“I have seen a marked difference in the teaching environment and the learning achieved by our high school students.  There’s no question that computers in a 1:1 environment for high school students makes sense, especially after enjoying that privilege in the 7th and 8th grades.  It’s also clear that there’s a tremendous amount of learning and achievement that goes on outside the classroom that may or may not be related to the current lesson, yet is valuable none-the-less.

The reality is that we must start to demand more from our students. But limited classroom instructional time and the differences in student learning styles make the traditional teaching model obsolete.  With these computers, educators are able to break out of the traditional mold of the typical classroom of the 1960s into one of both synchronous and asynchronous instruction.
Richard Florida (author of The Rise of the Creative Class) suggests that technology alone in this creative age is not going to make the US economy safe. We need to bring in the kind of creative entrepreneurs who can make great ideas into sustainable business models. Only then, Florida writes, will we get real economic growth.
He warns us however that unless we are willing to harness the creativity of people, we’re going to lose the edge, (have we already?).  As our generation has grown up knowing how to use a telephone, our children must grow up knowing how to collaborate and create using computing devices.

Some say these laptops are just the new pen or pencil.  But they are so much more.
These computers provide an opportunity for independent exploration, imagination and problem solving regardless of family economic resources.  They are a critical component to learning and create the best opportunity for our students to compete in this 21st century.

“We’re in the midst of a fundamental economic revolution, bigger than the change from an agricultural to an industrial society. It’s based on creativity including technological, economic and aesthetic creativity.” Florida writes.  For these reasons we support the 1:1 high school laptop initiative to provide this resource to all Maine high school students to help them be competitive in the 21st century global economy.”
- John Armentrout Director of Communications and Information Technology

Friday, September 04, 2009, 03:22 PM.