Feb­ru­ary and March are hotbeds of activ­ity for state and national edu­ca­tion and tech­nol­ogy con­fer­ences. Next week I’ll be at both ends of the U.S. at two con­fer­ences of inter­est to 1:1 schools.

NAIS is the National Asso­ci­a­tion of Inde­pen­dent Schools annual con­fer­ence. Pri­vate schools have been on the fore­front of the lap­top move­ment both in the US and around the world. The 2010 con­fer­ence is in San Fran­cisco Feb 24–26,  and I’ll be there with the Con­struc­tivist Con­sor­tium. This is a group of small com­pa­nies who pro­mote con­struc­tivist use of soft­ware in schools for cre­ativ­ity and student-centered learn­ing. We’ll be at booth 239 — come by and say hello!

PETE&C is the Penn­syl­va­nia state tech­nol­ogy con­fer­ence held annu­ally in Her­shey, PA. Yes, that Her­shey, and yes, it does smell like choco­late! Run­ning Feb 24–27, this con­fer­ence has many ses­sions devoted to lap­tops and 1:1 schools. Pennsylvania’s edu­ca­tion reform pro­gram, Class­rooms for the Future (CFF) has cre­ated a strong net­work of educator-coaches who sup­port inno­v­a­tive pro­grams statewide. Build­ing inter­nal lead­er­ship like this is a ter­rific idea, and Penn­syl­va­nia is cer­tainly reap­ing the ben­e­fits of invest­ing in their own people.

At PETE&C, I’ll be doing a ses­sion on Feb 23 on stu­dent lead­er­ship and dig­i­tal cit­i­zen­ship — if you are going to PETE&C I hope you’ll stop by.

Stu­dent lead­er­ship is some­thing that 1:1 schools can greatly ben­e­fit from. The guid­ing prin­ci­ple of putting power into stu­dent hands can be both con­crete (actu­ally hand­ing them equip­ment) and abstract (giv­ing them respon­si­bil­ity and agency over their learn­ing). Both sup­port each other, and schools that give stu­dents respon­si­bil­ity and guide them as they learn to use it gain so much. Stu­dents who believe that they have a stake in their own edu­ca­tion will con­tribute to the effort to make edu­ca­tion bet­ter for all. Schools can take this 1:1 empow­er­ment to heart and help cre­ate the cit­i­zens, learn­ers, and lead­ers we need in the world.

So I hope I meet some of you “1:1 Schools Blog” read­ers in Her­shey or San Fran­cisco — Scott tells us there are actu­ally read­ers out there and I believe him!

Sylvia Mar­tinez
Gen­er­a­tion YES