As for the One-to-One Laptop Initiative project, I have been targeting the Maine Initiative. So far, I have accomplished the following: have read materials off www.mcmel.org/MLLS/mlti.index.htm that chronicled the history of and vision behind the program, including how it was initially funded. I can see that this program had as its driving force a very forward-thinking governor of the state of Maine. The emphasis throughout the materials was also on the fact that the program lives or dies by the degree of focus on learning gains and including teacher preparation and participation and not on the gains in our knowledge of technology. The aforementioned website brings together very nicely a number of materials on several aspects of Maine’s initiative. I have also read three or more articles having to do with research into how the laptops (ibooks) are making a difference in various parts of the 7th and 8th grade curriculum and also how funding for the senior grades is coming along (i.e., through cooperation with forward-thinking businesses that see the vital importance of education for what they do also). I have some contacts also.
For the Wikibook chapter, I have been engaged in isolating the material I will cover as over against what my colleague, also doing Maintenance and Support, will cover. At this point, I am breaking now the individual parts of Maintenance and Support and then asking what needs to be looked at under each general area. The focus I want to take is concreteness—I want the Wikibook to have a strong real-world feel, so that a newbie or potential newbie Tech Director out there will find it a helpful resource before they plunge into their first job.
To be honest, my difficulties (primarily related to the one-on-one initiative research project) center on how to justify and/or describe the gains from so great an expenditure of money that was necessary to fund such an endeavor. What do we talk about when we talk about successes/gains—student test scores or just vignettes of students getting excited about their education? I am not saying these things are not highly important—they are…I just have trouble, at this stage, with how to quantify this in a research report…as well as with what questions to ask participants.
3 comments:
I did research on the Maine initiative. They did a great job with their one to one initiative. The governor was definitely involved greatly in the whole process. I totally see whether better test scores or students getting excited about what they're learning is a success or not. I think they both are successes but it's hard to determine the overall goal for students in a laptop one to one initiative.
Hi Dan!
Thanks for the comment. The ratio of laptops to students in my school is not good. We don't have a one to one laptop initiative going on in my school. The only access students have to the internet are through our computer labs and laptop carts.
Maine is pretty good. I've had the pleasure of working with maine OLPC initiative before. If you need some info let me know. Our contact was betty manchester. I am not sure if this is the same one you're doing right now. Being a graduate of University of Maine, and having lived there for 5 years, I've noticed that coming to PA the technology drastically comes down in quality. In addition I noticed that there was more self expression direct instruction vs institutions here in PA.
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