Thinking Allowed.

A colleague of mine just passed this article on from the Associated Press (through the Post-Gazette). I recommend reading the short article, but in case you don’t, here’s the gist: Laptops in classrooms are engaging students and supported by teachers in Pennsylvania as part of their “Classrooms of the Future” program.

And why is it working in Red Land High School when the NY Times tells us it isn’t working in Liverpool, NY?

Pennsylvania’s program places special emphasis on training teachers to use the technology and know how to incorporate it into their lesson plans, Ballen said.

Note the focus on training teachers. I posted on this need just the other day in my response to the NY Times article.

“They have laptops at home, iPods, cell phones … and then we have them open up a social-studies textbook and ask them to outline a chapter,” [Superintendent] Frantz said. “They’re not learning the way they’re living.”

The same article goes on to say that conservative lawmakers are resisting growth of the program in order to further analyze results. Fair enough, but again, should they also look at what makes a common sense idea work, as well as judging a program on poor execution (like in Liverpool)?

I plan on writing more on the idea of laptops for school use, but not to take home the way they do in the 1:1 scheme. More on that in the next post. Just wanted to get this article out there.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 10:13 am and is filed under 21st century learner, Curriculum, Web 2.0, pedagogy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.