Journal #1 Taking Laptops Schoolwide/ Nets-T 5

Green, T, Donovan, L, & Bass, K. (2010). Taking laptops schoolwide: a professional learning community approach. Learning and leading with technology, 38(1), Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading

ED 422 Journal #1 “Taking Laptops Schoolwide” evaluated by Brittani MacKenzie

NETS-5

“Taking Laptops School Wide” encourages integration within multiple grade levels. To incorporate laptops in the classroom, the author presents several guidelines teachers and staff must think about and execute in order to be successful. I liked the idea by Richard Du Four, who created the Professional Learning Community where teachers look at their jobs as learning rather than teaching. An interesting idea of using websites as books and learning tools for homework is a design I would love to incorporate in my classroom!

There were four main areas of concentration the author presented to make sure teachers who incorporate laptops are doing it well and efficiently. First, school climate must encourage integration; this means that the administration, parents and community are all on board with laptops and technology style learning. Second, communication was brought up which seems so conventional, but the way they proposed teachers communicate with students and parents was with a webpage for the class, how cool. The third and fourth areas presented were collaboration and progress, it is important to have formal participation with teachers, and it is also valuable to create a structure for the use of laptops.

Question#1: How will laptops be funded for the classrooms?

Answer#1: Since technology is becoming a big part of our education and society today, there are fees able netbooks available. Think about the amount of money we spend on students having 6 plus books, we could possibly save money, paper, and time by providing our students with 1 piece of technology that has all necessary material for their grade level.

Question#2: Will all teaching and learning outside of technology be completely excluded? If not, at what level is it incorporated?

Answer#2: No, there are still several different things to learn in school and life that don’t involve computers or technology. For example, cursive, a talked about subject that many schools are starting to take out of the curriculum. In my opinion, cursive is very important to still be taught in the classroom, not only does it teach a student precision, and patience, it is also necessary for everyday life, ie. Writing bank checks.