Digital Citizenship, the Newest Curriculum

A decade and a half into the 21^st Century, computers are everywhere. Most people carry in their pockets a smart phone that has more computer power than all of NASA had at its disposal in 1969 when it landed a man on the moon. Today’s mobile devices are more powerful than the desktop computers of the 1990’s.

This is only going to increase. Today we carry our mobile devices in our pockets. Tomorrow we will be wearing them and putting them on each morning as we do our clothing. The education of today’s students must include how to effectively use modern technologies. It is right and appropriate that our schools modernize so that technology is integrated into instruction as it will be in the workplace of the future for our students. 

Schools planning for a digital learning initiative have some parents who naturally express apprehension about whether or not students are responsible enough to care for such powerful and expensive digital learning devices. Certainly responsible behavior often matures with age. However, this is exactly one of the reasons we needed computers in the hands of the kids—that we need to teach them how to use their computers responsibly.

With this new movement of digital learning devices in schools, a new curriculum is emerging. The whole world is now accessible to any student with a digital device, and schools need to teach digital citizenship. All schools need a K-12 curriculum in this area, and teachers need training in how to instruct digital citizenship skills.

October 18 – 24 this year was National Digital Citizenship Week. A growing number of schools each year are engaging in learning activities at all grade levels with lessons designed to teach students the responsible use of technology tools.

I endorse the work of Common Sense Media (www.commonsensemedia.org). They have an appropriate K-12 curriculum with a coordinated scope and sequence and age-appropriate lessons that address digital literacy and citizenship topics. Their curriculum includes professional development materials, student interactives, assessments, and family outreach materials. What is more, their curriculum is free and it is turnkey so schools can use immediately. This is welcome and refreshing news for the many public schools across this nation that have been bludgeoned by repeated budget cuts over the past decade.

Digital literacy and citizenship skills are skills that students can use for the rest of their lives. New devices and systems will come and go, but responsible use of technologies will be timeless. A brave new world is emerging, characterized by anytime, anywhere connections for everyone. This age is coming with new challenges and new trials for our children. However, schools can play an important role in educating students for how to use technology responsibly.

Where to Go with 1-to-1 Laptop Learning

"It is not about the machines; it is about teaching and learning." I have heard this so often when discussing one-to-one laptop learning, I wonder if it bears repeating. I hope this fact is becoming common knowledge.

Sioux Central School District in Sioux Rapids, Iowa, just completed its second year as a one-to-one laptop learning school for grades 3 through 12. The school has enjoyed great success in grades 6 through 12, so that it upgraded laptops and infrastructure this year for grades 4 and 5 and added laptops to grade 3 as well. With the year ended, I use this blog post to reflect on where we should be heading for the future of our school and its students.

There is another prolific statement I hear when discussing technology for the classroom. When someone asks the questions, "Laptops or tablets?" or "PC or Mac?" I hear the reply, "Well it all depends on what you plan to do with the technology." Although it is an accurate response, it is also a little smug. It leaves unexplained what schools should be doing with the technology

Simply put, our aim should be high-order thinking skills. We want our students to be creators of knowledge, not simply consumers. Using Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy, we want our students involved in project-based learning where they are evaluating their sources. We also want them re-teaching, so they are breaking down the information and reassembling it into a new whole.

I get very excited about what is happening in our classrooms when I visit and I see students highly engaged in non-traditional instruction. They are using their laptops, but they are relating personally to each other. They are working in groups, arguing what is relevant and how they should present their findings back to the rest of the class. Now that is a worthy goal for any classroom.

One-to-one laptops are allowing students to learn and retain at higher levels. The difference can be explained using the Learning Pyramid from the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine. The pyramid reveals how content retention is related to the methodology used by the teacher:

Average Retention Rates

5% - Lecture

10% --- Reading

20% - Audio-Visual

30% --- Demonstration

50% --- Group Discussion

75% ------- Practice by Doing

90% ----------- Teaching Others

Laptop learning changes the classroom dynamic from more traditional passive learning, i.e., lecture, reading, and audio-visuals, to the active learning of practice by doing and teaching others.

The Indispensable Tool for Teaching Writing: Google Docs

English language arts teachers may be the hardest working teachers in America's secondary schools. This is a bold and generalized statement, but it reflects the countless hours that writing teachers spend from their personal and family time on evenings and weekends checking stacks of lengthy term papers in addition to reading ahead in the literature, preparing for upcoming lessons, and coaching speech or sports and directing the school play. I was an English teacher once, but I could not take the hours and the workload, so I retired from teaching English to become an administrator.

Nonetheless, I am almost tempted to return to an English classroom now that new technology tools are making writing instruction so much more powerful and productive. My favorite is Google Documents. Every English and language arts teacher needs the high-tech devices to be able to utilize Google Docs in class.

Writing is a process; however, teachers historically treat it as a product. We assign a writing topic at the beginning of the week. Sometimes we may ask students to submit outlines or note cards along the way. We may discuss in class how the compositions are progressing. But then the final products are submitted on Friday for summary judgment by the teacher. And the teacher judges the product of each student's labor.

