Last week the department of Information Technology and Communication at the University of Virginia released a memo announcing the closing of most of the computer labs in the university over the course of the next couple of years.  The reason?  In their survey of incoming freshmen for the class of 2012 the found that all but 4 students showed up with their own computers.  When each student has their own computer, why have all of the overhead of maintaining computer labs? 

In 2008 a total of 651,900 hours of computer use were logged in UVa labs.  95% of those hours were students running non-technical software like Firefox, IE, Acrobat Reader, or MS Office.  All of these programs are generally available or come preloaded on the computers that the students were already bringing to class.

These two factors, along with the recognition that the university must “recognize emerging trends and align services accordingly,” has led the university to come to the conclusion that closing the labs and shifting to another model for the delivery of specialized software will better serve both the university and its students.

The reason this story interests me is that it parallels the shift toward 1-1 computing that I am knee-deep in at work.  Our 6th-8th grade students are, for the most part, taking great advantage of the mobile, anytime-anywhere style of learning that the hardware and software allow.  Several teachers are really pushing the envelope in digital content distribution, evolving their use of classroom time to more of a discussion about topics where basic background information can be delivered via text, audio, video, or interactive formats outside of normal class time. 

Our students will be ready for the future as they move on to universities where on-demand learning is the order of the day.

I’m spending some time tonight going through my open Firefox tabs that I’ve been babysitting for the last couple of weeks and posting the best ones to the blog here.  One that I picked up somewhere along the way was a link to a conference for 1-to-1 laptop initiatives in Memphis, TN from the 19th to 21st of July.  It’s called the Lusanne Laptop Insitute and it looks like just what the doctor ordered in terms of staff development opportunitites for teachers who are in or are moving into a 1-to-1 program.

It looks to be one of those conferences where you could really take a team of 6-8 teachers plus a principal or tech coordinator and do some real curriculum work, build a more solid team, and get your brains on the same page in regard to what is and is not possible or desirable in a laptop program.

My staff development dollars for the year are already allocated to other projects unfortunately, but I’d love to attend or even speak at this conference about how i’ve gone about building a 1-to-1 program and the successes and areas for improvement we’ve experienced along the way.

This past Saturday I attended the 2008 ICe COLD Mini-Conference in Lisle, IL.  It was a three hour, three session conference with what I’d estimate to be between 30 and 40 attendees.  At $5 for non-ICE member and $3 for members, it was a bargain.

The first session I went to was on using Wikis in the classroom.  I’ve got to say that I was a bit disappointed in the content of that session.  The scheduled presenter had a death in the family and another teacher was called in to substitute on content that she didn’t appear to be fully comfortable with.  The session focused primarily on the use of wikispaces for managing school-wide and classroom specific websites.  I think the session really missed the mark on the strength of wikis in a classroom environment.  The ability for students to build knowledge collaboratively over time is where the bulk of the discussion should have taken place.  Best practices for designing wiki assignments, rubric templates for evaluating those assignments, and examples of quality student products is what I was expecting to see.  Something else I was hoping to see was some type of analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the various wiki platforms for the education environment.

The main reason for attending the conferences was the second and third sessions presented by Lucy Gray dealing with Google tools for educators.  I was particularly interested in Google Docs and Spreadsheets and different ways they could be utilized in the classroom to foster collaboration and new models of sharing between teachers and students or between groups of students, or even between parents and students.  I think that there are a huge number of unexplored uses for these tools and I really wanted to get a start on my thinking on the topic in case my district decides to move to a 1-to-1 program in our middle school next year.  I didn’t get what I was looking for, but I did learn quite a bit about other Google tools that I may have discounted as non-educational in nature, so that was a plus.

I was very impressed with Lucy’s presence as a speaker and the way that she related to the teachers in the audience.  Anyone who has conducted professional development in schools knows how hard it can be to keep teachers focused and on-task.  Anyone who can keep the attention of teachers for two hours straight is obviously doing something right.  After the session ended I had a very productive discussion with Lucy about some of the projects she is working on at the Center for Urban School Improvement at the University of Chicago.  We also discussed the 1-to-1 program I have been working on for almost four years now.  It was a great talk, as is usually the case with conferences, the most important and useful discussions don’t happen in the sessions but in the hallway.

If you have a chance to hear Lucy talk, I would highly reccomend it.