Laptops for all

I found this week’s article very interesting. Our school has been tackling similar issues with a variety of results. We have slowly been integrating tablets into the hands of instructors. We started with a small pilot program of 25 teachers and now have about 150 teachers with tablets. All of our math and science teachers have a tablet and we are slowly incorporating into other departments. The unfamiliarity with new technology experience by staff members is an issue that we still encounter. As a technology coach one of my roles is too help with the transition.

We are slowly approaching laptops in the hands of our students. One of our middle schools has started a program where all students currently have a laptop. These students will be freshman next year, and we had a meeting today to discuss how this could potentially change how we do things at the high school.

I was especially interested in the mathematics teacher, for obvious reasons. It was interesting to see that initially the laptops were used only a few times, and as a reference tool. As the involvement of the technology increased in class, the lessons became more constructionist. The lessons were much more interesting, and closer aligned to the national mathematics standards. The issue that then became a problem was assessment. The assessments became more subjective, that is a difficult transition for a mathematics teacher. It did seem to work. I look forward to the challenges I will encounter when my students start showing up with their own technologies.