Why do districts or schools adopt a 1:1 laptop/iPad/tablet initiative? Some may do it to provide the resource to their students and because it is a direction that several districts are moving. They may be trying to “keep up with the Joneses”. Others may approach it with the idea that “if you build it, they will come”. In other words, they provide them to an entire grade level and then work to build the skills of the teachers to help them develop ways to use them in the classroom. In some cases, these teachers may not have been interested in moving in this direction.
We took a different approach in District 34 under the leadership of our ED of Educational Technology, Brian Engle. We started with the question of who is interested in exploring the use of this tool and is committed to fundamentally changing your instructional practices? We had several teachers step up and express a genuine interest and desire to do things differently instructionally. We have teachers at kindergarten, first, second and fifth grades involved in the project this year. All of these teachers were strong instructionally to begin with and their students were growing and performing well. They were all looking to take the next step.
We met with this group yesterday and to a person they shared experiences where students were able to take more ownership of their work, students had more opportunities to reflect on their learning, teachers were able to provide students more frequent descriptive feedback, and students were able to create products quickly and more efficiently than they were ever able to before. Students in our kindergarten bilingual classroom have recorded themselves reading at school and at home and been able to share these with their parents and their teacher and all can hear the progress they are making over time. The teachers all indicated that they can’t imagine going back because they don’t know how they would be able to provide the learning opportunities to their students that they have this year.
The conversations yesterday drove home the point that a 1:1 initiative is not about the tool, it has to be about the learning opportunities and the changing instructional practices in order for it to be truly meaningful.