Google Docs allows instructors to teach writing as a process. A teacher can set up a Google document for each student in his or her class. Then the teacher has access to the document. The teacher can review it periodically and coach the student through the writing process.

A teacher could follow along and check students as they work through daily writing process assignments like the ones below.

• Monday:          Students will brainstorm possible topics and create word webs.
• Tuesday:          Students will write thesis statements and rough outlines.
• Wednesday:     Students will revise their rough outlines into sentence outlines.
• Thursday:         Students will re-write their sentence outlines into paragraphs.
• Friday:             Students will add concluding paragraphs and polish final drafts of their essays.

Instead of disposing of each step in the process or handing in each to the teacher as a separate assignment, the steps could all remain in the single composition with new material added at the beginning of the doc each day.

By providing time in class daily to work on the writing process, the teacher can review the writing assignments in class, offer suggestions on word usage and syntax, and coach the students on their writing.

Moreover, if the writing assignments are monitored along the way, students will be less able to cheat. It will be harder for students to simply cut and paste an assignment belonging to someone else because teachers will be watching the writing progress. Also, students will be more likely to be on track by the end of the week. It will be hard to claim the dog ate the homework when the teacher knows what was done prior to the due date.

Finally, this is not just for English teachers. Reading and writing instruction is the responsibility of every teacher in the school system. I have heard too many teachers say something like, "I am a history teacher. I am only interested in how the students describe history in their papers. It is not my job to correct spelling, grammar, or word usage." This is a flaw in our system that we have compartmentalized subject areas. It is the job of every teacher to tie all the curricular areas together.

I encourage all teachers to use these tech tools. They have the potential for turning around our criticized educational institutions. Now let us get the technology devices into the hands of our teachers so they can use these tools to teach students.

Before Becoming a 1-to-1 School: Five Preliminary Steps

The rapidly growing number of 1-to-1 laptop schools calls to question what a laptop learning school is. Very simple mathematics suggests that a school merely needs to purchase enough laptop computers--one for every student--and Presto! suddenly it becomes a 1-to-1 school.

But can a school spend all that money on technology and still miss the mark? I believe it can, and some do. There is a difference between laptop learning schools and schools with laptops. Before your school invests in the hardware to become a 1-to-1 school, take some steps up front.

1. It Starts with the Realization of the Need for Change. Examine the 21st Century skills. Think about the future our students will enter. Discuss what a classroom should look like now. If your system does not recognize a need to change instruction, adding technology is rather pointless. But change begins with having some fierce conversations about the need for change and the school's vision for the future of education.

2. It Takes Vision. The expression a computer is just a tool is overused to the point of becoming a cliche. Unless a school knows how it wants to use the tools, its evolution will be hampered. Schools that are using the laptops most successfully are trying to create student-centered classrooms. They want teachers to take an assisting role as students learn to teach themselves and each other. The vision may be for research using online resources and digital text books. This may call for 1-to-1 tablets. Or the vision could require more powerful technology tools to facilitate project-based learning and knowledge creation.

3. Hit the Road. One of the reasons many technology plans are never realized is that people don't know what they don't know. By the time they understand it, there is something new. The faculty need to get out of the building and see how other schools are using technology to accelerate learning. They need to attend conferences, seminars, and sales demonstrations. After broad exposure to a number of ideas and systems, staff can return to help forge a new direction for their own school.

4. Share the Decision.  A major acquisition of technology should result in a sea change in the pedagogy of the school. Therefore, this decision cannot be made by the administration and school board alone. The teachers who will be implementing this system need to be deeply involved in the decision. The discussion should include the support staff as well. The school needs to unite behind such a significant shift in methodology. This can only be accomplished if there is participation and support from the rank and file.

5. Include the Community.  Ultimately, it is your community that is paying the bill. They are your customers, and a school always need to be responsive to its public. Begin the dialogue in your PTO and advisory groups. Have the conversation with the people at the coffee shop. Involve your business leaders. Your local businesses may be your strongest proponents because they see how technology is changing their workplace (maybe faster than it is changing schools), and they need a technologically literate workforce.

So does this mean we should wait and take our time? Certainly not. With the speed at which our world is changing, we do not have time to wait. But I will address this in a post yet to come.

What other steps are necessary? Please feel free to offer your additional suggestions in the comments below.

The PC versus Mac Debate Can End

Last month I had the honor of presenting to a number of school board members from across Iowa on the merits and implementation of one-to-one laptop computing in the modern school classroom. This was at the 66th Annual Convention of the Iowa Association of School Boards. I was impressed by all the thoughtful and conscientious citizens who are voluntarily serving their community schools for no pay and often considerable grief.

Much of my session was spent answering questions. I did not want to make a formal presentation, instead striving to make the time as relevant as possible for the participants. The most common questions I heard was, "Should a school purchase PC's or Macintosh computers for its one-to-one computer initiative?"

In response to this question, I emphasized the computer platform is the lesser part of the issue. The greater part is what the school is intending to do with the machines. Simple mathematics suggests that merely purchasing enough computers to have one for every student is the process for becoming a one-to-one school. However, this simple formula is missing the point. The computers need to fit the classroom objectives and methodologies, not the other way around. Deciding on a platform is ultimately influenced by what a school intends to do with the devices.

