Laptop Learning Progress Update #1

As many of you know, my school recently forged ahead with a laptop learning paradigm. All students in grades 6-12 are now required to show up to school each day with their own personal laptop computer. We take an OS and software agnostic approach-students and families self select their OS and software mix so long as it meets the minimum specifications outlined in this comprehensive document. Students and families purchase the computer on their own and the school provides a limited amount of technical assistance (we help them connect to the wifi network, manage printers, develop personalized data backup strategies, access network storage, etc).

Our tech support plan for student owned computers is crudely simple...we provide 15 minutes of support for student laptops and a loaner netbook for the times when students need to take their computers in for repair.

I'll be writing a few reflections throughout the year on our progress with laptop learning...here is my first and I'll do it in the form of a list.

1. We had HUGE fears about damage to student computers, theft, loss, accidents, etc. While a few minor things have happened, I'm glad to report that the students take really, really good care of their computers. No surprise here, really. Would you want to lose something that was valuable and contained your important documents, music, video, etc?

2. Having ALL students come onsite for learning sessions for two hours in the three days before the start of the school year was really smart. We used this as an opportunity to show the students how to connect to the network, access server shares, manage printers, etc. I can't imagine if we tried to do this in classrooms in the first few days of school. 

3. Having Moodle and Google Apps for Education in place as core academic learning platforms was crucial in allowing us to deploy this OS/software neutral laptop learning model. Our teachers have been using both systems for nearly two full years prior to this year - this has been super helpful.

4. Laptop learning has exposed weaknesses in the area of professional development. While we've offered summer learning institutes for the past three years running, we really don't offer anything systemic or sustained during the school  year. As a result, we've started a series of visits to area schools who have been doing this for a while along with some periodic "learning exchanges" where faculty have the opportunity to share some of the things they've been doing in their classrooms. It is my hope that we can increase the opportunities for teachers at ALL levels to engage in regular sharing, reflecting, etc in informal, formal, and vertical/non-departmental/non-grade level groupings. 

5. Student involvement in the process is still something I'm struggling with. We have a student powered "Genius Bar" that is supposed to be a place for students to help with troubleshooting, tech support, etc, but we don't have a great deal of traction with this. Our students are incredibly busy and often times don't have the time to do this. I'm still not giving up on this concept as this is such a wonderful opportunity for youth involvement and leadership.

6. On the technical side of things, the Cisco NAC device that we are using is overly complicated and buggy. Users have a client application on their computer that they use to authenticate to the WiFi network...sometimes it loads, sometimes it doesn't-when it doesn't load, they can't connect to WiFi. Also, I can't say that we've managed the printing challenge very effectively either. 

7. Having ed.Voicethread integrated into our Moodle network has been pretty slick. A few of our  language learning teachers love it and I think this is going to grow and increase in use. 

8. We don't require teachers to use computers in their classrooms...this approach is genius. As with any classroom tool, teachers make the choice about what will be used on any given day. I believe this has created a calming influence on our folks and prevents TICS (Technology Integration Coercion Syndrome). 

9. During morning recess in our Middle School we require students to put their laptops in their lockers so that they can get outside and play. It has been GREAT to see kids playing four square and other outdoor games during this time. I'm glad to know that the presence of laptops has inspired our school community to think more carefully about creating more opportunities for kids to play. 

10. We have unfiltered access to the Internet here at Castilleja and I'm quite proud of this.  I'm also quite proud of the choices that students make when they use their computers during study halls, lunch, and other discretionary time periods. I often times walk around and ask students what they are up to...nine times out of ten they are working on school business which is evidence that they are doing a nice job of managing their time. Yes, some do use facebook before, during, and after school, but by and large they are using their computers quite responsibly as we would expect. 

That is all for now...sort of a mind dump. I hope to have more stories from the classroom in in future "Laptop Learning Progress Updates" here at the blog.

Gary Stager at Castilleja School's 2010 Summer Learning Institute

Last week we offered a unique professional development opportunity for our school's faculty and staff  in the form of a "Summer Learning Institute." Tuesday featured a deep dive into the world of portfolio learning with Dr. Helen Barrett. On Wednesday we studied project based learning with Sylvia Martinez. On Thursday we were joined by Dr. Gary Stager to discuss laptop learning and on Friday we wrapped the week up with an immersive digital storytelling experience with Wes Fryer. This superstar line-up of outside facilitators, combined with an incredibly motivated and eager group of faculty from my school, yielded a special learning experience. I hope to reflect more on the experience here and share the instructional design that we used throughout the week-in many ways I think this week was a really good model for summer professional development.

I'm slowly getting all of the video from our presenters processed and posted (thanks to our student interns Angelica Ortiz and Sam Cecil for doing all of the video work!)  Embedded below is Gary's session on laptop learning. The remaining presentations will be posted over the course of the next week. Enjoy!

1:1 Learning and the iPad...a few thoughts

In August of 2010 when the new school year begins all of our students
in grades 6-12 will show up with a with a wireless laptop of their
choice. A Survey of our students shows that 60-70%  already own a
laptop and that the majority own a mac. Even though most students who
already own a laptop own a mac, we know that others are using a
range of models running everything from windows to Linux (a sixth
grade student uses Fedora if you can believe it). Because our primary
academic learning platforms (moodle and google apps education edition)
run directly through the browser we're able to take a hardware and OS
nuetral approach in our 1-1 learning model.

