This whole 1 to 1 education move that is happening with technology is going great with students being able to be on a device in the classroom or working from home. There are many benefits to the classroom but some negatives starting with behaviour. If the teacher does not demo or have the proper management of these classes then the classroom turns into an app war. For a first year teacher that is not very app-etizing and we need to teach these students to use these devices.
Another benefit for these devices is all the programs and tools you can use to make assignments and the teacher does not have to book a computer lab to do this. The teacher might have to help teach/learn on how to work these new programs for modifying a picture or making a podcast. I really like this movement and that we are slowly changing our assessments. However, I would be curious on to know how much time this takes to do podcast/videos in the classroom vs the old assessment. I have got a chance to teach in a 1 to 1 but they were just starting up and kind of all over the place. The major downside I see to this is getting rid of the computer labs because I teach GIS which tablets can't handle the program and I need a desktop for the software. Therefore, I might not be able to teach GIS to students because of the 1 to 1 unless the students all got laptops.
Interesting thoughts David, I also was a bit concerned about the getting rid of computer labs altogether. There are a lot of career options that can spark a students passion that require a computer to handle the programs. Coding, graphic designs, GIS, MATlab, R, etc. are really neat programs that schools should have the possibility of offering, at least.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the 1-1 will lessen the importance of attendance? If a student is able to achieve the outcomes without being in class should we worry about them? This would be largely a university-undergrad-setup where the learning is in the responsibility of the learner. You've mentioned the Cloud in other posts - if a teacher puts up all their info and has digital-assessments could we start to make attendance optional, maybe only in a highschool (grade 12?) setting?
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