For our school, we wanted to create student-centered classrooms where the students are instructing themselves and each other. We wanted classrooms where the teachers are more guides to learning with the students the active participants in the class. Therefore, we wanted powerful machines that can access online resources and facilitate project-based learning. We want our students finding resources, comprehending the material, breaking down the information, and reassembling new knowledge. Therefore, we chose computers that could do audio projects, podcasting, and video production, in addition to some of the more standard functions available from most manufacturers.

The next question board members asked was usually this: "Yeah, but what if our teachers want Macintosh computers, yet nine out of ten computers in the business world are PC's?"

In my opinion, PC versus Mac operating systems is no longer much of a debate. The two systems have grown together over the last 20 years to the place where a person takes very little time to retrain for the opposite system. I made the change myself a few years back, and in less than a week, I felt completely comfortable in the new platform. Moreover, as computer operations move to more web-based systems and cloud computing, the type of computer becomes even less of an issue.

Ultimately, the operating system is a very small question. It is no longer worth debating. A much greater consideration is the performance ratings of the different machines and manufacturers. And again, it is more important what a school plans to do with their computers in order to choose a machine that meets its aim.

1:1 Laptops are not about Increased Test Scores

"If we implement one-to-one computing, will our standardized test scores go up?" said many school board members when their respective schools were considering a laptop initiative for their students.

Unfortunately, the data is inconclusive. There are some studies that show gains, but some of these studies are minor or narrow. Meanwhile some other studies show no difference. The brightest hope for increased standardized test achievement is in student writing skills. Unfortunately, many writing assessments are subjective. And most national tests do not truly assess writing; it simply does not fit the bubble sheet answer format.

Our school is now in its second year of using one-to-one laptops in grades 4 through 12. I am convinced that laptops can grow standardized test scores. However, I do not believe this is the proper use for them. There are a number of quality software programs that provide students with extra practice that could increase their assessment scores. If a school was to use their laptops for intensive basic skills practice on a daily basis, I am of the opinion that test scores will improve significantly.

But there is a larger question: is this really the best use of expensive laptop computers? Can't the same aim be met if we simply immerse our students in reams of worksheets?

One-to-one laptops are about 21st Century Learning. We use them to promote research and critical thinking to increase higher order thinking skills among our students. We are trying to get our students collaborating with classmates and with students around the world. We want our students using creativity to solve problems. This is education that will prepare our students for the world ahead of them, and this is the way to use a valuable learning tool such as a laptop for each and every student.

1:1 Laptop Learning: Three Fundamental Principles

Laptop learning is about a fundamental change in instructional methodology for the 21st Century. It is about teaching students to be consumers and creators of knowledge as opposed to simply recipients. Schools that give their students this edge will help them to be successful in the 21st Century.

Some school have a vision for technology integration to be a springboard of a new methodology vaulting students ahead. Some of these school have invested money to put a laptop computer one-to-one in the hands of each and every student. For schools that are doing one-to-one computing, experience is showing there are three fundamentals which these one-to-one schools must address.

1. Student Usage. The success or failure of a one-to-one laptop program is entirely dependent upon how often and how effectively the computers are used in the classroom. If the laptops are not an integral part of instruction, an expensive resource is being squandered. And if the laptops are not being used effectively as 21st Century learning tools, they function no better than textbooks, three-ring binders, and pencils.
2. Teacher Comfort. Laptops will be used frequently and effectively when teachers are comfortable instructing with them. For many veteran educators, it is an entirely new methodology, unlike anything they have used previously in their careers. Teachers need to accept the machines and find ways to use them with students. They also have to develop a comfort level in accepting that the students may know the computers better than they do. They need to be prepared to let their students take the lead.
3. Professional Development. Teachers will feel comfortable teaching with laptops to the extent they are trained to instruct in the new methodology. If a school is prepared to invest a large sum of money in hardware and software, they must be prepared to invest not less than 10 to 20 percent of that amount initially into professional development for the teachers. And professional development cannot end with the first year. There needs to be on-going support in subsequent years as well.

Therefore the linchpin in the successful implementation of one-to-one laptop learning is the professional development of the faculty. It is easy to assume that teachers are already using computers, maybe in a laboratory setting, and they have computers they use regularly for planning and preparation. But those skills do not automatically transfer to one-to-one laptop instruction. Teacher development in the new methodology is key.

1-to-1 Laptop Learning and Quid Pro Quo

A strange element of our human nature is that we tend to feel that something that has no cost to us must therefore have no value. The legal term quid pro quo means “something for something.” It is the way contracts are usually executed with one party giving something in exchange for what they get.

As our school was considering how we would implement one-to-one laptop learning in our secondary school, our vendor advised us of their previous experience. They cautioned that the districts that asked the least of their students resulted in having the greatest number of student abuses. Those schools that provide laptops to their students at no cost often have big problems with students vandalizing or abusing the school property. They advised us to ask for something from every student.

