Over the past two weeks, students in Ms. Wild's third grade class have been participating in a 1:1 laptop pilot program in collaboration with Apple Japan. Under the pilot program, each student in the class has been provided with a brand new Apple laptop to use for a period of three months. After getting used to the new laptops in the classroom and learning how to properly care for them, students will also be able to use them for doing school work at home.
Since unwrapping their new computers in a flurry of excitement on January 12th (one student commented: "It's like Christmas!"), the students have been learning to use various applications available on the laptops, including Photo Booth, Safari, and Garageband.
Click here to see a short video with some scenes of the 1:1 pilot program in action. In the coming weeks the students will be using iWork 09 and some Web 2.0 services under the supervision of Ms. Wild and Elementary ICT Facilitator Christine Usyak, who has been coordinating the 1:1 project.
Ms. Wild has been recording happenings in the classroom on her blog, which is shared with the children and their parents. An information session was also held for families of the students in the class to discuss what a 1:1 environment is, the implications of 1:1 on student learning, and how families can support learning with technology at home.
YIS currently uses a shared IT resource system, with sets of laptops stored in movable storage carts and available to be brought into the classroom on an as-needed basis for activities that require their use. Including desktop computers in the library and other locations, the school has nearly 500 computers in total, so access to computers for scheduled classroom activities is rarely a problem. On the other hand, under the shared resource model, access to computers is limited to certain lesson times during the day. This may affect how quickly and extensively students pick up computer skills, as well as limit the extent to which teachers can utilize 21st century technologies in their lessons. In addition, some students find it inconvenient to have to switch between the shared computers used at school and the computers they use at home.
For these and other reasons, in recent years many schools have adopted 1:1 computer programs, citing benefits including increased teacher and student use of technology across the curriculum, increased student engagement and motivation, and improved teacher-student interactions. According to the
One-to-One Institute: "One-to-one learning provides every student and teacher access to his or her own personal portable technology in a wireless environment allowing students to learn at their own pace and ability levels. The concept has rapidly gained momentum, worldwide, as a key to transforming education and better preparing students to succeed in a global marketplace. In the one-to-one classroom, students' access to personal technology and the Internet enables them to be self-directed and receive highly personalized instruction.... At the same time, they gain valuable 21st century skills that will be beneficial throughout their lives and careers."
"One of the school's stated aims is to integrate technology as a meaningful and effective part of the educational process," notes YIS Headmaster Simon Taylor. "The 1:1 laptop pilot program with Apple Japan will help us to evaluate options for achieving this aim -- and be a lot of fun for our third graders in the process."
