Left Lane Ends

I made a quick trip to the Academy of Irving ISD this morning to drop off some software and stepped into one of their freshmen orientation classes while I was there. For these wide-eyed (and pretty quiet!) students, this was their first piece of the Academy’s laptop training program (you can find out more about the concept of this one of four of our 1:1 high school campuses on their website).

Any 1:1 implementation has a myriad of layered components that make it successful (or not) and I thought it would be appropriate to highlight this particular aspect of how the Academy of IISD goes about introducing their freshmen to using a laptop.

Today being the first time that the teachers are seeing the new crew of freshmen, the topics are very foundational and not limited to laptop/technology use. One piece that I love is a flash movie created by Darren Wilson that reviews the IISD Acceptable Use Policy in student language.

After covering the general “don’t do this” pieces, the self paced presentation address the question of what CAN you do with the laptop. I love the language that is used in this piece, language that is supported by administrators on that particular campus:

Learn something new.
Make something new.
SHARE what you know.
EXPAND what you know.
Communicate.
Create.
Publish.
Network.
Talk.
Understand.
Remix.
Rethink.
Reconsider. 
Investigate.
Question.
Research.
Learn.

With the added (and cited!) background music, I actually found myself voluntarily watching anything related to AUP for the first time… The Academy knows that they have to communicate with students in a way that connects with them (I hesitate to say ‘at their level’). Additionally, students will see videos of laptops being abused, Academy teachers involved in some fun clips and more. There is no drab, droning voice dictating what is printed on the screen…

 Other pieces of the Academy’s ‘New Student Laptop Training’ are as follows (and pieces that I see being important to making it successful as well as have an impact):

• The first three days of World Geography class are dedicated toward laptop training (all freshmen are covered across the different sections this way). Multiple topics are planned out and covered these three days from foundational skills to more complex computer use. The simple fact that this campus is willing to dedicate the first three periods of a class means that they are serious in giving these students a good introduction to the laptops they will be using. This is NOT a cursary, get-r-done and move on type of approach.
• Students have their hands on the laptops throughout. All of the content is structured in our district’s Blackboard Content System so that students can get the materials that they need for any activity at a central location. The learning is interactive and fairly self-paced to give them an idea as to what they will be confronted with in some of the classrooms at the Academy.
• All students must take AND pass a test on Blackboard before being handed a laptop to take home. Granted, we’re not talking about rocket science here (we’re talking about basic, foundational knowledge), but this communicates a strong message of accountability and willingness to follow-up on the part of the Academy’s administration.

Congrats to Darren and Angela (Instructional Technology Specialists at the Academy) as well as the administration for developing a program that gives freshmen a strong footing into the world of 1:1 teaching and learning.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 12:23 pm and is filed under adoption, edtech, 1:1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.