Journal #2

The Laptops are Coming! The Laptops are Coming! Rethinking Schools Online.McFarlane, S.H. (2008) The laptops are coming! The laptops are coming! Rethinking schools online. Volume 22, No. 4.

If every child in every school could have personal use to their very own laptop, it would be a tremendously valuable educational tool. Right? Maybe not. As the author and her middle school students found out, use of their own laptops had its’ obvious benefits but carried some surprising built-in challenges. The author’s class was a “guinea pig” for a new program her school was trying out in which every student had their own laptop for use. The idea was to make sure that all students have access to computers and its’ resources. Teachers don’t have to worry about if every student can do internet assignments, or require typed assignments, because all students have access to the technology. This is exactly what occurred. However, face-to-face interaction between teacher and student decreased noticeably. There were also unforeseen challenges with training. Not only did many of the students not know how to use the technology, staff was unfamiliar with it too. So many students using this technology at the same time meant that training was lengthy. An eventual “disconnect” occurred and both students and teachers simply became frustrated. The students too did not know how to handle access to their new tool and were distracted by instant messaging and email.

Question: Training was one of the key issues that this school faced when they received their laptops. How do you train 30 students to use this tool?
It would be very valuable for all students to have their own laptops but only if they know how to use them. I think that training all students would be one of the foremost and key challenges. Students should not be able to use programs until they are familiar with the technology. I think it would be beneficial to take classroom to do a quick lesson about each program before its’ use is introduced through a lesson. Some students will catch on quickly, others who are less technologically savvy might need more help than this lesson can offer. I would first introduce lessons that involve very basic technological tools such as Microsoft Word, or even the internet. As students become more and more familiar with the technology as well as the technology etiquette, they will eventually be able to use more complex tools such as Microsoft Excel, or blogging tools.