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But not Least...

Who is talking to whom about what?

"If I use the laptop, dialogue and discussion will disappear from the classroom."

I ran a K-5 computer lab for 5 years, a 6-8 lab for 17 years, supported a 9-12 lab and program for 7 years, initiated and coordinated a Middle School laptop program and an iBook cart program, and taught a 6th grade laptop English classroom for 3 very successful years. Dialogue and discussion never disappeared from my lab or my classroom. The question is, who is talking to whom about what? You may be disappointed if you expect to always be the discussion center and leader, but never if you allow dialogue and discussion flow from the learning experience.

The laptop is an extraordinarily discussion-friendly technology. Students naturally talk and compare as they work. Sharing is so easy, especially if you are wireless, that food for discussion can be gained from any student at any time. If you are not finding more discussion and dialogue than ever in your classroom, you may have one of the laptop diseases. Take the cure and go to bed. You should see immediate improvement. If all else fails:

What can we talk about?

1. A Powerful Concept: The computer and IM will replace the teacher in the Middle/High School Classroom. Talk about that.
2. Ideas raised by the research students do independently.
3. Pictures projected onto the wall.
4. A text you all read - real books, digital books, e-texts - work on annotating with hyperlinks.
5. A culture-comparison timeline you find at HyperHistory.
6. Today's news (CNN).
7. Copyright law - this is a guaranteed pressure cooker, 4-12. Find out more about copyright.

Tried and True:

Then: Here are some of the digital methods I used pre-laptop:

• Let Lower School children pretend, model and imitate on their own terms: I had a costume closet in the computer room - there is no better way to encourage dialogue about "shapes and patterns" than to have a fireman debate with a fashion designer; when we designed a "Pencil Hospital", Admitting had to talk to Operations had to talk to Maternity and all had to talk to Billing (the least communicative student but he understood the database); we had our own blocks, Lego, and art materials.
• Require Middle School students to work in groups: Way back, we built bridges of toothpicks, made HyperStudio and HyperCard projects of Long Island Historical recreations, and created endless newspapers and newsletters. All decisions were by agreement of the group.
• Let High School students create for peer review: we wrote, printed in triplicate, edited and talked about writing in groups.

  Now: Here are some of the "tried and true" laptop and networked lab methods I am still using:

• Let Lower School children pretend: costumes may present a space problem, but wireless networks and the "crane feature" of the new G4 iMac (with a keyboard extension cable) make "imaginary station play" possible in the computer lab. Students can use any and all of the good LS software (I am excluding drill software from this list) imaginatively - make this a priority purchase. If you are using Ice Cream Truck, set up an imaginary ice cream store in the classroom - order, sell, keep data. By all means, let the students work on the ground. Clear out the center of the room. Let them build what they "paint" and what they create in any of the wonderful interactive sites for mathematics and pattern building. Get Lego, Kinex, and Gears.
• Require Middle School students to work in groups: Nothing has changed here, and all is enriched by applications such as First Class that enable students to both investigate from home and share their discoveries within the school (or more global) community. The wonderful thing about school websites is that students can work as part of a web team, setting guidelines, adhering to design rules, and learning about local and external linking. Within the Microsoft Frontpage environment, it is possible to script pages that post student responses (controlled via Intranet addressing) to a class web page; free bulletin boards are readily available (but not reliable) online. "Groups" have been formed all over the world to encourage MS students to share and interact with their peers.
• Let High School students create for peer review: A little bit more gnarly with the Internet in mind. There are a plethora of sites for teens and adults to post creative work, but schools and parents and teens should be wary. A good LAN, with or without First Class, will allow a teacher to take advantage of the peer editing capabilities of the school software (comments, sharing, versions,etc.) and will allow student work to be safely and privately (private to the class or discussion group) posted; Digitize newspapers, journals, and other publications.
• Challenge: Today's tech-confident students like challenges. Use this in class. Extend every lesson (which of course begins with a review) to include a challenge. This is an opportunity for students to use their learning, individually and collectively, to solve a "next step" problem. Examples:
  • Now that we know how to add a map to a word processing document, how can we click on a country and find out about it?
  • Now that we know how to make a .jpg graphic, how can we put it into an AW document?
  • Is it possible to make a quiz for other students? What software might be useful for that?

Future:

• I think we all need to keep an eye on Wikipedia and similar resources. The opportunity for students to contribute actively to web resources is a huge idea and a huge challenge:

  "Wikipedia is a collaborative project to produce a complete encyclopedia from scratch.  At first glance this site is useful for teachers wanting to use authentic assessment in their classrooms.  Students or groups of students can easily become "expert" in a narrow area and submit articles to the encyclopedia.  This use is suitable for content classes and language arts classes across the curriculum.  Classes could start by editing existing articles.  While practicing grammar and spelling and reviewing content, they would be making a real contribution to the community.  Importantly, they would learn that you can always edit and improve writing.  The site is vehicle for integrating language arts objectives into all curriculum areas.  Community practice is to accept article stubs (narrowly focused or incomplete articles.)  They expect that others will build on these articles and over time comprehensive discussions of the topic (a perfect article) will evolve.  [...The uses of this site in education are limited only by the imagination.]" http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Wikipedia

• Users of Frontpage have a tool (web bot) for posting individual work to a shared website (like a bulletin board). Talk with your webmaster about other forms-to-webpage posting options.
• Filamentality will perform a similar service for those using its webquest designer tools, hosting your page for up to a year. A good quest will contain group documents of some type.
• Use First Class, if you are lucky enough to have it. Set up a private class conference and require that it be used.
  

E. Sky-McIlvain 12/15/02