As we end week one at MNW, so much seems to have taken place in a very short time. The much-anticipated release of laptops to our students has taken place, and now the challenge begins--to apply this technology effectively to the learning process. The laptops make possible new avenues of inquiry-based discovery, interactive digital communications and collaboration as we have never seen before. The mistake would be to merely adapt the laptop to current classroom practices, using it only to search for information on the internet, write digitally instead of on paper or send in assignments using email. These things will certainly take place, but they do not represent the kind of system change that technology is bringing to education. Technology will ultimately blow the covers off the text books and the walls down from around our traditional classrooms. Information is growing exponentially, and web 2.0 tools allow us to network and collaborate with anyone anywhere in the world. Text books and the traditional classroom unit cannot contain this explosive change in what and how we are able to learn. The changes at MNW will likely not be sudden, but they are inevitable as schools and we as educators learn to adapt to and adopt the technology in the world around us.
An article from the Messenger about our 1 to 1 program can be seen at http://www.messengernews.net/page/content.detail/id/527423.html?nav=5054. The quotations have been confused between myself and Mrs. Horan, the last statement in particular actually being mine.
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