Yesterday morning I twittered this:
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By elizabeth he;fant in General Published: Sunday, 03 February 08 - 07:13 PM (GMT) Last Updated: Sunday, 03 February 08 - 07:24 PM (GMT) |
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- Yesterday morning I twittered this:
And then replied to a few with this
Even as my school moves into what we are calling the 1:1 tablet program, I am realizing that 1:1 is really a thing of the past for many of us. If you consider my trip to the wrestling tournament and the inventory that I took, I had a tablet PC, a Mac and an iPhone all capable of connecting to the internet through a wireless connection, something not typically available in the wrestling gym. My iPhone serves as a backup since it can get to the internet through cellular phone connections. My Kindle can use the cellular phone connection to get a new book if I finish the one I am reading, something that is entirely likely at a wrestling tournament. Wrestling aside I was clearly not living the 1:1 dream, I was 3:1 or more if you count the Kindle.
At first glance, the tendency for many would be to say that I am just a geek extraordinaire and this is not the normal behavior for the majority but take a closer look at the situation from the perspective of the students at my school. My school currently allows students to bring whatever laptop they choose to campus. The students are able to have our student tech group make sure it has proper antivirus protection and register it for the wireless network. The 150 member freshman class, a class that will be part of the tablet program next year, had registered 90+ machines as of mid January. Many of those machines were Macs. The Mac users were the first to express concern that they already had a Mac and for many of them it was a new purchase this school year. You have to credit Mac users with loyalty which they expressed as reluctance to use a tablet. Fortunately it has been relatively easy to explain to them that I too have a Mac and a PC and until I can have the advantages afforded by both in one machine, I need to be 2:1. The sticker on my tablet PC demonstrates my conflicted allegiance to each platform but doesn’t really solve the problem. Until students are adept at typing math homework or until apple creates a tablet, the solution is being 2:1. This does leave the tech leaders with a dilemma that we need to solve. Should we allow students in the tablet program to register their Macs on our network? I’m thinking yes. I’m certainly aware of the educational benefits the Mac and the iLife suite affords. The tablet was our decision because of the inking feature and the potential we see with DyKnow, particularly for our math and science classes. I was forced to choose one over the other but for those who have both, why not let them leverage the benefits of each platform. Let me offer another interesting piece of data to support the 2+:1 concept. After Christmas the students registered 40-50 new wireless devices on our network through the stutech group. We don’t have a rule that says it has to be a laptop and the kids have started bringing in their iTouch and iPhone devices for registration. Over half of the recent wireless devices are not laptops so we clearly have some 2:1 device kids on campus.
Does the cell phone count? The iTouch? Again, I would argue that they do. Maybe they should be weighted at 0.75 since they aren’t quite what a laptop computer is-yet. Our school policy allows phones but requires them to be on vibrate or off in the classroom. We also allow ipods. Yes, I’m lucky. We haven’t really leveraged the phones as educational tools yet although we have used them to take pictures for a few math projects and for some imagery for reflective blogging. (Thanks to Karen Montgomery, we are exploring their use as polling devise in the classroom using http://www.polleverywhere.com. I am looking forward to Karen’s cell phone presentation at METC.) We have used the ipods for educational podcasts but both of these devices are largely used in ways totally directed by the students without faculty involvement. In any event, if you count cell phones, I would bet that every one of our students has one of those. Given that we have a total of 300 laptops registered on campus, we could claim that 300 students abide by the 2:1 ratio. As the students move to the newer iTouch as their ipod of choice, the 2:1 ratio for some of them could go to 3:1.
Much like integrating tech is becoming an outdated notion that is being replaced with embedding technology which needs to be replaced with the simple concept of 21st century curricular revision, the concept of 1:1 is rapidly becoming an outdated notion as this crazy, wired world is driving us to connections whether we are ready for them or not.
Just curious, what’s your ratio?
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An Aside for the Non-Wrestlers
This paragraph is for those of you who have never had the good fortune to attend a wrestling tournament; a brief explanation is probably in order so you understand why I would take so much equipment. Wrestling tournaments are frequently 2 day affairs beginning after school on a Friday and continuing through the day on Saturday. Typically weigh-ins are around 4:30 after which the wrestlers get at least an hour to drink and eat what for many will be the first nourishment they’ve had in 24 hours. Matches may go as late as late as 10:30 on Friday and its back to the gym Sat at 6:30 to weigh in and begin the fun again. Saturdays can go until 5 or 6 in the evening with the larger, sixteen team tournaments. If your son does well, he will have only 4 matches. Each match is a maximum of 6 minutes. If he pins the opponent or gets a buy, it’s even less active watching time. It’s difficult to know time for individual matches so it’s hard to leave and return. During this 16 hour ordeal that involves maybe 24 minutes of wrestling time, you are treated to sweating adolescents in singlet’s. On the heavy weight end, this can be a particularly interesting thing to watch. Other senses are in for a treat as well. The gyms get hot, the boys sweat, use your imagination as to the extravaganza that your nose is treated too. Typically 6 matches at a time so cheering fans, yelling coaches, whistles and clock buzzers entertain your ears. Add a few sets of scantily clad matt maids and you pretty much have it. It adds up to lots of time to work on the computers and use the cell phone to interact with twitter.
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| Have u try the MATH online bookstore Coc (...) | Jessica | 02/04/08 |
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Top | Reply to this Author: Jessica (http://www.breastbigger.com/) Date Posted: 04 Feb 2008 02:45 PM (GMT) Have u try the MATH online bookstore Cocomartini I get all my textbooks for this semester from this bookstore. All are brand new textbooks and half price discount textbooks. Good luck and wish some help. hehe ^_^ |
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