1-to-1 Computers: A blessing or a curse?

Blended learning is just the bees knees. I'm not kidding, "blended learning is any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace." Isn't that fantastic? Teaching students can be done by countless means. One of those means happens to be technology. Teaching students solely from what they observe and copy is one thing, but teaching students to use their fine motor skills (and motor skills in general for that matter), concentrate on quick reflexes from brain to fingers, answer questions correctly to continue on with an activity or actually acknowledge the fact that you are prepared, and to explore the potentials of the ever growing technology of today opens up a whole new world from them; many may not be able to comprehend this new world, but with blending learning, students get ahead in the game. 

Right? 

Although I am all for blended learning... I do think there are a couple flaws in the system. 1-to-1 learning is a fantastic luxury for students and can make education for students much easier -gives students without computer access a way to do their online assignments at home, gives students the opportunity for blended learning, can speed up assignments and give you access to more creative ways for doing projects, etc.-, but I think it may hold some students back a little bit. Could the 1-to-1 computer access be stealing children's focus and causing them to remember less classroom content? Now, some students may have short attention spans or lose focus regardless of having the computer access or not. 

However, giving students access 

to a virtually infinite amount of websites and content of all kinds may not draw the students attention to the teacher's lesson. Can you imagine the number of times the average student with 1-to-1 computer access gets distracted by a website on their computer and misses an important point in class? I know I definitely got distracted when I was in high school! 

Now, how do we keep the students interested in the subject at hand when they have another world with endless technological possibilities at their fingertips? 

Luckily, Apple employees came up with a way to keep your students on track called Apple Remote Desktop, as did Stoneware with their product LanSchool and Smart with their product SMART technologies. With these systems, teachers, professors, and instructors of all sorts can monitor the computer screens of every computer connected to the system from their own computers. This program allows teachers to monitor student's screens, type comments/messages to their students on their screens, and even shut down a students computer if they notice them playing a game, looking at a blog, or otherwise being distracted by the content on their computer; in short, if students aren't paying attention, the teacher will know, and they will fix that. 

Thanks technology, you have a solution to everything. 

7 big mistakes K-12 education needs to avoid in 1:1 computing plans

ClassDojo by Class Twist Inc.

One of the biggest struggles that teachers face in their classrooms is behavior management. Maintaining the focus of 15+ students in a classroom, whether that be Kindergarten or 12th grade, takes a lot of patience and practice. There are strategies that can be used to keep the attention of the students, such as to stop talking until the students resume listening intently, take away points for participation if they are being disrespectful, or timeouts where students lay their heads down on the table silently for a minute or so until they can regain focus. Still, these strategies only work for so long. Thankfully, there is a recently released application that can definitely help with this classroom issue.

ClassDojo by Class Twist Inc. offers an easy way for teachers to keep students engage in the classroom, as well as keep parents in the loop. This application allows you to record each student from the classroom's names as if each student has their own account. The teacher can give students encouragement with digital awards and encouraging comments. Students may earn points for reasons such as attending class on time, turning in homework when it is due, participating in class, helping another student, asking questions, sharing with the class, and more! Students are often motivated by competition. As their points add up, awards may be given at the end of months, or semesters, like a contest (The previous statement is just an example. remembering that there are many other ways to encourage students to earn points.) You can also customize important skills in the classroom on the application such as focus, curiosity, presenting, etc. The application is free and designed for iPhones, iPads, and iPhones. 

Customer reviews for this application have all been incredibly positive and ratings are at an average of four and a half stars out of five stars. Parents can keep up to date on their children's progress by checking in with the app; based on review comments, they often enjoy the feature that allows them to have conversations with the teacher over messenger about their children and classroom activities. One can share photos over messenger, as well. This is a much safer way to share classroom updates than, say, posting pictures and names on facebook, twitter, or other social media sites. I definitely recommend considering using this app in your classroom for photo sharing and behavior reinforcement.

A Parent's Review of ClassDojo

Technologically Dependent

The Telegraph has an article about children and technology discussing the matter of how soon it is appropriate to introduce children to a technological world. Emma Asprey, Senior Lecturer in Primary PGCE at Bath Spa University argues that there isn’t a fixed age when children should start using technology. She believes that as long as the technology is used correctly and in moderation, technology can be a benefit to young children. 

Although I agree with her that technology can definitely benefit children starting at a young age if done pertinently, I do think that early childhood may be taking something away from young children by making them dependent on technology at such an early age. I believe that children should have a variety of skills through a variety of mediums. Every generation before the current has grown up using all or mostly non-digital, untechnical means of acquiring knowledge. If people wanted to know more about a subject they weren't familiar with, they looked it up in a dictionary, an encyclopedia, contacted the original source by letter, or did an experiment of their own. Today, all of our answers are handed to us. My generation complains about finding sources and researching information when it's at the tip of our fingers almost constantly. I can't imagine how much worse it were be if for some reason technology wasn't available to do so. Thankfully, if we were deprived of technology, my generation would still have the untechnical skills that we grew up with. Today's children will be much less adept at accomplishing things as they are becoming dependent on technology, as my generation has become as it has aged. Children should be grateful for technology, not expect it. They should also have the chance to fully appreciate the world around them. Children should know how to appreciate nature, the feel and the smell of an old book, the joy of accomplishing something on their own, and the sentiment from keeping old ways alive. Instead of watching a video of frogs at a pond, why not take a field trip to a pond and see them for themselves? Instead of reading a book that reads it straight to you, give them the challenge of reading it themselves while they turn each page as a reminder of progress. Children need technology to have multiple ways to communicate and accomplish goals in life, but they should have more than one option. We don't want our children to be technologically dependent, with the possibility of them being lost without it.