Journal #1 Taking Laptops School wide

Taking Laptops Schoolwide: A Professional Learning Community Approach
By: Tim Green, Loretta Donovan, and Kim Bass
APA Citation: Green, Tim, Donovan, Loretta, & Bass, Kim. (2010). Taking laptops schoolwide: a professional learning community approach. International Society for Technology in Education, Retrieved from https://acrobat.com/#d=7rIs4heRCXPhOZp7l-otEg

Summary:
Laptops are being used in schools to help student’s progression of subject matter as they move up the grade level. Students in lower grades are learning essential skills of basic word processing that will help later as they progress to higher grades where these programs are necessary. The use of laptops helped teachers to collaborate with each other through Richard DuFour’s Professional Learning Community (PLC) approach to planning, where the focus is on learning instead of teaching, and each teacher being held accountable. Currently the Fullerton School District provides six of their schools in the district with laptops and focuses on the PLC approach. They use the laptops to find where students are struggling and focus on that area. The PLC program is designed to bring student, teacher, and parent together into the classroom, where parents are able to view their child’s work and progress through such programs as class webpage.

Question #1 How can the use of laptops in the classroom help students with disabilities?

The use of laptops would help students with a wide range of disabilities. Students with certain learning disabilities could use specific programs to help them understand and remember the material, as well as keep the students with attention problems focused on the task. Other students with physical disabilities could use programs in which they talk to the computer and the computer writes what the student says. There are other programs where a student’s eye movement moves the cursor around.

Question #2 How are schools able to afford laptops?

Instead of schools buying expensive books that go out of date quickly, and buying materials for the classroom, the school can take the money to buy laptops. Teacher are able to download books on the computers for very cheap, and students can use the computer to write notes in and do their work, saving the school money over time from buying new materials as well as saving on pollution of paper being used.