Keyboards and Laptops

To all readers: The most organized laptop site used to be LearningWithLaptops.Org by Fred and Laurie Bartels from Rye Country Day School . The topics on this web page below represent my attempt to keep track of many interesting links and laptop talks --Steve Bergen

p.s. however, my Wanna go Wireless song is heading to the top of the charts soon ;-)

song#1 ("daisy, daisy, tell me your answer true"): Mommy, Daddy ... Tell me the answer true ... Did computers used to have wires ... When the century was new
song#2 ("times are a changin by Bob Dylan"): Come gather round teachers whereever you roam ... And admit that the waters around you have grown ... Your ethernet cords are about to be thrown ... For the technology truly is changin'

---

Some Wireless Organizations:
WWW.FreeNetworks.org | WWW.NYCwireless.Net | SeattleWireless.Net

• Topic 1: How We Label Our Laptops at Nobles when I was there thru 2002
       

  ** click each tiny picture (left side or right side) to enlarge **

• Topic 2: Charles Coleman's notes from visit to CCDS; One of the participants in my C++ online course, Charles Coleman (a biology and physics teacher at Colorado Academy) recently travelled to Cincinnatti Country Day School to participate in their laptop seminar. His notes (used with his permission) are fascinating reading!
  

• Topic 3: Listserv compilation 2000-2001 re laptops and wireless; so much interesting stuff has come across the ISED listserv over the past year that anyone who reads this compilation cannot help but come away with a feeling that wireless computers and laptops per student is most likely the way we will find ourselves and our schools before too long!

• Topic 4: My CPS Proposal from the early 1990s. Back in the early 90s at Concord Academy, I pioneered a proposal that "almost made it past third bas" called CPS (computer per student). I was convinced then and still am over ten years later that putting hardware into the hands of every student (and teacher) would help move a school along.

• Topic 5: The Battle of Lexington in the 1770s
  

• Topic 6: Various Talks and Published articles over the last twenty years of the computer "revolution" in our schools
  

• Topic 7: At NAIS Boston in March 2001, I attended a wonderful session by Joanne Barrett from Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in New Jersey www.stoneridge.org The workshop was focusing on how laptops can help bridge the gender gap ("after implementing a laptop program that required eighth and ninth graders to have their own laptops, one school analyzed its data to see if it can reverse the current gender divide in technology") Some highlights from Joanne's talk:
  * survey of student attitudes suggest that laptops have made them better writers, increased confidence in writing and overall academic conference
  * 55% of the students say that we just use it -- we don't think of it as technology but rather "just another tool in my backpack; Lynne Schalman from www.summercore.com has been saying that for years -- when we were growing, no one ever made a fuss when the overhead map came down ("the map, the map is coming down") and the same should be with computers. Kids should be just using it and teachers should just be using it as a tool with no one making a fuss when it gets used.
  * Joanne said that there is a full time Toshiba technician on site at their school which is now a Toshiba authorized site
  * Microsoft Office is required; they have an inspiration site license; school si now wireless, since the big push for this technology was 4 years ago
  *Mary Battaglia (mbattaglia@stoneridge.org) shared the observation that the FTE at the school is approximately 4.0
  At this workshop, I asked the question of how many schools in the country are now into the laptop mode. Names such as Norwood School, Seattle-Forest Ridge, Newton Country Day School, Stuart Country Day School, Greenwich Academy, Peddie School, Urban School of San Francisco were put forward with someone saying over 70 schools in the country were now intio laptop mode.

