As I approached this book, I thought, "Wow, that is one heck of a transition: fear to a social networking site." This caused me to believe that educators can so easily be swayed to use technology if only they see how it can benefit their lives and it won't disappoint them in the long run.
As I opened the book, however, I noticed quite a few things to jump on the page to me. It opens with a quote from Woody Allen, "If you're not falling down every now and again, it's a sign that you're not doing anything innovative." This piece of advice really speaks volumes to me. As an educator, I cannot be afraid to fail. With technology, especially, it will fail everyone once in a while. With that understanding, however, educators cannot dismiss technology just because it has the possibility to fail, perhaps even during an important part of a lesson.
This book, From Fear to Facebook, is about a school's attempt to understand and embrace technology in education. Chapter one tells the painful and amusing story of a school trying to get laptops for every student in the school. They sought this out of practicality because laptop carts seemed to cause more problems than solutions it created. Unfortunately, with students all receiving their own laptops, they quickly forgot that the computers were still owned by the school. The students quickly took advantage of the computers and attempted to make them their own. Another downside to the laptop situation was that students were becoming distracted in class, by instant messaging one another during class. When the school blocked iChat, parents and students both became angry. This kinda makes me laugh because they are privileged to receive the laptops in the first place, but apparently that is not good enough.
Some positives from this chapter include the school and students (and parents) finding a way to set up boundaries for proper use in school. The school really desperately sought to provide a safe learning environment while at the same time attempting to foster innovation and creativity. This all happened in year one, but once year two rolled around in this school, they were much more prepared to tackle the tasks associated with having a laptop per student. This focused on teaching teachers the in's and out's of the acceptable use policy (AUP). This challenge, however, was still met with opposition and the AUP still needed fine tuning through the way. As a reader and an educator, I was still puzzled as to the feelings of school after both years of doing a laptop for every student. With a resounding positive statement, they did this to help student's learn because technology plays such a vital role in each of their lives.
These are just a few of my thoughts about the current issue, of a 1 to 1 in a school. It still makes me nervous to have a laptop for each student, but I suppose it would probably benefit the entirety of the student body. I do believe, however, that while a teacher is talking, laptops should be put away because those cause more distractions than anything. Note taking in class should still be done by hand, but after the teacher finishes a lecture, students should use laptop for active learning and other activities for the rest of the class period.
Boom.
I find your thoughts about note taking by hand interesting.
ReplyDeleteMaybe another way to avoid distractions while the teacher is talking is to find ways to engage students without so much talking by the teacher. A thought... Well designed and developed project-based learning may be more powerful in an environment where students are computer empowered. :-)