[Yr7-10it] RE: Year 7-10 IT structures

Tue Oct 23 13:44:35 EST 2007

hi Cameron,

The OLPC has wireless mesh networking and a new user interface (sugar) based
on a community metaphor, which invites extensive collaboration with each
child having their own laptop. In that respect (and some others) OLPC is
superior to its new low price rivals from Intel etc.
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/05/community-user-interface.html

If each child owns the laptop then that open up potential for home use - as
well as the clearly important "sense of personal ownership"

I agree with you that if the laptops are introduced and teachers keep to
their old techniques and lesson plans then its not going to work very well
at all

That is sort of the point of this discussion - where would / should it lead?

Papert has argued for years that maths could be transformed with one laptop
per child but that it doesn't  work with other ratios. The pencil argument,
it would be poor education to chain up pencils in a lab or to insist on
sharing of pencils

As you say:
The laptop struggles to break out from being a glorified word-processor,
file storage and email client to the off the shelf tool that gets used as
needed, to develop a solution for the problem at hand.

With OLPC the laptop does or should develop or appear to develop some sort
of agency of its own, it demands to be used in new and different ways - are
the teachers up to it?

btw I attended a conference at Methodist Ladies College (Melbourne) in circa
1980 when every child  had a laptop and they were using logo extensively
(David Loader was the Principal).

Your points about forcing collaboration are interesting and I'd like to hear
more about the tool you mention that facilitates a process whereby students
"produce work that reflects their own knowledge, not the groups knowledge"

I'm wary of formalising collaboration in an institutional sense. I think
learners have the right to choose their time and place for collaboration.
When setting up groups I often do permit a group of one.  I'm aware of one
very good educational blogger who has been arguing this for some time:
blog of proximal development
http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/
(I will dig up some of his posts about this particular topic if you want)

cheers,
-- 
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/

On 10/23/07, Cameron Bell <bell.cameron.p at edumail.vic.gov.au> wrote:
>
>  But Bill, lots and lots of schools have implemented laptop programs -
> some for many years now. We have found that you don't need one laptop per
> child - in fact, I believe that insisting each child having their own laptop
> can stifle pedagogical progress. When each child has their own laptop or
> they are working in a lab, the teacher is generally just using the same
> teaching techniques and lesson plans they always have, insisting on personal
> work, students working in isolation (communicating, but in isolation) with
> the whole class doing the same activity at the same time. The laptop
> struggles to break out from being a glorified word-processor, file storage
> and email client to the off the shelf tool that gets used as needed, to
> develop a solution for the problem at hand.
> We have run with a one-between-two program here for the past couple of
> years (I was skeptical as I had just come from a 1-1 school) and apart from
> a couple of dedicated labs, we now deliberately aim for one-between-two for
> all our technology infrastructure. It means students *must* collaborate as
> teams on producing work and we are being forced to develop methods for
> students to be able to collaborate- but then produce work that reflects
> their own knowledge, not the groups knowledge. It's tricky but I have found
> a very useful little tool that enables that to happen in my classes and the
> rest of the staff have adapted too! Some of us are creating digital
> portfolios, this requires group prac work, but individual reflections. How
> do you do this with one-between-two? You are forced to examine individual
> learning plans, multiple lesson plans within a lesson, rather than the
> one-size-fits-all approach that we have always done. (Primaries have done
> this for years!) While 1/2 the class use the laptops for part of an
> activity, the other 1/2 are doing another part. For us, this is also
> essential to break up a 72 min period and help keep the students focussed.
> One between two is cheaper too!  ;-)
> Cheers
> Cameron
>
> Bill Kerr wrote:
>
> There is a large elephant in the room that no one has referred to so far:
> the OLPC
>
> The one laptop per child non profit project not only plans to deliver
> millions of laptops to third world children but has also become a hand
> grenade in the commercial world - and has succeeded in forcing down the
> price of other laptops now on offer
>
> "... the whole global mind-think around technology has changed.
>
> No longer is low cost computing in education a fantasy, no longer are big
> technology companies secondary, and everyone wants to sell technology into
> classrooms. Intel introduced Classmate PC<http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/brazil/olpc_classmate_mobilis.html>to Brazil, Asustek is selling
> Eee PC's<http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/intel/negroponte_100_laptop_asus.html>in the USA, and even thin-client manufactures compare
> themselves to OLPC<http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/competition/stephen_dukker_anti_olpc_campaign.html>
> ."
>
> http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/countries/sales_inhibiting_xo_distribution.html
> How will schools and education departments in the wealthy west react to
> the fact that in a few years we will have the capability for every child to
> have their own laptop?
>
> Will we treat them like mobile phones and ban them or try to figure out a
> way to utilise them for optimal educational development?
>
> The use and misuse of computers in schools has up until now been based
> around the idea that computers mainly belong in labs and / or that access is
> limited. The fact of limited access has acted as a powerful brake for many
> teachers not to extend their knowledge much beyond the basics.
>
> Most (all?) of the maths curriculum could be taught using laptops. In fact
> MIT produced a series of books in the 80s for teaching much of maths and
> aspects of language and art using logo.
>
> Shouldn't we factor this potential into the discussion? If we are talking
> about the future it might be incorrect to assume that the pattern of
> distribution of computers in schools will remain similar to the present.
>
> --
> Bill Kerr
> http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
>  http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
>  http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
> Authority and
>  http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers
> Association Inc
>
> *Important - *This email and any attachments may be confidential. If
> received in error, please contact us and delete all copies. Before opening
> or using attachments check them for viruses and defects. Regardless of any
> loss, damage or consequence, whether caused by the negligence of the sender
> or not, resulting directly or indirectly from the use of any attached files
> our liability is limited to resupplying any affected attachments. Any
> representations or opinions expressed are those of the individual sender,
> and not necessarily those of the Department of Education and Early Childhood
> Development.
> _______________________________________________
>  http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe
> Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by
>  http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
> Authority and
>  http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers
> Association Inc
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.edulists.com.au/pipermail/yr7-10it/attachments/20071023/70e03678/attachment.html