We do have some laptops now. However, at any given point in the day computer access is limited. Because we have so few and most are in lab situations it is difficult to facilitate learning in the classroom unless a teacher moves his or her whole class to the lab. Often teachers can't even reserve the labs because they are in such demand. I know at the high school, we have teachers who reserve the labs for five months in advance so that they can use them for multiple sections of classes.
In addition, when a student has his or her own laptop, learning is not confined to the school day. Students can do more of the types of learning which require the tools to be present all of the time. This type of in depth learning takes place at all levels of education--not just college. We, your teachers, know that all students, regardless of their ages are capable of producing knowledge and not just consuming it.
I was at an Iowa school today where every student in Grades 9-12 have an Apple laptop computer. Next year that school is issuing a computer to all students in Grades 5-12. The students there do exciting things every class period. I saw the superintendent talking to students at another school through the computer. I saw students producing books in Spanish using their laptops to design them. I saw students doing a presentation from their computers using a digital projector. Students took a variety of polls in the school and then created graphs on their computers from the data. Students were using their laptops to take classes not offered by their school. It was so exciting!
Ms. Sherrill
