Thursday, September 19, 2013

1:1 Classrooms: Who Has 'Em?

Pretty soon, my school is implementing a 1:1 program, which means every student in our school, and eventually the district, will have an electronic device of some sort. It could be a laptop, a tablet, an iPad, etc. 

We are piloting next year with our Freshman Academy [boo, I don't get to pilot :( ] so this week, they have four devices in the mail room that are up for debate and we can take a survey on them.

I won't describe all four devices for brevity's sake, but the one I liked the most and that I voted for was a Lenovo Hybrid (it's called a Yoga).


It can be a tablet OR a laptop. This pic sort of shows all the ways it can twist. You can bend the keyboard back to just have a tablet (it is touchscreen) or use it like a laptop with a keyboard (my preference--I hate typing on a touchscreen).

I tried using it for a bit and really liked it, so I HOPE that's what we go with. Our other options were a Chromebook, a regular Lenovo laptop, or an actual tablet that we could purchase a separate keyboard for (HATE!) I am old school and like having a keyboard.

Do any of your schools have 1:1? I'm honestly excited about it because I can do so much more in class, don't have to worry about getting into a computer lab, students who don't have computers at home can take these home, we plan to go to online textbooks, etc. I know there are drawbacks and concerns with 1:1 but I feel the pros outweigh the cons. Some of my students that I have asked off-handedly have not been in favor, though, which kind of surprises me.

What has your experience been with a 1:1 classroom? Is your classroom flipped or traditional? Any cool things you have done in a 1:1 school?

2 comments:

  1. We have something a little similar. We have 20 laptops in each classroom, with class sizes of ~25 now. We use them for research and paper writing, but that's about it. I'll be interested to hear updates from you on how it's going! :)

    Stephanie
    Tales of Teaching in Heels

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  2. Hi Mrs.L, here is a useful link about their 1:1 Tablet Roll-Out at New Trier: http://prezi.com/poq2wtxdfjcy/the-journey-to-ipad-integration-at-new-trier/

    A pretty helpful resource.

    When it comes to teaching students and teachers how to make the most out of the new devices, check out this post from team SwiftLaunch:
    http://www.swiftlaunch.com/Blog/iPad-in-Education---Where-are-your-Teachers-and-Students-on-the-iPad-Bell-Curve---
    Good luck!
    James

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