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Our middle school (6-9) is implementing one-to-one computers beginning this school year (09-10). This means that each student is issued a laptop and will have it all day every day including brining it home for potential homework.
Computers are not new to our students but being issued one, having full access and responsibility is new to most middle school students in our district.
I’m interested in gathering some input – concerns and advantages – from parents, students and educators who have some experience with this issue.
My brother and sister's high school had the program.
Its a good program, originally meant to phase out traditional textbooks but that has never happened.
From what I understand, aside from an occasional homework assignment, the laptops are rarely used for anything academic. And it surprised me how the students kept the laptops in terrible condition (physically falling apart)....
If the school district (administration and teachers) really push towards fully integrating the laptop into the coursework I think its a great idea. Otherwise its just a huge money pit that is nothing more than a bragging right for school districts.
I don't like this trend; providing and maintaining computers is a big expense, and given that most school districts have so many other more pressing needs I simply don't think the benefits outweigh the negatives. Yes, kids need to know how to use computers now, and schools should provide access so that kids without computers at home have somewhere to type up papers, access the internet, (and learn how to evaluate information found online) etc., but this just seems like a waste of money, especially at the middle school level.
I don't like this trend; providing and maintaining computers is a big expense, and given that most school districts have so many other more pressing needs I simply don't think the benefits outweigh the negatives. Yes, kids need to know how to use computers now, and schools should provide access so that kids without computers at home have somewhere to type up papers, access the internet, (and learn how to evaluate information found online) etc., but this just seems like a waste of money, especially at the middle school level.
I totally agree with this. Also, it's not as if buying a slew of laptops once is the end of it. Every couple of years you would need to buy replacements and the tech problems alone most likely means a full time tech person. I am amazed at how tech savvy most kids are without the expense of individual laptops.
Our school issues them for 6th-12th and it's awesome. The teachers calendar the homework assignments on the kids' calendar. They can transfer notes from a Smartboard to their laptops. Teachers can email kids during the day and kids can email teachers. All homework is typewritten. It's been great great great. The laptops have insurance on them and there is a deductible (who pays depends on what happened). The school has tech support and loaners for when their laptop needs to be worked on.
Our school issues them for 6th-12th and it's awesome. The teachers calendar the homework assignments on the kids' calendar. They can transfer notes from a Smartboard to their laptops. Teachers can email kids during the day and kids can email teachers. All homework is typewritten. It's been great great great. The laptops have insurance on them and there is a deductible (who pays depends on what happened). The school has tech support and loaners for when their laptop needs to be worked on.
We can do all this with our home computers. The kids can go to the teachers website anytime to see the homework. The teachers input the grades and parents and students can see them immediately. I've been e-mailing teachers for years. Our kids have to type their assignments too. I don't understand what that has to do with laptops.
Even the kids that don't have computers can do all this from public computers. I think the majority of people in our district have computers so I think it's a waste of money. I think there is an overkill of technology sometimes at the expense of basic education. I'm not trying to be argumentative but I haven't heard a good reason yet.
We can do all this with our home computers. The kids can go to the teachers website anytime to see the homework. The teachers input the grades and parents and students can see them immediately. I've been e-mailing teachers for years. Our kids have to type their assignments too. I don't understand what that has to do with laptops.
Even the kids that don't have computers can do all this from public computers. I think the majority of people in our district have computers so I think it's a waste of money. I think there is an overkill of technology sometimes at the expense of basic education. I'm not trying to be argumentative but I haven't heard a good reason yet.
The teachers all get macbooks.
The kids carry the laptops with them. They pop them open in class - just like college. Their notes, their assignments, their calendars, their internet references, their emails, their supplemental instructional videos, their research, their images, their presentations, it's all there together and with them during the day while they move class to class to study hall, wherever. Really, it's awesome. The kids like them. They are interested. They can work on their laptop while commuting to school and back (this is a private school - kids come from far and wide). The school has been using them for 4 or 5 years and they continue to use them because it works.
Our school issues them for 6th-12th and it's awesome. The teachers calendar the homework assignments on the kids' calendar. They can transfer notes from a Smartboard to their laptops. Teachers can email kids during the day and kids can email teachers. All homework is typewritten. It's been great great great. The laptops have insurance on them and there is a deductible (who pays depends on what happened). The school has tech support and loaners for when their laptop needs to be worked on.
That's one of my biggest problems with them, really; maybe they're fine at a private school where parents are picking up the entire tab, but all that insurance and, probably more significantly, tech support, is very expensive. I just don't see it as a necessity, or even something desirable, for most schools or students.
Maybe some of this is generational on my end; I'm not that old (early 30s) but old enough that I can't envision anything so pressing that I would need to email a teacher about it rather than discussing it in person (or by email from home), or how or why I would want to email my teacher (or have them email me) during school hours, or what's wrong with handing out homework assignments on paper, not to mention if pushing the idea that students should be taking notes on a laptop (if that's part of it) could have a negative impact on the actual learning process. I don't understand any of that, but would be more open to at least considering the possibility I'm just too old and out-of-touch to "get" it if it weren't for my larger concerns over the increasing push to spend money on technology when other things - including traditional classes or subjects like art, music, even languages, not to mention field trips, sometimes science lab supplies, etc. - are being slashed from so many school budgets. The ability to take or transfer notes or email the teacher during daytime hours from a personal laptop simply doesn't seem worth the added hassles and expense.
A teacher can email the student at noon and say, "John, I need you to come by my classroom before you leave today." It's a method of communicating. Sometimes a class has no textbook and they just use resources on the internet. In science, they can watch videos of dissecting before they actually do their own. They don't use the laptops very much in math though.
I think the added on charge to tuition each year for the laptops is $900. They are the school's laptops. They are iBooks, I believe. Macs.
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