This was a troubling suggestion. We have a higher rate of poverty than some other area schools. Many of our parents do not have extra petty cash available for another school fee. But we believed the advice we were given--that some students would not value something that was given to them at no cost.

We decided to charge a $25 technology fee for all students who wish to take their computers home each night. The fee is optional and can be waived if a student agrees to return his/her computer to the office after each day of classes. The fee is used to cover the normal wear and tear that happens when teens use school property.

To avoid putting an extra fee on our disadvantaged households, we also allowed for some students to perform school service in lieu of paying our technology fee. Students are allowed to come in before the school year starts and help clean the building or do groundskeeping for four hours in exchange for their laptops. This enables them to avoid the $25 fee, take their laptops home each night, and yet still provide something in exchange for what they are receiving.

We have not had a lot of service volunteers, but the few students who have opted for the school service waiver have been diligent workers who earnestly did their time. As a result, we have experienced very few problems with student vandalism, damage, or abuse. We cannot prove the exchange made the difference, but we believe it is working.

1-to-1 Laptops: 10 Lessons Learned

After a successful first year as a one-to-one laptop learning school for grades 4 through 12, we re-assessed what we had done well and the lessons we had learned before re-issuing our laptops to students for another year. Below are ten of the many lessons we learned in this new field of educational endeavor.

1. Screens are fragile. The laptop screens are more fragile than we realized. We had few problems, but the rigors of student life did result in some screen casualties. We simply continue to stress to students the incidents that have caused problems and how they can be avoided.

2. Maintain student care accountability. We had a soft rule that if a student damaged a computer, we would only re-issue a computer after any fine was paid. But it was our first year. Some damage was covered under warranty, and some was not. We were unsure what should result in a fine. In our zeal to get laptops back into the hands of the students, we were sometimes issuing fines after-the-fact. This resulted in a backlog of fines that we had to collect the following fall before re-issuing the laptops for another school year.

To do a better job, this year we intend to provide students with a loaner laptop for use only at school. When the fine is paid, the student may take the loaner home. If something later appears to be under warranty, we can always reimburse students for the fine.

3. The classroom arrangement changes. Teachers need to be more mobile. With laptops in the classroom, the guide on the side is more important than the sage on the stage. Teachers need to move around the classrooms to monitor what students are doing on their laptops. This means the teacher cannot just stand in front of the blackboard, and the arrangement of the desks may need to change to accommodate the movement.

4. Watch the power cords. Kids were terrific in caring for their laptops, but they were more cavalier when it came to caring for the power cords of the laptops. They are used to power cords and sometimes just grab the wire to pull the plug from its socket. Laptop power cords are not necessarily as durable as the cord for a lamp, and they are significantly more expensive. We continue to emphasize this to our students.

5. Teachers need not do technology every day. Some teachers, in their eagerness to be the most tech-savvy they can be, tried to make every lesson a laptop lesson. Simply put, not all lessons lend themselves to technology. Did you ever have a teacher who could absolutely captivate you with his/her story telling, and wouldn’t you like your kids to hear those same stories? Some of the best teaching can still be traditional teaching, and teachers should not overload themselves with their own high technology expectations for themselves.

6. Remove the clings. Our students were fantastic about caring for the appearance of their laptops and not using stickers, tape, or other adhesives on the laptop covers. Many took pride in their machines and purchased non-adhesive stickers (clings) to decorate their laptops. At the end of the year, we told students they could leave their stickers in place because they would each be re-issued the exact same machine in the fall. However, over the summer, some machines needed warranty work, and some pricey stickers were lost. This piqued some parents and kids. So at the end of the year, remove the clings.

7. Let the students lead. Many conscientious teachers feel they need to be the experts in the classroom. However, with this young tech generation going through the schools, teachers may never know the computers as well as the students. Teachers need to sometimes have the courage to say to the students, “Show me how this works.”

8. Watch the web usage. Although we had rules against students playing on-line games and watching silly kitten videos irrelevant to class, we were in no position to be the web police and constantly monitor what students were doing with their laptops during free time. This crimped our band width, and we had to work to make our access its most efficient. We did appeal to the kids to try to avoid during the day the videos that really gobbled up our band width.

9. Create tiers of access. Not all students are as responsible as others. In some cases, a student may violate a rule. In other cases, a parent may indicate that the student is distracted at home and unable to do school work. We created several tiers of access for the students. Our most responsible students have the fewest restrictions on their computers. It is a rewards system.

10. Emphasize professional development for teachers. We knew from what we researched up front that our whole one-to-one initiative hinged on professional development for teachers. We invested heavily in it, but we learned that the need does not really diminish over time. Ideas change. Web sites are added. Software changes. We learn. And we need to keep teaching our teachers how to get better.

O.K. Actually there are eleven lessons. The 11th we only learned after school got started this second year.

11. The new kids need to catch up. When we planned for our second year of one-to-one laptop instruction, we proceeded from the false assumption that kids are already tech-savvy and can catch on quickly. We created a boot camp for our new teachers. We learned we need a boot camp for the kids new to our school as well to help them get up to speed with the expectations of instructors.