April 3, 2010-enter the iPad, a device whoose potential for use in our
1-1 learning environment I immediately wrote off after it was
announced back in January. There were so many unanswered questions.
Would it be able to read AND edit google documents? Does it lean too
heavily on the side of information consumption? How would the lack of
flash support and multiple-tasking impact its utility in the
classroom? These questions aside, it's highly proprietary and closed
nature didn't seem to be a match  for our open ethos.

However, my thinking has evolved over the past few months. Google docs
support is available via 3rd party apps, google is doing some cool  
things with HTML 5, multi tasking is coming, and some popular video platforms
are rushing to make their content iPad friendly. In classroom
situations where teachers need students to access a flash heavy site,
iPad users can easily partner up with  classmates who have a
traditional laptop (this has the ancillary benefit of making computer
use in the classroom more social and collaborative). For some students,
particularly those who have a desktop computer or large laptop at
home, the iPad might be a great fit. I'm nearing the point where I'm
ready to advocate for the ipad as an acceptable device for our
students and families to choose from.

I've said this before and ill say it again; what I like about our
school's approach to 1-1 learning is that it is inherently tolerant of
new technologies.  We have a model that, as Gever Tulley says, is
ready to integrate new technologies as quickly as they emerge.

What are your thoughts on the utility of the iPad in a 1-1 learning
model? Does it have everthing, or at least most everything, necessary
to be a useful 1-1 student learning device?

The Perfect Student Laptop

I've been talking to several students about our school's upcoming laptop program and many are not that excited about it because they are not looking forward to carrying around a heavy laptop in addition to all of their books, binders, notebooks, and other school materials. I completely understand where they are coming from.

Considering this scenario, I think there will be a premium in the first few years of our laptop program on form factor. This convertible tablet PC from 2GOPC very well might be the best student laptop option given the fact that there will be a premium on a device that is light, durable, easy to carry, flexible, highly portable, and inexpensive.

What are your thoughts? Given that next year our students will be adding laptop computers to their already exploding backpack sizes, what computer do you think will be the "perfect" student laptop for students in grades 6-12 (ages 12-18)?


NOTE: Our laptop program is built on an open, OS agnostic model. Students and families are permitted to choose the OS and form factor (from netbook to full size laptop) that will work best for them (their system must meet a few basic minimum requirements that we've specified).

1:1 Laptop Learning at Our School Next Year

The 2010-2011 school year will be the first year that all students at my school will be required to bring a laptop to school each day. I'm excited about the model that we've selected because we are not mandating that students purchase a particular model nor are we mandating that they purchase software at this point. Students may use laptops that they already own, which is great as 60-70% of our students already own a laptop (see our 1:1 FAQ doc for the complete details on our plan-we also have some of our work posted at our 1:1 planning site).

The model that we selected gives individuals the element of choice, which I think will lead to some innovativation in and of itself. For example, some kid might choose to purchase a low cost netbook, which leaves extra money available to purchase an eReader and an inexpensive video camera. It also prevents us from locking into a particular platform and model so that when a new innovation comes out (eg, the apple tablet/eReader), we're able to consider integrating this new technology.

A thread about 1:1 learning recently circulated around the California Independent Schools Listserve (of which I'm not a member) and our head of school, Joan Lonergan, responded to a question from one school leader about our 1:1 learning plans. Joan shared her reply with me and I thought she absolutely hit the nail on the head in her description of our 1:1 learning model that we'll be deploying next year. So I asked Joan if I could republish her excellent work in this space and she obliged. Joan's answers follow and any comments that I added are  highlighted below in orange.
 
Q: Do you have any WRITTEN policies I could review? Contracts with parents?

A: None. We have said we are initiating a 1:1 device program, issued some minimum specs that are desirable for all devices to be used in classes, and said we will support both Macs and PCs on minor repairs in school and provide low end loaners while families take care of major repairs. We have predominantly Apple platform here and an Apple store downtown so we think this will work. We already have a large majority of our students bringing computers of some sort to school with no issues about service, etc. We are now looking at infrastructure issues to make sure we have wireless and electrical capacity campus wide.

Q: What to do is computer is lost, stolen or broken?
A: We have loaners (for loaners we are using low cost, yet powerful HP 5101 10.1" Netbook computers running the Ubuntu Netbook remix-all software is free and open source)

Q: Who purchases the computer? 
A: families independently, not through school

Q: Controls on what is downloaded on the computer?
A: We have a minimum expectation of software and applications should be on all student computers, but we are making a very conscious effort to use as much open source software as possible.

Q: Anything else you considered as you made this decision?? 
A: We have considered every option to be a 1:1 school and opted for the easiest for us and the least restrictive for our families. We are piloting this second semester so will have more to share in June. Matt Montagne is our Academic Tech person whom I have copied. You might want to touch base with him in a few months.

Gary Stager at ILC 2008 - 10 Things you can do with laptops

I've never heard Gary speak in person before, but I truly enjoyed the experience of doing so today at ILC, especially given that my school is in year 0 of our laptop program. Lots of ideas and things to think about...





Direct Link to audio file