Just got a chance to listen to most of the keynote address by former Maine Governor Angus King at the NCCE 2007 conference. (Was actually sitting behind Tony Vincent who looked like he might have been blogging the address.) He’s a great speaker, and the 1-1 laptop program that he brought to his state a few years ago is certainly one of the more visionary implementations on a large scale that this country has seen, at least. I think in general, he gets it right when he says the program isn’t about technology, it’s about learning.
But I wonder what that learning looks like. To take nothing away from the governor since I really don’t know what the pedagogies are surrounding the use of the laptops, I wonder if we’re talking primarily the delivery of content in digital form or we’re talking about the use of the connection the laptop facilitates to create expanded opportunities to learn. Governor King stressed the importance of teaching students to find and evaluate information, and for the need to be able to solve problems with that information. But I didn’t get the sense that the way to do that included an ability to work asynchronously and collaboratively in distributed environments. (Wow…that sentence sure has a log of geek speak. How about:) …included an understanding of how to use the connections that are now available to us to solve problems together.
Like I said, that may be a bit unfair. But once again, what I hear from the teachers who have attended my sessions here so far is a lot of “yeah, but,” as in “yeah, but my district blocks blogs” or “yeah, but my administrators are scared to death of this stuff.” We’re still not getting the value of the connection for learning. And maybe I’m getting too narrow in my thinking here, which really is a definite possibility.
But through all of this, I keep seeing Steve Hargadon and the great work he’s doing in terms of finding low cost ways to get computers into kids’ hands. Businesses throw away 100,000 laptops a day in this country, and almost all of them can be made to work well enough to get kids connected for almost nothing. So, as the Governor said, it’s not the computer that’s important, it’s what the computer can do.
Thing is, about the only thing we need the computer to do these days is create the connection. Which makes what Vermont is doing even more interesting. Giving every kid a laptop is one thing, but giving every kid a connection to go with it is critical in this day and age.
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Thanks for the plug. I heard a day or two ago that the number is now being estimated at 135,000 computers a day in this country (not laptops, necessarily). The best estimates I’ve heard for re-use are 3 - 5%, and that may be generous. The red herring is the push toward “recycling,” which is not nearly so environmentally-friendly (or individually significant) as “re-use.” It also doesn’t help computer re-use that to legally use the Windows operating system on a computer transferred to another user, you need to have the original documentation and media (CD)–one of the real reasons there is not a good re-use industry in this country (since most off-lease computers don’t have, or never did, individual licensing material). Linux is certainly becoming more and more a plausible solution, though.
Like I end up saying *a lot*, if we wanted to put a computer at every students desk in this country, we could. We just lack the will to do so, because the marketing of computers to schools has had very little to do with classroom use and much more to do with seeing schools as a “market” for commercial companies. (Big disclaimer: my company sells refurbished computers to schools.)
My two cents.
I think that this post hits a very important issue in the use of laptops in schools, and I also find the use of the word ‘connection’ in this blog to bring about two different but very important points. The first point that I feel is the main focus of this post being the point that students need to know how this technology allows them to not only gain information, but how to connect that information to the rest of the world by learning new ways to interact with others through web use. The second point is the actual issue of connecting those laptops to the internet- while getting the computers to the students is a big feat, having the computers effectively and reliably networked is absolutely crucial to students learning the first ‘connection’ point, and needs to be planned for as well. I have seen schools that do extremely well with getting computers to students, only to have the learning process derail due to poor, faulty, or outdated networking equipment.
Gee Will, it is my understanding that you will be coming to our fine state of Maine this fall to be the keynote at the ACTEM MainEducation Conference. Why not come up a couple of days earlier and will give you a tour!
That said, despite having the laptops for 7th and 8th graders for about four years now, I would love to report that all is perfect. But like everything we have pockets of great innovation and pockets where…let’s just say, things are moving more slowly.
Angus never promised us that laptops would change the schools or school culture, but they have changed the kids and perhaps that’s the best outcome.
Looking forward to your visit in October. We’ll make sure your visit is unforgetable!
Will, I echo what John said, the laptops have not revolutionized education in Maine. The laptops have changed the playing field making it level for all 7th and 8th graders.
If you compared what was being taught 5 years ago to now you would see the impact of the technology. Fortunately we had a lot of professional development on teaching with laptops rather than how to’s of using the laptop.
We’ve come a long way but there is still always more we can do because generation we work with is the most important one to our future.
John and Mike…so what I’d love to know is how have the kids changed from the laptops. I absolutely get the leveling of the playing field, but I still wonder what’s different from a learning standpoint.
Some of my observations about what’s different:
1. Access to current content (not dated from textbooks that is outdated the day it was published)
2. Students ability to produce content that address their strengths
3. Collaboration. Students have been able to collaborate on their schedule and within a paperless mode
4. Access to virtual manipulatives in math where the cost might have been a factor before for a school
5. Reaching out to global audience with their work
But…results may vary please consult with your doctor before starting a 1-to-1 initiative
Well, I’ll chime in as another Mainiac involved in the laptop program. Please come and spend some time checking out what is happening in the schools when you come to Maine for the ACTEM conference.
