What Happens When 10 Laptops Show Up

When 10 laptops show up in your classroom, it changes things. Although this has been a slow blogging year for us (concentrating on other kinds of connections), when 10 laptops show up in your classroom, you have over 25 new posts in two days. When 10 laptops show up in your classroom, you have kids sitting beside each other helping each other out with a new interface and getting hooked up to wireless signals. Kids take renewed interest in their iGoogle accounts because now they have the time on a regular basis to read and look for new sources of information. When 10 laptops show up, the section of your wiki you have been working on (ancient Egypt) gets hammered with over a hundred edits in two school days.

Changes are still to come. We need to learn how to integrate them and make them a seamless part of our learning. But it is pretty cool to watch kids walk down the hallway with a small black box under their arm and look for a place with a strong wireless signal so they can best finish up a blog post.

Tags: asuseee, classroom, laptops, learning

Comments

[John Schinker]

Clarence,

Thanks for sharing the enthusiasm. We're just trying out some of the eeePCs in our district, but don't have enough of them yet to build the kind of critical mass you're seeing. Still, lots of people are excited about them.

We're also building a wiki to document our experience with them at http://www.bbhcsd.org/tech/wiki/index.php?title=LittleLaptops#Links_and_Resources

[Kevin H]

Thanks for sharing and reporting out. It's an valuable glimpse inside your classroom. I imagine the push towards cheaper but still powerful machines may open up more classrooms (if the firewalls don't shut them down first, of course)
Kevin

[Julie Lindsay]

The power of being mobile....the ubiquity will come. I am excited for your class!

[Monica]

Thanks so much for this (and for your wiki, John). We currently have very elderly Alphasmarts for every one of our fourth graders (five sections) and two laptop carts (with class sets of Macbooks)and are considering whether to upgrade to these.

My main concern is that they will not stifle creative teaching. That is, I'm sure they will work MUCH better than the Alphas, but we also do some very cool projects with the laptops and I'd hate to see kids and teachers cut back because these aren't as easy to use for these sorts of projects. (E.g. movie, comics, and other such things.) What do you think?

I also was interested in how they compared to the XO, but they seem (from what I've read) to have a slight edge.

[Clarence Fisher]

Thanks for your thoughts all on these little machines. Thanks for the link to the wiki, it looks like an excellent space and one I will remember. The idea of these machines in my classroom is that they are a pilot project. We are working all of the kinks out of them, documenting everything that works, what doesn't and what we would like to see. From our work, the division is planning on making some changes and then rolling out these little labs into other schools. It's only been two days, we will see what a few weeks will bring!

[Teresa Nowell]

I used to think that using laptops in the classroom would first stimulate students to learn and do more with schoolwork. But then, I thought, the excitement and newness of the technology would die down, and with that, the students' enthusiasm for learning.

I have been noticing, though, that those assumptions are proving incorrect. Students seem to enjoy computers in class, and not get sick of it! Others’ experiences and stories like yours have really shown me that students have been waiting for schools to catch up with our culture of technology. Thanks so much for sharing how laptops have boosted the enthusiasm of your students.

[Matt Cronin]

Clarence, I got an EeePC a month ago. I've now ordered 5 more for the classroom. I can't wait to see what the kids do with them.

[Mike]

It is nice to see teachers who try to make teaching more interesting and embrace technology. As the case of the laptops show students really do like new technologies. It would be really nice to see all school have laptops that are accessible to students. Students can learn so much in a short period of time when using certain programs and learning tools that computers offer. I really believe that if we use technology to the fullest and spend money to help improve this in schools students will have the highest academic advantage.

[AJ]

Technology is growing and growing. I think there will be more and more computers in classrooms every year until every student has a laptop. A day will come when all classes are taught through computers. Each teacher could have there own website with links, homework, quizzes, etc. I think this is a great idea and will definitely improve the education system. Computers could allow students to work at their pace and work on what they need help on most. I also feel that it will raise the interest levels in class. It is cool for kids to walk down the hallway with their laptop looking for a place with a strong wireless signal. This is just something schools are going to have to deal with and I think the time for these changes are getting closer every day. Teachers, students, administrators, parents and schools as a whole will be effected by technology.