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Laptops Unleashed A **//High//** **//School//** Experience Learning and Leading with Technology, v31 n7 p6-12 Apr 2004. 7 pp. (Peer Reviewed Journal) Levin, Howard

__**//The following is an excerpt from the article://**__ As students in Dan's freshman World History class trickle in, they pull from their backpacks **//wireless//** Apple iBooks that are covered with stickers evoking pop culture favorites. Some are preparing to take notes while others put fi nal touches on last night's homework before e-mailing their work. A few others check the online course calendar or access readings stored in the course conference. Dan arrives, opens his PowerBook, and quickly connects to the LCD projector. "Who will share last night's journal entry on Marx's critique of capitalism?" he asks while opening the class e-mail drop box, preparing to display student writing for all to see. This scenario, where computer use is inseparable from everyday teaching and learning, is an example of what's possible when all students and teachers have their own **//school//**-provided laptop for use at home and at **//school//**.

As a teacher in the social studies department, my dream would be to have more access to computers for the two classes that I teach. For the Current Issues class, the reasons are limitless. It would save so much on paper, instead of printing articles that I would like them to read, they could read them online. After reading them, they could log their thoughts in a discussion blog I could create for the class. This would allow them to formulate their ideas in a written form, practice keyboarding, organize and supprt their thoughts in an orderly fashion and allow less vocal students to still be involved in the discussion. In addition to this, the whole point of the class is to get kids involved with what is happening currently in the world. There is no better way to do this then with daily access to the internet and up to date information.
 * //__My thoughts:__//**

By giving each student their own computer, it would truly level the playing field in education. There are many students who still do not have computers in their home. These students also tend to be the ones who don't have cars and rely on buses to get them to and from school. This lack of transporation limits them from coming in early or staying late to use computers at school and often prevents from from getting to public places like a library. While they may not be able to get the internet at home, they could conintue to word process at home and be able to readily access the internet at school during lunch and study halls instead of being turned away from already full labs and not being able to complete necessary work.

In addition to leveling the playing field for students the article also mentions many other good uses of the wireless technolopgy such as allowing teachers to have a laptop in front of them at conferences. This would also be a money and environmetal saver by eliminating the need for each teacher to print out a grade report for every student. For me personally, more than 50% of parents do not come to conferences as grades are available online at infinte campus and it is a waste of paper, ink and wear and tear on the laser printers.

The article addresses whether or not it takes a lot of class time to integrate the computers into the classroom. The teachers found at the school mentioned in the article that the kids are very good at helping each other when necessary and in reality they were actually taking too much classtime prepping the assignments using the computers. They were able to vastly reduce the amount of time to instruct on how to do and actually let them do the work and still get the same results in the end.

In another article **//__Hand It Over!__//** by Briggs, Linda L. in **__//T H E Journal//__**; Dec2006, Vol. 33 Issue 17, p42-43, 2p, 1c, another really great side use of the wireless technology useage is for security. The school mentioned actually found it as a way to save money and increase security. I see this is a great tool in the large building that I teach in. It is impossible to know all 1800+ students that attend and these hand held devices would greatly improve the ability of the hall monitors to do their jobs.

"Livermore says, incidents involving graffiti at the high school quickly plummeted. In one use of the PDAs that proved effective, security officers employed the devices' embedded cameras to photograph kids scrawling graffiti, catching them red-handed. The captured image of the students and their handiwork was then beamed immediately to the rest of the security staff. Putting their PDAs to further use, the school issued "Top People to Watch" and "Top 10 Student Wanted" lists, including photos of students, converted to a digital format for handhelds. Because of the photo capabilities of the new system, wanted students can no longer hide out by claiming to be someone else or using a fake name, popular tactics used previously. "It's one of the most powerful things I've seen in the security safety model," Livermore says.

Because of all of the listed reasons, I think that my school should look into this program.