• Topic 8: At NAIS Boston in March 2001, I also attended an excellent presentation by Joe Hofmeister (hofmeistj@countryday.net) from Cincinnati Country Day School. It was fascinating to hear the reflections of someone looking back on the pros and cons of "going laptop."
  * laptops are inherently less reliable
  * a year from now, we will be smarter
  * the $20 million dollar high school is wireless; rest of campus is still wired in traditional fashion
  * kids park in parking lot on weekend to get T1 access via their laptops in their cars ("they are a bit spoiled")
  * Wayne Gretzky's quote about "always going where the puck is going to be" is a wonderful metaphor for what we need to be doing as computer people
  * if there was anything that made our Board of Trustees tkae their "perilous step," it was the fact that aside from 10-15% of our kids, the rest were NOT succeeding with technology (especially true with our females)
  * interesting statement from Miami University in Oxford Ohio is that "any kids without computer skills is now listed as disabled"
  * our kids are incredibly possessive of their laptops, with the emotion that "our lives are on here"
  * technology needs to be seen not as enhancing but as transforming, a "tool for doing things we could never do before" (reference from Peter Senge book, a "learning organization")
  * gender equity issues are significant in terms of laptops; over last 5 years the AP situation has changed significantly regarding females in our AP classes; had I know what a profound effect laptops would have on this issue, I would proceeded even sooner and more aggressively. All of our previous pro-active attempts to get more females into our AP courses had failed. Going laptops has had a dramatic effect on female signups!
  * we were a Mac school at CCDS
  * our laptop helpers are our first line of defense; originally the ratio was 25-1 in terms of male/female. We are now 32-15 with the laptop helpers being recognized as an official community service club
  * we now have an all female C++ class
  * all teachers at CCDS are required to have a web page
  * the head of our middle school got a standing ovation from the parents recently when it was announced that homework assignments would be posted on the web; parents remark that kids SO MUCH TIME on the phone just try to get the assignment on occasion
  * the book called Growing Up Digital by Tapscott talks about how for the first time in our history, children are more comfortable, knowledgeable and literate than their parents about an innovation central to society
  * laptops are changing the way that kids communicate with parents, teachers and each other; because they are in this culture, they need to feel school is part of their real lives
  * kids speak digital; we as adults speak digtial with an accent because we are immigrants in their world. For example, one teacher had students create an MP3 singing poem using poetry from the Civil War. Another teacher encountered students using instant messenger during class to ask questions of each other during a teacher's "too fast" lecture. Fundamentally, computers are about change and growth needs to be seen as sine qua non (that which we cannot do without). Kids need US to be part of the digital world!
  * fundamental to growth is computer training, not that we want that word or concept to survive; we need to get rid of the potty training imagery for computer training and replace it with qualty teacher to teacher support, leadership, idea-sharing and implementation
  * transfer is hard; even ideas and practices that work for teacher X are difficult to pass on to teacher Y. As most of us know teaching is such a personalized endeavor!

• Topic 9: One laptop school, Duchesne Academy of the Sacred Heart in Texas was featured in an article by Barbara Weathers (barbara_weathers@duchesne.org) in School Library Journal (March 2001)
  
  * author mentions visiting Cincinatti Country Day School and Ursline Academy in Dallas back in 97-98 and observing that "students were learning better"
  * author mentions that "going wireless was the best choice for them"
  * author mentions inviting parents at early stages to get educated and hvaing an "out of box" day in august 98 for 150 students in the 3 starter grades of 7,9 and 10
  * author mentions article in Technological Horzions in Education from April 1999 on "Notebook Porgrams Pave the Way to Student-Centered
  * several key points for schools going down this road from Janet_Thoson@duchesne.org (director of technology) with my own comments in parentheses and italics:
  * will laptops help your students learn better? (all technology decisions in a school must have a "philosophy first" component ..sb)
  * librarians need to be prepared to be totally involved in laptop integration (teamwork between comp dept and library dept is a wonderful side benefit of a school moving in a laptop direction ...sb)
  * be supportive of teachers who find the transition threatening
  * (this humanware component is NOT to be neglected ... once again a nurturing "carrot and stick" approach is best ...sb)
  * make purchasing decisions based on learning outcomes, not how flashy the computers are
  * (hardware should ALWAYS be the minimum to get the job done ...I have problems with schools spending $2000 to $3000 for each laptop ..sb)
  * strong AUP (acceptable use policy) is crucial (great advice .. schools that have not established a strong AUP are missing out on an important opportunity and abdicating responsibility ...sb)
  * you will need one staff member who does nothing but tech support work on laptops; a workable ratio is one support person to 100 laptops (as I have said many times, the humanware component is the REAL cost of technology progress..sb
  * author, the upper school librarian, looks back and says that in the 3 years of being a laptop school her "job has changed radically ... spending a greater amount of time meeting with teachers to plan student projects"
  * author ends by saying that "working in a laptop school has been the most challenging opportunity of her career .. there's no doubt about it -- a laptop school is a wonderful place to be"

• Topic 10: Statistics on our 106 current ninth graders at Nobles (survey Feb 2001)
  Computer at home? All said YES
  Type of computer at home? PC (84) Mac (11) both (11)
  More than one computer at home = yes (87), no (19) 34 have two, 20 have 3, 9 have 4, 2 have 5, three have 6 and one has 9
  NoblesNet at home? - 99 do, 7 do not
  Web access at home? 104 said yes, 2 said no
  Word processor? Microsoft Word (69),Claris Works (26) MS works (2) other (8)
  Printer at home? all but 3

