David Warlick posted some thoughts by students at a conference where he was presenting (and they were as well). Here are some of their thoughts:
"Kids were asked about the Maine Laptop initiative. One said that
when the grades when on line, it turned a lot of kids around — that is
their parents turned them around.Question: What do you think teachers should know and know how to do,
in order to work — facilitate learning in a laptop classroom?
- do not correct kids for doing things on their laptops that they are
already doing. Not talking about inappropriate web sites, but skills.
Do not ignore the skills that we already have.- Keep an open mind to the tech skills that we already have.
- be willing to learn along with us… We might teach you some things.
- Do not teach teachers how to use technology. Let the students teach them!"
I am a little confused about the first bullet–don’t correct if they are doing something inappropriate or don’t correct if they are ahead of the class in skills? The others seem like ideas to explore.
By the way, for those of you who now have RSS readers, try to subscribe to David’s blog. You’ll learn so much!