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.

Just yesterday I posted that I was interested in putting together an unconference on Using Social Media to Reach Stakeholder Communities. Today I’ve seen an article that illustrate exactly what I’m thinking about.

In this eSchool news article, Nora Carr discusses the numbers, demographics, and usage patterns of cellphone users in the US. They are largely the exact same populations that school districts thoughout the country are looking to become more involved in the system. We want the Hispanics and African-Americans and the highly mobile populations to have a voice, to have a way to connect, a way to take an active role in the education of their children.

The usage patterns she describes in the article are:

Among adults under 30 years of age, cell phone saturation is nearly universal. Currently, 84 percent of English-speaking Hispanics under 30 have cell phones, as compared with 74 percent of white Americans and 71 percent of black Americans.

and

The trend is particularly strong among Hispanics, 73 percent of whom say they send or receive text messages. This compares with 68 percent of African-Americans and 53 percent of white adults.

and finally

For example, 65 percent of English-speaking Hispanic internet users and 54 percent of black internet users have accessed the web wirelessly, compared with 49 percent of white internet users.

So, what does this tell us? That these populations are:

1. These populations are using mobile phone technology at a very high rate.
2. They are using the phones for non-voice uses of text messaging, email, and web browsing at higher rates than their white counterparts.

Do we really want to reach and include everyone in our schools? If so, why aren’t we making better use of mobile technologies to enfranchise not just the aforementioned populations, but the professionals and students who have also embraced this culture of text and mobile email?

I’ve been a fan of Dave Winer’s concept of the un-conference ever since I first heard about it. I’ve talked about it before here and tried to garner interest in a Leopard release Chicago Unconference here.

The format is ideal in that it doesn’t place anyone’s agenda or pre-conceived notions above those of anyone else in attendance at the conference. This is exactly the type of environment I think we (educators in general and education leaders specifically) need to hash out this relatively new cornerstone of education. Parental involvement has always been touted as a key indicator of student success, but until recently most educators have given it lip-service publicly while dreading it privately. This is all changing in the post NCLB world where the incentives for parent and community input and participation in the education process means more than smiling faces and happy places.

The push toward voucher based education is getting stronger and stronger all the time. It is probably just a matter of time until it becomes law and policy in some form or another (beyond the failing schools clauses of NCLB). The fact is that we are now having to compete for our students, and their parents’ tax dollars.

I propose that one of the most powerful ways to keep the students in the desks and learning, and keep the tax dollars coming in (for public schools) is to take the social buy-in of the private school parent and supporter and mimic, then escalate it in the public sector. Allow parents in, be transparent in decision making, have avenues for meaningful input beyond annual satisfaction surveys and parent-teacher conferences. Make parents and community members true partners in building the image of the school, the brand of the school.

One of the most powerful ways technology is used these days is to increase communication, increase visibility, and to allow for groups to collaborate in asynchronous modes to solve problems, remove distance obstacles, and raise brand awareness. Why aren’t we leveraging these social tools to help us meet the goals of gaining support for our school and school programs with the community. We need to reach out to them before we need their help. We need to ask them to participate in the mundane things so they don’t feel like they are only approached for big or emergency ideas that cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.

I know there are schools and individuals out there who are successfully employing social media strategies to reach out to their school communities and I think the rest of us need to listen and learn to what is working, what is not, and to build on the base that is out there. The perfect format for this is the unconference.

I’m putting out the call here for educators, technologists, and educational technologists who are interested in working on putting together an “Ed-Tech Unconference on Using Social Media to Reach Stakeholder Communities”.

If you are interested in helping to put this together or just participate as an attendee, please contact me, tweet me, or leave a comment.