Netbooks: We are making the same mistake again.. and again.. and again.

Elliot: We have seen this movie before.
Cathie: It was a bad movie then and it hasn’t gotten any better with age.
Elliot: Folks, we are speaking of the new wave of districts rolling out thousands of netbooks without an educational plan.
Cathie: For example, at NECC 2009 in Washington DC last week, we talked to a curriculum-tech specialist who shook his head in disbelief when he talked about his superintendent demanding that 7,000 netbooks – and several thousand electronic white boards – be rolled out in all in September 2009 and all without a pedagogical plan.
Elliot: His story wasn’t the only one; we heard versions of this story every day of the conference. Haven’t we learned anything from the past?
Cathie: The New York Times documented the failure of previous laptop rollouts.
Elliot: May 4, 2007 – Laptop’s Pearl Harbor Day – front page of the New York Times. At least it was below the fold.
Cathie: Laptop’s Pearl Harbor Day? A bit over the top, Elliot.
Elliot: Not really! Since K12 clearly has not learned from its past mistakes, I feel we must raise awareness – somehow.
Cathie: It’s disconcerting that districts are repeating the mistakes of previous 1:1 laptop rollouts – but this time they are just substituting netbooks.
Elliot: Simply putting a computer in the hands of students is not necessarily going to lead to the desired impact: increases in students’ performance.
Cathie: The New York Times article identified three mistakes that previous 1:1 laptop rollouts made. (1) There was no educational software on the laptops – just the productivity suite that came preloaded on the devices. (2) There was no professional development for teachers other than to show the teachers how to turn on the computers and use the productivity suite. (3) Schools were surprised at the significant effort – and dollars – involved in maintaining laptops; school budgets were overwhelmed and emptied in order to pay for broken keyboards, hard drives, and screens as well as replacement batteries. 
Elliot: And we are doing it again; where is the PD to help teachers take their 2 foot high stack of paper-and-pencil curriculum and transform it into lessons appropriate for a netbook? And schools think that that there is not going to be any cost to sustaining those netbooks; boy will they be surprised – again.
Cathie: What about that dirty secret – the significant costs involved in developing and maintaining a wireless network that can support a 1:1 deployment.
Elliot: Yes, such a wireless network is an order of magnitude more sophisticated than the one needed to support a few teacher laptops and a few carts of laptops.
Cathie: Time to stop the rant.
Elliot: Oh when will they learn; oh when will they ever learn?
Cathie: Please, spare us your rendition of Peter, Paul and Mary.
Elliot: You recognized it; I must not have been that off-key.
Cathie: I read the words you goof; you can’t hear singing in a blog.
Elliot: Picky, picky.

Comments

[Ann Cohen]

You are SO RIGHT!

[Rob]

Being a teacher, I was sadly aware how true Cathy's comments were. I received a computers without educational software, 32 ram, and with 32 gigs of hard drive. It didn't take long before Microsoft's updates helped fill up the hard-drive. I had to purchase with my own money educational software, Microsoft Office Pro 2007, an 300 external hard-drive and extra ram. Since it was my purchase, no tech support was given. Luckily, I had enough knowledge to easily install and connect all these things, but a simple install of ram is not easy for most teachers. No training is given on how to use the equipment for children. It is up to the individual teachers to figure out how to use this with their students. Many just take attendance and read email. Sad at a multimedia school. I wish that school boards were contacted and given this information. I did send this link to my own district, but so much money is wasted with good intentions and the potential of how technology could be used to teach students.

[CHUNG WT]

Hi Cathie and Elliot,

Long time no see on the Web. Since in the coming semester we will try to teach some mobile learning sharing session in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I get back to check for your full names. Do you have to time to exchange emails of our course planners to enhance their local teacher training courses? Just write me email if you are interested.

It is sad to read the above stories. Again and again all around the world. We suffered for ten years and now we try to build the things by ourself, one by one instead of waiting for the Educational department. Try to think possitively, maybe there is still a way out. All the best!

WT (the guy shaking his cellphone in the school hall)
Pui Ching Middle School, HK