• Topic 11: Statistics on our 99 current seventh and eighth graders, classes V and VI at Nobles (survey Feb 2001)
  computer at home? all 99 yes
  type of computer? pc (70) mac (9) both (20)
  access to Nnet from home? yes (79) no (20)
  access to web at home? all 99 yes
  type of word processor? word (81) appleworks (8) word and appleworks (22) lotus (1) word perf (1) ms works (8)
  printer at home? yes(98) no (1)
  n license? yes (67) no (32)
  internet acess form? yes (55) no (44)
  accessed private file server folder? yes (12) no (77)

• Topic 12: Update on our laptop strategy at Nobles
  to view videos, you need REAL PLAYER available from www.real.com for free!
  • sample one of Ms. Newman carrying an IBook (yes, it is that light!)
  • sample two of Ms. Nance carrying an IBook (two pounds lighter than the orange ibooks and MUCH LIGHTER than most babies)
  • Spring 2000 .. we bought 20 orange ibooks for use in one section of Daccord History and Boyle English
  • Spring 2001 (5/24/2001)... we bought 33 of the new ibooks and raced (student vs student and student vs teacher) to open up the 33 airport cards ... on your mark, get set and go
  • Overview by Ellie Newman... filmed by Betsy VanOot (our new Digital Design teacher in the Art Dept)
  • Opening up the box ... Steve Bergen ("this is so cool, it really is")
  • "There are so many academic possibilities here" ... Ellie Newman (outside on line)
  • "How Does this Wireless Card Work" ... Steve Bergen (head scratching time)
  • Several of us had a presentation on 6/1/2001 by two reps from enterasys regarding the possibility of putting a wireless bubble over the Nobles campus. At Cincinnati Country Day School, they have about 50 access points carefully constructed due to electrical and ethernet constraints. One of the neat things about the Enterasys RoamAbout product is that the device gets powered through the ethernet cable with electricity at base point in the hub room. The new Enterasys product due out in July will provide flexibility for the new wireless technology coming out this fall.
    • one of the access points
    • jonathan on left, jason on right
    • this shows how the power comes from the hub room so that all that is needed at each location of an access point is an ethernet drop

• Topic 13: My note to parents, Tuesday May 29, 2001

  Hello parents on noblesnet and parents on our internet mailing list
  -- sent by blind carbon copy (the best way) --
  Steve Bergen, Computer Coordinator
  

  Here is the overview in text, which is less fun than the videos!
  1) We are buying over 33 of these wireless IBooks and planning to go wireless in a big way next year at Nobles, primarily in class IV (ninth grade)
  2) Ellie Newman -- whom some of you know -- will be teaching most of the sections of the class IV (ninth grade) Computer Proficiency course. Ellie will also be a class IV coordinator. For those of you who don't know Ellie, she is also the seventh and eighth grade computer teacher and has taught me more about scrapbooking than I will ever need to know.
  3) Rachel Nance will be turning over the IBooks to parents after graduation by pre-arranged appointment between June 15 and August 15. Rachel will be the summer tech person at Nobles and has an e-mail address of nance@nobles.edu; she will give basic lessons and help to any parent buying directly from Nobles.
  4) The wireless Apple IBooks come with a CD and wireless airport card, so it is an excellent deal, about $150 less than what you buy from MacConnection or MacWarehouse or another store.
  5) If you want the DV model or CD Burning model, we are NOT standardizing on those and you will have to buy your own from MacConn or MacWarehouse or another store.
  6) We are going into this class IV wireless push with our "eyes wide open" and will make adjustments as needed. To start out, we will have all sections of class IV HHC (History of the Human Community) be wireless, taught by Tom Daccord (who is doing it this way this year) and Alex Keenan-Gallagher. Three sections of Class IV English will be wireless, taught by Kate Boyle (who is doing it this way this year) and Sarah Snyder. Three sections of Geometry will be wireless, taught by Doug Guy and me.
  7) We will have between 30 and 40 "Nobles owned" wireless IBooks stored in Ellie Newman's office on computer street dedicated for class IV usage. They will be wheeled on carts to the relevant classes each period. In fact, we in the computer department will be in better shape this fall than some of the Boston Celtics ;-)
  8) We are encouraging parents of class IV students next year to think about making this purchase so that your son or daughter will own his or her machine and can bring it to school when desired. Ellie Newman's office will be set up as a fairly secure locked environment with the Larry Bird doll standing guard lest any pitino fans from Kentucky shows up to steal any ibooks ;-)
  9) We already have wireless hubs all over campus and therefore these wireless computers will work from most buildings on campus. We will be installing more wireless hubs in September
  10) if you want to BUY your own $1247 ibook with 128K RAM and an airport card for your son or daughter -- please send me a note in which you copy and paste the text below and send to me ... I will collate and organize the order to our rep at apple.com, working with the business office on the specifics. Please note that THIS IS AN EXPERIMENTAL ONE TIME ORDER that may or may not be repeated.
  

