This YouTube video has 10 tips for using tech­nol­ogy in the class­room.  Although the list doesn’t encom­pass every­thing, there are some great rec­om­men­da­tions.

“The stereo­typ­i­cal library is dying — and it’s tak­ing its shush­ing ladies, dank smell and end­less shelves of books with it.

Libraries are try­ing to imag­ine their futures with or with­out books.  Books are being pushed aside for dig­i­tal learn­ing cen­ters and gam­ing areas.”-CNN

More and more schools have moved from tra­di­tional libraries to inter­ac­tive media cen­ters.  Some schools have went so far as to replace most of their books with dig­i­tal versions.

I am a bit skep­ti­cal about a total depar­ture from tra­di­tional libraries, but I also can see huge advan­tages to schools that incor­po­rate the best of the old and new.  It will be inter­est­ing to see the results from those schools that have made the huge leap to a totally dig­i­tal media cen­ter.  I am curi­ous to hear what 1 to 1 schools out there have done with their media cen­ters.  Please feel free to leave com­ments and let us know what your school is doing!

Den­ver Pub­lic Schools just named Den­ver School of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy (DSST) as the top school in the city.  DSST, which pro­vides lap­tops to all stu­dents, has seen some very impres­sive results.  100 per­cent of DSST’s first senior class were accepted into four year col­leges, and from 2005–2007 DSST was the only Col­orado high school to earn an “Excel­lent” per­for­mance rat­ing and “Sig­nif­i­cant Improve­ment” growth rat­ing on state report cards.  43 per­cent of DSST grad­u­ates are now pur­su­ing fields in sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy which is about triple the national average. 

With those amaz­ing sta­tis­tics, I was curi­ous what type of stu­dent pop­u­la­tion attended DSST.  The school’s web­site pro­vided the fol­low­ing statistics:

• 45% of DSST stu­dents are eco­nom­i­cally disadvantages
• 60% of DSST stu­dents are His­panic, or African American
• 50% of DSST stu­dents are first gen­er­a­tion col­lege bound
• Most of stu­dents enter DSST at least one grade level behind in math and English

Wow!  That last sta­tis­tic really jumps out at me.  The school’s prin­ci­pal cred­its pas­sion­ate teach­ers and the fact that every stu­dent gets to take home a lap­top for the schools’ achieve­ments.  Good teach­ing has long been rec­og­nized as a fac­tor to stu­dent suc­cess.  It is some­thing that schools spend lots of time, resources, and energy devel­op­ing.  How many schools have made that same com­mit­ment to tech­nol­ogy in their schools?

Read More:  http://bit.ly/2Q4VEy

As I was recently brows­ing Teacher Tube, I found a very humor­ous and insight­ful pre­sen­ta­tion by Don McMil­lan about Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tions.  Many pre­sen­ters and teach­ers assume that sim­ply because they use Pow­er­Point their pre­sen­ta­tions will improve.  As all of us can attest, that sim­ply isn’t true.  Every­one has sat through count­less pre­sen­ta­tions in which Pow­er­Point actu­ally hurts the pre­sen­ta­tion.  I have recently read  Pre­sen­ta­tionZen, and I would strongly rec­om­mend that read to any­one who would like to improve their presentations.

There is cur­rently a debate by some edu­ca­tors over whether lap­tops truly engage stu­dents in their work or dis­tract stu­dents from focus­ing.  TechTicker had a very inter­est­ing post­ing in April deal­ing with that issue.  In the post, there was an exam­ple of a stu­dent who was using Face­book dur­ing a lec­ture.  The stu­dent made the com­ment, “Dude this guy is painful.”  Although the stu­dent wasn’t using his lap­top cor­rectly, it is pretty obvi­ous that the instruc­tor wasn’t engag­ing that student. 

Many peo­ple see these dis­trac­tions that lap­tops pro­vide as a major rea­son that stu­dents should not have lap­tops in class.  I ques­tion how lap­tops are dif­fer­ent than any other dis­trac­tion when a teacher is bor­ing.  I, like many oth­ers, have sat through many classes in which I have been totally off task with­out hav­ing a com­puter.  I have doo­dled, passed notes, talked with my neigh­bor, day­dreamed, and a host of other things that I won’t go into today.  Obvi­ously, the prob­lem isn’t the laptop. 

