Summary
Can you imagine laptops in the hands of every student and every teacher? Well, Roberta Furger’s article “Laptops for All: Using Technology to Go Beyond Traditional Curriculum” talks about just that. Furger reviews how the academy Moth Hall in New York Pioneer a program that involved all students and teachers using laptops. The school had taught academics in fairly traditional approach until 1996 when a class of fifth grade started the program that spread throughout the whole school by 1999. Since using laptops, teachers had to rethink how they would apply them in the classroom and develop policies for student use, safety, and repair/maintenance. Teachers decided that to make the most out of the laptops within their teaching, they must fit the technology into the curriculum and showcase student work through portfolios and project-based learning. The program has been highly successful and gains in student’s achievement have been seen. Similar programs are cropping up around the New York Community School District.
Review
The equity problems faced by students in terms of access to technology more than solved with this program. I believe that with the project-based learning students are not seeing the use of technology as an unrelated part of learning but essential to it. The program has helped to develop and maintain students generalization of content areas while engaging them in the ever-changing digital world. I do see however that explicit instruction would need to been given on an ongoing basis so that students do not only see they laptops as expensive toys.
Furger, R. (2001). Laptops for all: using technology to go beyond traditional curriculum. Edutopia, Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/laptops-all
No comments:
Post a Comment