying wireless capable laptops because our classrooms have very little power and cabled network capacity left. Isn’t it great to have to be forced into buying laptops – It’s still great to see the students in my class just pick them up, take them to their desk and start working.
Wow… comments galour.
For me my laptop is my source of connection to family friends and school. Being in Australia going to school both here and still taking some classes back home my lap top is the best thing I have purchased this year. I talk to my family, friends, and classmates using Skype. I do all my homework and do alot of my television and movie watching on here as well. Desktops are cheaper but unless you are going to permanently put a computer on each childs desk they really are impractible.
For the past 3 years my laptop has been my connection to all things personal and professional. Our new tech director has the same philosophy as Jane N…you have to use it to learn it. This spring we distributed laptops to our entire HS faculty RIGHT before summer break…WHY? so that they could learn how to make iMovies with their beach pictures, etc….it was amazing how many teachers showed up for the summer help days for personal questions and that was what we wanted. It will be interesting to see what this fall brings…We do give the students certain “control” over their computers…a bank of widgets, ability to add images change desktop etc…it will be interesting how that changes as we move to 1:1.