  "as a Nobles parent of ________ who is in the class of ____ I would like to buy one of the ibooks that is exactly the same as the base model being ordered for usage by our class IV students next year: 128K meg of ram, airport card, base model CD, comes with Appleworks. I understand that the computer department will be turning this over to me and from then on, I will be on my own. I also understand that Steve Bergen was wrong in the first note and that Microsoft Office does NOT come pre-installed on this computer. I also understand that any help I get from the computer department will be no different than general computer help that a student or parent at Nobles gets, i.e. it is not the case that the computer department is setting itself up to be an authorized apple repair dealer ;-) "

• Topic 14: The World of the Orange Machines ... a poem by teacher Kate Boyle on the last day of her class IV (ninth grade) wireless English class, 2001-2002 ... recited and posted June 10, 2001

• Topic 15: My Diary Entry as a Geometry teacher at Nobles 2001-2002 using Sketchpad actively as part of the year

• Topic 16: Reflections on teaching Geometry with lots of technology (laptops, projectors, sketchpad)

• Topic 17: Strategies for teachers when using technolology in the classroom, either with laptops or a projector

• Topic 18: From Fred Bartels
  "As far as I know the only active listserve dedicated to student laptop program issues is laptalk_talk. Subscription information can be found at the www.schoolkit.com/Community/Edtalk web site."

• Topic 19: From Tom D'Accord (former colleague and part of the Nobles Pioneer Program that I started back in 1999) in response to

  While in class, students are constantly getting off task with their
  laptops.  This is an ongoing issue as many of you with 1:1 programsalready 
  know.  We're thinking of putting mirrors in the back of every classrooms.
  Can anyone share any other solutions....?
  

  "Thomas Daccord-fac" on November 28, 2007 at 5:46 PM wrote:

  Here are some tips excerpted from a book I co-wrote:

  "While a notebook and pencil, or a classroom window, offer significant opportunities for distraction in class, computers open a PandoraÕs box of ways for students to ignore you and goof off during class. Here are some tips for keeping students focused when computers are in use.

  Hold students accountable for staying on task: Students need to know that there are consequences for goofing off with their computers during class. Write up a contract in the beginning of the year and be prepared to revoke computing privileges if a student cannot responsibly use the machines.

  Number each laptop and assign it. That way you can pull out a laptop from the cart after class and check the Internet history to see if a student was visiting web sites he/she was not supposed to. If the machine is damaged in any way you might know right away who damaged it.

  Design your classroom or lab so you can watch screens: If possible, set up your classroom in a horseshoe so that you can view all student screens at once. Rows of computers can work too, although it can be difficult for students to see past each others monitors, and you will need to teach from the back of the room, behind students if you want to watch everything. If you need to set up your classroom into clusters of machines, or with a big cluster in the middle of room, then you may want to consider a piece of software such as Vision or Apple Remote Desktop. These programs allow the teacher to watch all of the screens in a classroom at once.

  Move around and hover: Teaching in a computer classroom means teaching on your feet, moving around, checking in on every student and keeping them all on task. Assume that whenever you are not watching, they are surfing the Internet or playing Minesweeper.

  Design activities that are challenging and engaging: The best way to keep students on task is to design activities that students are excited and challenged to complete in the allotted time. Give them high quality assignments and hold them accountable, and you stand the best chance of keeping them focused.

  Provide different benchmarks for different students: For most tech activities, it can be helpful to have a main goal and then a secondary goal for fast-working students. For instance, if you want students to write on a topic, it might be worth also giving them a second topic to write on in case they finish early. If students find themselves with enough free time to start playing with the computer, it can be very hard to get them back on track.

  Balance routine with variety: Since using computers as learning tools will take practice for you and your students, settling into a routine in the computer lab can help everyone get oriented. That said, if you overuse the same routine, students will lose some of their focus. Just as good teachers balance lecture, discussion, and projects in a normal classroom, teachers who use technology need to provide a variety of activities for students as well.

  Tom Daccord
  Academic Technology Advocate/History Teacher
  Noble & Greenough School (Dedham, MA)