The Price is Right for Education Technology

If you are waiting to see what evolves in technology before implementing a major technology initiative in your school, your wait is over.

Technology has shown that the pace of change accelerates; it does not stabilize. (Maybe it is better stated your wait is futile.)

Likewise, if you are waiting for the price to drop because it is too expensive, you can stop waiting.

The price has already fallen to the point that makes technology initiatives affordable for schools. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the falling cost of a gigabyte of storage as noted by Ivan Smith (Boing Boing by David Isenberg):

YEAR — Price of a Gigabyte
1981 — $300,000
1987 — $50,000
1990 — $10,000
1994 — $1000
1997 — $100
2000 — $10
2004 — $1
2010 — $0.10

So where is the price headed? A goal of industry is for computers to cost . . . wait for it . . . one dollar!

This means computers will be everywhere: carried on our persons, mounted into tools, installed in furniture, and sewn into the fabric of our garments. It will also make computers disposable. Of course we are not talking about computers with full monitors and keyboards (assuming keyboards continue to exist). We are referring to microcomputers with specific and limited functions.

A skeptic may doubt that one dollar computers are achievable. But consider the musical greeting card--the card you open and plays a popular tune or even sings to you. A single such card has as much computer power as existed in the world in the 1950's.

The point is that now is the time to invest in technology. The initial outlay for purchasing will be buoyed over time by the falling costs of subsequent additions and updates. This calls for a short-term expenditure rather than a long-term investment with significant, recurring costs.

Of course times are hard and budgets are stressed to the breaking point in a manner unprecedented in the last 70 years. Our nation's economy is a mess, but over the next few years it will rebuild. Now is the time to use this crisis to begin restructuring. Schools should begin by redesigning student-centered classrooms emphasizing inquiry learning. They should start training teachers in an instructional methodology facilitated by technology. This should lead to integrating technology into instruction. Schools should next pilot laptop learning in select classes, providing students with the research tools to facilitate inquiry learning. Finally schools should lay out a plan for full one-to-one implementation.

Though expensive, education technology is affordable; though futuristic, it is contemporary; though extraneous, it is essential. The time is now.

A Threat to Iowa Technology Initiatives

This is a special blog. It relates to State Auditor David Vaudt and his investigation into schools: whether or not they are spending their current technology funds properly, if new restrictions should be placed on the funds, and if schools should be required to pay back from other funds for tech-related expenses already incurred.

First a little history from my perspective. When technology first began to emerge as a clear and future force in public education, the Iowa Legislature created a special fund in the early 1990's strictly earmarked only for technology acquisition and tech-related uses. With this special funding stream, Iowa schools had few concerns about how to pay for this new classroom component that we knew would be the future of education. Iowa soon became a classroom technology leader. Combined with our fiber-optic classroom network that was providing instant interchange in schools across the state, we became the envy of the nation.

However, at the same time, other funds became tighter in Iowa schools. When our nation's economy was booming in the late 1990's, Iowa schools were being under-funded. Budgets were not permitted to grow. Iowa teacher pay fell further and further behind the national average. Funds were stretched as far as possible to cover the gaps. Then following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, our nation's economy tanked. Iowa's special technology fund for schools was cut. Schools that had already obligated all other funds elsewhere had trouble funding technology. Iowa fell behind in technology as schools limped along by using the Apple IIe's we had purchased in the early 1990's.

Another foresightful tool created by the Iowa Legislature was the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (abbreviated PPEL and pronounced PEP-pul). It created a fund from local property tax to be used for equipment purchases of over $5,000. Educators asked legislators if that minimum threshold could be lowered, and the Iowa Legislature responded positively by dropping the minimum to $1,500 which could be used for either a single piece of technology or "a technology system." Now this "system" language was key because we all recognized the power and the future of networking computers. Wiring might not cost $1,500, but if it was part of a system, that was O.K.

We were fine for a short while, but the price of technology continued to drop. Computers no longer cost more than$1,500 apiece. Schools had a dilemma. They could buy computers as part of a system, but they could not afford to buy a stand-alone computer for a single classroom. Educators again returned to the Legislature, and legislators again were supportive. They lowered the minimum limit again, this time to only $500.

Somehow in this last correction, the key words of using PPEL for "a technology system" was erroneously left out of the language. The rule allows $500 for a single piece of equipment.

Now this is a problem because we educators have continued our past practice and recognize that our technology is most powerful as part of a unified tech system. We have continued to spend these funds quite appropriately in this way.

Now a decade into the 21st Century, schools are beginning to implement what we have known for considerable time is the future of education, i.e. students carrying ubiquitous portable learning devices, currently in the form of laptop computers. A few leading schools are implementing one-to-one laptop learning initiatives. We are lease-purchasing a number of laptops for a fixed-price for each computer over a four-year period. Included in the per-computer price are the network connections, the wiring, the system servers, the operating systems and software that come pre-loaded on the laptops, training for the staff, and the consultants and technicians necessary for installation and implementation.

