I spent yesterday at day one of the Great Lakes 1:1 Computing Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The conference was attended by teachers, administrators, and technology directors from current one-to-one schools and those schools considering the move. I led one session titled, "Are Our Policies Getting in the Way of Our Progress?". My intent was for participants to be very engaged in discussion throughout the session, and hopefully I was able to achieve that. My hope is that participants walked away from the session with the following two takeaways.
- Identify the fears and concerns that exist in your educational community, and analyze the realities of those fears.
- When making policies, be sure to weigh the costs vs. benefits of your decisions! It is easy to say no and make restrictions without considering what things students will lose because of those restrictions.
In the afternoon, I helped facilitate an unconference session around schools implementing one-to-one with the bring your own laptop approach (BYOL). It was a very interesting conversation, and I'm excited what BYOL could look like when implemented effectively.
Resources from those two sessions as well as others can be found on the Great Lakes 1:1 Computing Conference wiki.
Nick Sauers
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