In the same post, Richard Buck­land is used as an exam­ple of what can hap­pen when a teacher uses tech­nol­ogy to enhance his lec­tures.  He uses wikis in his les­son to keep stu­dents engaged through­out his classes.  There is also a great video on the link that has Richard talk­ing about his instruc­tion.  This is a great resource if you or your teach­ers want to bet­ter use wikis in classes.

I recently had the chance to inter­view Van Meter super­in­ten­dent John Carver.  John was asked why his school became a 1 to 1 school, and also about the effect that lap­tops have had on his stu­dents thus far.  If you have an inter­est in becom­ing a 1 to 1 school, John is a great resource and he would be happy to speak with you!  Take a look at the video!

In August, 2009, Com­mon Sense Media pub­lished some inter­est­ing sta­tis­tics from a national poll about teen behav­iors while using social net­works.  Those sta­tis­tics are listed at the bot­tom of this post­ing. It is obvi­ous to any­one who spends any time with teens, that social net­work­ing has become a big part of their social lives.  It is used as a very quick and easy way to con­nect with friends and make new friends.

There are also prob­lems that arise with social net­work­ing.  Those prob­lems rou­tinely carry over into our schools.  As schools move to the 1 to 1 ini­tia­tive, they must be sure to edu­cate their stu­dents about dig­i­tal cit­i­zen­ship.  Giv­ing stu­dents lap­tops is no dif­fer­ent than let­ting them use a cir­cu­lar saw in indus­trial tech­nol­ogy in some ways.  Before we would ever think of let­ting a stu­dent loose on a saw, there is lots of train­ing and safety tests that take place.  A lap­top should be no different!

-    22% of teens check social net­work­ing sites more than 10 times a
day, while only 4% of par­ents believe      kids are check­ing that much
-   
51% of teens check social net­work­ing sites more than once a day, while
only 23% of par­ents say their      kids check more than once a day
-    28% have shared per­sonal infor­ma­tion that they nor­mally wouldn’t have shared in pub­lic
-    25% have shared a pro­file with a false iden­tity
-    39% have posted some­thing they regret­ted
-    26% have pre­tended to be some­one else online
-    54% have joined an online com­mu­nity or Facebook/MySpace group in sup­port of a cause
-    34% have vol­un­teered for a cam­paign, non­profit, or charity

On Mon­day I had the chance to inter­view Justin Bathon who is an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky and  an Asso­ciate Direc­tor for CASTLE.  Justin’s blog The Edjurist is a very pop­u­lar edu­ca­tional law blog.

I asked Justin what he sees as the top legal issues fac­ing 1 to 1 schools today.  Please take a minute to view his response, and I would also rec­om­mend tak­ing a look at his blog.  As we con­tinue to con­front legal issues as edu­ca­tional lead­ers, this is hope­fully another resource that you will find valu­able.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out Tech & Learn­ing, I would strongly rec­om­mend that you take a look.  The site has lots of help­ful con­tent such as best prac­tices, webi­nars, tech forum, resources, and more.  One inter­est­ing arti­cle is a check list for schools that are look­ing to become a 1 to 1 school, or 1 to 1 schools that are look­ing to improve.

As we try to move for­ward in edu­ca­tion, many edu­ca­tors have dif­fi­culty “turn­ing the page” on the past.  The ways that they learned and have taught have been extremely suc­cess­ful for them.  This hur­dle has been dif­fi­cult to get past, and may be a major rea­son that edu­ca­tion has been rel­a­tively unchanged for decades.  Our class­rooms, schools, and sched­ules today look almost iden­ti­cal to the way they looked 50 years ago.  The prob­lem with that approach is that our stu­dents and our world have changed dras­ti­cally in the past 50 years.

In order to move for­ward, we have got to teach edu­ca­tors a bet­ter way.  Many edu­ca­tors are very eager and will­ing to use tech­nol­ogy when they are pro­vided with ade­quate sup­port and time to learn.  On the other hand, when we throw things at teach­ers too quickly the push back is quite strong.  I can speak from expe­ri­ence on that one!  This video is a great exam­ple of the push back that we see too often when an indi­vid­ual is pro­vided with new tech­nol­ogy and no train­ing.  Enjoy!