This month Auditor Vaudt began questioning how schools are spending their PPEL funds. While purchasing their laptops, schools are also acquiring these other devices and services. He questions if schools should continue to be allowed to implement laptops learning initiatives using PPEL funds. He also questions if schools already with laptop initiatives should be required to refund their PPEL funds from their general funds.

Here's the bottom line. Schools are following a past practice that has been acceptable for nearly two decades. School leaders and school boards are operating in full view of the public and with overwhelming support by our parents and patrons. Does it make sense that any school should only be allowed to purchase computers but not the software that makes them run, the infrastructure that allows them to connect, or the training for staff that makes them effective?

This is a serious threat to the future of education in Iowa. Iowa schools are being asked to get by with less funding this year and the next two years. And we should. Times are hard. But now is not the time to place more restrictions on school budgets. Technology is the future of our society and our 21st Century workplace. Technology literacy is a 21st Century skill both by common understanding as well as under Iowa Code. Our laws and our rules should be promoting and propagating the integration of technology into our classrooms, not setting up road blocks.

Whether it is by rule interpretation or legislative action, Iowa schools need to be allowed to use their technology funds for either a single piece of equipment or a "technology system."

1-to-1 Laptops are Changing Instruction

What if you were going to see a motion picture in 1931, but your local theater was only showing silent movies because it had not yet figured out how to operate the sound features for the new talking movies? As a customer, would you accept that level of service?

Flash forward eighty years. Students are sitting in a classroom, listening to a lecture, and watching the teacher reveal his notes on an overhead projector. Should these students accept this level of customer service?

One-to-one laptop computing is changing modern classrooms for the better because teachers cannot continue to maintain traditional methodology when their students can do a better job of teaching themselves.

In my last blog I mentioned some research findings that suggest that laptops can improve student achievement. Still the research is spotty. Schools that want to improve standardized test results should not look to one-to-one computing as a solution. However, that does not mean laptop learning is not making a difference in classrooms. Other research is suggesting other benefits, and they include the following:

• Bridging the digital divide between wealthier students with home computers and poorer students who cannot afford computers (Lemke & Martin, March 2004);
• Higher student motivation and engagement (Gulek & Demirtas, January 2005);
• Fewer behavior problems, and increased student attendance (Lemke & Martin, December 2003);
• Better class participation, and greater homework completion (Silvernail & Lane, February 2004);
• Computer trouble shooting skills for students (Fairman, 2004);
• Better parent involvement, interaction, and attendance at school, and greater technology literacy among parents (Lemke & Martin, May 2004); and
• Increased teacher recruitment, enthusiasm, and retention (Lemke & Martin, May 2004).

I have heard these findings confirmed by colleagues at schools that have implemented one-to-one laptop learning initiatives, and I have seen these borne out in my own school.

Moreover, one-to-one laptops are allowing students to learn and retain at higher levels. The difference laptops are making in learning can be explained using the Learning Pyramid from the National Training Laboratories in Bethel, Maine. The pyramid reveals how content retention is related to the methodology used by the teacher:

Average Retention Rates

• 5%       Lecture
• 10%     Reading
• 20%    Audio-Visual
• 30%    Demonstration
• 50%    Group Discussion
• 75%    Practice by Doing
• 90%    Teaching Others

Laptop learning changes the classroom dynamic from more traditional passive learning, i.e., lecture, reading, and audio-visuals, to the active learning of practice by doing and teaching others.

And it really does not matter if the teachers fully understand this. The students will demand this, . . . as good customers should.

How 1-to-1 Laptops Can Reform Education, Part I

First of all, any teacher who can be replaced by a machine had darn well better be, . . . and fast.

One-to-one computing in schools is not intended to be a solution. Technology will not reform education. A weak teacher will still be weak, even with powerful teaching tools. Laptop computers in the classroom do not automatically make a teacher better. None of these points have ever been argued as part of the conversation.

Admittedly, research is limited. It has only been within this decade that laptops were both powerful and affordable enough for schools to distribute them system-wide as part of a reform effort. Our best source is the state of Maine. Maine became the first state in the U.S. to issue laptop computers to every student in grades seven and eight. The Maine Learning Technology Initiative began with a vision of former Governor Angus King to prepare Maine’s students for a rapidly changing world. The theory was that a major transformation would happen only when student and teachers worked with technology on a one-to-one basis and that any other ratio would not produce the transformation everyone sought. The program began in September, 2002.

A study of student achievement in Maine conducted by Lemke and Martin in 2003 showed improved test scores in language arts, mathematics, and science. While one study is hardly conclusive, some smaller studies have also shown positive gains. For example, a study at Harvest Park Middle School in Pleasanton, California, showed that students with laptops score 6 to 13 percent higher in language arts and mathematics than peers without laptops (Gulek & Demirtas, January 2005).

Affecting the amount of data is the way instruction with computers is changing. In a more recent study from Maine, students who were taught to use animation and podcasts in the study of science “had a higher level of comprehension, a higher level of retention, and higher levels of engagement” (Berry & Wintle, 2009).

One of the greatest benefits may be in the teaching of writing skills. A recent study showed computer usage improved writing scores approximately 1/3 of a standard deviation. Twice as many students using laptops in the writing program met state proficiency standards (Silvernail, 2009).