In my district (SAD #4, Guilford - http://www.sad4.com/) we have been involved since the beginning, as a pilot school and then as an exploration school, and we now have 2 years of graduates “out in the wild.” These kids had their own laptops from grades 7 through 12. I am regularly stopped by either the kids or their parents who tell me that the laptops have made a huge diference in their lives. They have opened opportunities for them and the students who are now in college tell me that they are way ahead of their fellow students in terms of being able to use computers in their courses to get work done and to learn.
Yes, it has been a rough road at times, there are pockets of great teaching and learning and there are pockets where things are shaky, the laptops really are a magnifier for this - they make the good things happening in a classroom look really good and they really shine the light on the shakier practices in a classroom. There is definitely a learning curve for using the tools effectively in the classroom, but it has been a very interesting experience as well as a challenge.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post, Will! As a Technology Director opening another new school this year, this conversation is timely. I would love to put a laptop in the hands of each of our kids, but I have to wonder about sustainability for our district. The comment I made to my boss today was: “I’m excited about the technology that we are putting in the classrooms of this new school, but I have to wonder, what happens in 5 years? Will we have setup a sustainable program here that will allow whoever is running the school at that time continue what we’ve started?”
We have 4 existing schools that are now aging technology-wise, and yet we look to the new school somehow as the next big hope for the future. We need to come up with a way to give the kids at all of our schools continuing access to the tools and information they need to grow. Not only will it take more of a commitment of funds, but to make that commitment reasonable, it will take some imaginative solutions in our classrooms. Your mention of Steve Hargadon’s work is an excellent example of these kinds of solutions.
[...] If you’re not reading Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed, you should. In a post from yesterday, he talked about Angus King, the former governor of Maine. The discussion focused on Maine’s 1:1 Laptop Initiative and its impact on education. It is so important that we as teachers can focus on the “21st Century Skills.” I think this is going to be the next big catchphrase in education. [...]
I too sat a few rows over from you Will in the Keynote. I took your class on Wednesday and am very excited to work on implementing the concepts of Blogs and Wikis in our 1:1 implementation. I see the 1:1 implementation from several perspectives. I work in the Tech Department of the district, my daughter attends the school where the district implemented this and I am part of the process to bring this to our High School.
So I am interested to see the long-term results of the program. I know that there are teachers who will have the kids leave them in the bags and continue to teach the “Old Fashioned Way”, teachers who will use them as “Baby-Sitters” and then the ones who will take the leap to truly affect change in the classroom. How we get more teachers to be part of the last group is the key to a successful implementation.
I am not at all suprised to hear mixed results from the Mainiacs. If the teaches do not have buy-in to the concept, they will struggle to have a desire to help the movement succed. In our district we have heard from teachers that if they have students with laptops they will choose to retire instead of change the way they teach. I am sad to see them go, but what is best for our students?
I believe the long term results will be that we will have students that will be better prepared to function in the 21st Century. They will have the ability to comptete for jobs and be successful. Govenor King said he pushed the iniative so that his State’s economy would grow. I believe that the communites where we students have a better chance to be competative in the world will grow.
I am interested to follow the other disticts in the nation that are doing this.
It’s great to hear from the Mainiacs. Have there been any large-scale evaluations that can back up what they’re seeing anecdotally regarding changes in teacher practice and/or student activity? If so, can anyone give us some URLs (or info on how to access the results)? Thanks! This would be really helpful to others considering 1:1 programs!
Hi, Scott -
One place to start is the white paper published by the Metiri Group. It can be downloaded at the Apple website at http://www.apple.com/education/k12/onetoone/. While the study was funded by Apple, the conclusions are pretty much platform neutral. It also has a fairly extensive list of references to other studies and reports.
Good luck!
Conn
Will, You raise the question of what kind of practices teachers are using with the laptops. It’s important to point out, that laptops BY THEMSELVES will never lead to different teacher practices. That takes leadership applying positive pressure and support, ie. an expectation of it’s use suported with training and coaching (which the state has done a nice job of).
Not everything is perfect. But there are a lot of places where we’ve made progress and things are going well. If you want to read about some of what they are doing, check out the Teacher Practice category of the 1to1 Stories Project (http://1to1stories.org/?cat=10).
Beyond working with teachers to use the technology, is moving beyond simply automating things that can largely be done as well without technology. Some call it “automation” vs. “infomation.” Others call it Type I vs. Type II or Sustaining Uses vs. Distruptive Uses (a couple posts here about this here: http://everyonelearns.blogspot.com/search/label/Disruptive%20Technology)
And for Scott, here is a page (http://www.mcmel.org/MLLS/mlti/index.html) with links to various articles and research reports about MLTI (scroll down toward the bottom for the research reports.