This is just the first step: to integrate powerful teaching tools into the classroom. The real benefit lies in how these tools are utilized to change instruction. But that will have to wait for my next blog.

Put Technology in Classrooms but Not at the Expense of Kids

Many school leaders realize the world is changing with technology ubiquitous, and schools need to keep pace by providing learning environments rich with technological tools and on-line resources. But the conversation on the topic is increasingly difficult this year with school budgets under siege. Nearly every state in our union is laboring with how it can provide adequate funding for its schools.

Many recognize the significance of placing mobile research tools in the hands of students in a one-to-one, high-tech classroom environment. However, we struggle for how to do this when our funding is dwindling. In our rush to try to find a solution to these challenges, let us not forget that some of our students are suffering the worst during our nation's economic downturn.

Some schools, unable to raise the funds for one-to-one laptops, are looking at using the students' own cellular telephones in the classrooms. It seems that nearly every student has one, and sometimes those students whom you would least expect have the most sophisticated phones. But we cannot let these initial impressions confound us. Many families are struggling during this time. It is not a given that all students have cell phones and all can afford them. Some students stay very quiet because of their embarrassment that their families cannot afford such gadgets.

I believe firmly in the right of every child in the United States to a free public education. It is no longer free if there are daily user fees attached to devices the students must bring to class. There is a wide range of cell phones: from smart phones, to media phones where students pay data charges, down to track phones where students buy their minutes in advance and pay for every text message. Is it free if a student has to pay on a daily basis to participate in class?

Cell phones should be allowed in school. Our school allowed them early on, and our students have learned to use them appropriately. But cell phones are not the solution to our classroom technology needs.

1-to-1 Laptops Need Valid Reasons for Implementation

As the pedagogy of one-to-one laptop computers continues to grow at a geometric rate across the nation, two types of schools are emerging. The first type of school chooses to become a one-to-one laptop school for reasons which may include technology is the future of our world and our kids need to learn it, the school may be able to grow its enrollment with laptops for everyone, or other schools are going one-to-one so our school must also to keep pace.

The second type of school chooses laptops for their students because their teaching has advanced in the use of inquiry-based instruction, their classrooms are active learning centers, and they have shifted the center of gravity in their classrooms from the teacher at the front of the room to the students in the middle of the room. Laptops are the next natural progression as these schools develop their curriculum. These latter schools have reached a point  where they need to put powerful research tools into the hands of their kids in order to advance their instruction to the next higher level.

Technology is a siren song. We are attracted to the sounds, the action, and the information. We marvel at applications we never would have dreamed of a decade earlier. But technology only for the sake of technology is empty. It leads to accusations from the public that the students are distracted, they are wasting their time on games and chats, they are not learning the basics, or worse--the laptops rest in their bookbags while core instruction continues unchanged from years before.

Maybe you have heard the stories: the students rush into the classroom, pop open their laptops, and log on. Then the teacher enters and says, "Put those things away; we have work to do." It's happened.

One-to-one laptop initiatives should not be decided top down. It is imperative the teachers are part of the decision. The teachers must be on board from planning through implementation. There should also be an understanding of how instruction must change once the initiative is underway.

So lash yourselves to the mast. Resist the siren song of technology for technology's sake. And when ready, lay a clear course for a destination as a 21st Century school.

Teachers Must Let the Kids Lead with Computers

When the Sioux Central school board committed and voted in March 2010 to implement a one-to-one student laptop initiative in grades 4-12, the board turned to me as superintendent and said, "This has got to work! We cannot invest this much in tax dollars in this economy and tax climate for this to fail!"

I replied that it would work--that I had never seen such universal commitment on the part of an entire teaching faculty in my career. I said it cannot fail with this level of teacher commitment.

But for teachers to embrace this new methodology meant that all would have to change significantly in how they were delivering curriculum and directing students. One of the hardest aspects, we predicted, would be that the students would become competent with this new learning and these new machines at a much faster rate than the teachers. That's the nature of this generation. Teachers are used to being the experts--the sage on the stage. They have to be all right with the kids knowing more than them now.

I am happy to report this new instruction with a laptop for every single kid in our school, grades 4-12, is changing the way kids are learning. I am equally happy to report that our teachers are embracing this new instruction. Of course our teachers are on a continuum from the most comfortable and competent with new technology to those who face a challenge. However, some of our teachers least-skilled with computers are making some of the best uses of the laptops. I am delighted to say we have teachers who pose their essential questions and then turn the kids loose to find the answers on their own. The kids are sometimes finding answers and solving problems differently than teachers would have taught students in the past, but the work is getting done and the learning is taking place.

Key to this, we have to support our teachers taking risks and trying new things. We have to accept that teachers will make mistakes. They have to know the administration will trust them and support them, rather than second-guess them or chastise them. For one-to-one laptops to be effective, the teachers need to change the way they teach, and the administrators also need to change their oversight of the classrooms.

1 to 1 Laptops Close the Cell Phone Gap

Does not every school have an achievement gap somewhere among its demographics? I know we do. One of those gaps is between the middle class students and those socio-economically disadvantaged--of low socio-economic status (SES).

But there are different gaps between students that are generated by their family's earning potential. There may be a gap in student achievement, sure. There is also a gap in how students dress. And there's a distinct gap between students as shown by their competence and confidence using the latest technology. Nowhere is that gap more evident than students with their cellular telephones.

Although maybe not entirely determined by SES, on top there are the students with the smart phones. They have access to all the data plus really cool apps all day, all the time. Next come the multi-media phones, followed by the standard cell phones and track (pay-as-you-go) phones. Finally comes the huge gap between the haves and the have-nots with no cell phones at all.

When we became a one-to-one laptop school 4-12 this year, our initiative narrowed the technology gap and also the cell phone gap. Suddenly cell phones just are not quite as cool when every student has a much more powerful laptop always beside him/her. Students report far less use of cell phones at school, whether being used openly in the hallways or secretly in class.

Working to close the technology gap between the whole student body and the low SES students has been one of the more rewarding high points of my career.

Importance of 1:1 Laptop Teacher Development

We will know our one-to-one student laptop learning initiative is effective if we see a high degree of time on task on the computers in the classroom. Student utilization in the classroom is dependent on the extent to which teachers have accepted this new methodology of teaching. And teacher acceptance is primarily dependent upon the professional training we provide for our faculty. The research and the experience of predecessor schools strongly suggest this linear relationship.

At Sioux Central, our laptops arrived for teachers around May 1 of last spring (2010). We immediately issued them to teachers and then began in-house training on how to use the new devices--the operating system, word processing, spreadsheets, etc. Fortunately, we had a handful of teachers who already owned Macintosh computers and were familiar with the operating system. We held weekly training meetings through the end of the year.

When the school year ended, we contracted with Apple Computers to provide two full days of training for our teachers. It was expensive, but it was a high-quality learning experience. Evaluations completed by our teachers after the training showed me some of the highest teacher marks I have seen in my career.

Our teachers kept their new laptops over the summer, learning more about the machines and developing their lesson plans for the fall. The week before the August teacher workshop began, we brought back Apple trainers for an encore of two more days of training. We took our teachers’ skills to an even high level as we focused on how to integrate technology into daily instruction.

When August workshop began, we emphasized technology in our training and provided our teachers with further skills on how to use our district web site for classroom instruction. So our teachers received a good, solid foundation of computer training before the students received their laptops and before the first day of class. I am happy to report that our faculty started working immediately, and we have been moving in greased grooves since.

Technology and Teacher as Leaders

At Sioux Central, our teachers were key to implementing our one-to-one laptop initiative. They were the leaders who got our program going and who are responsible for the success of this initiative to date.

Last winter, we used our professional development time for teachers to travel to other schools and observe laptop instruction in action. We had teachers observing in the classrooms of the leading laptop schools in Iowa such as Newell-Fonda, BCLUW, Sidney, South Hamilton, and Van Meter. When our teachers reached consensus that laptops were needed at Sioux Central in order to further our instructional aims, it was a delegation of teachers who presented to the school board and made the sales pitch as to why we needed these teaching tools.

The research on laptop instruction indicates that schools need to fully utilize the devices for a laptop initiative to be successful. Central to utilization, is teacher acceptance of the new methodology and the willingness to change.

This is a big change in instruction. Laptops should not be just a new way to take notes during a lecture or fill out forms on-line instead of blanks on a paper worksheet. The laptops need to be research tools that allow students to find the information, break it down into terms they can use, and then re-assemble the information in a new form of their own. This is known among educators as the learning process of synthesis, and it is among the highest orders of thinking and learning skills.

It is the teachers who must challenge the status quo for traditional instruction, so they need to be central to any discuss and decisions for any school implementing a laptop program among its students.

Technology to Facilitate Inquiry Learning

Educational fads seem to come and go, and then they sometimes come back around again. However, at Sioux Central we do not view our one-to-one laptop initiative as an educational fad. For us it grew organically from the work we have been doing the past four years.

Sioux Central had the first charter school in the state of Iowa earlier in this decade. It was an innovative elementary, separate, but within our same elementary building. The students had no textbooks. Instead, the students all had laptops and explored subjects using inquiry learning.

When the charter school funding dried up, we dropped the charter concept, not because it did not work, but rather because we did not need charter status to do what we were doing. We recognized the power of the inquiry learning the students were doing, and we decided to integrate the instructional concept throughout all grade levels. When the Iowa Core Curriculum came into being with its emphasis on inquiry learning, we at Sioux Central felt we were already ahead of the curve.

The most important part of inquiry learning is putting the questions to the students and letting the students find the answers. As of last winter, we believed we had reached a point in our development of inquiry-based learning that we needed more powerful resources and research tools to take our instruction to a high level.

So for us, laptop instruction is not a fad. It is a natural extension of what we have been doing the last four years. There may be some schools that are going one-to-one in response to other schools that are already doing it. But for Sioux Central, it was a necessary and logical progression in our curricular development.