"Just using the technology"

This is our first year of a one-to-one laptop program in our school. Lately it seems that I am being told a story by a teacher or a student and I realize that it would have been different without the technology. Everyone is "just using the technology" and they don't even realize how it has impacted their learning.

The stories that I hear contain information about better communication between students, between students and teachers but the people telling the story are focusing on the results not the technology that made it work. This reminds me of the impact I experienced in industry when email became widespread. Can you imagine writing a memo, photo copying it and having it placed into the mail box? We don't do this in the "real world" anymore so why would this be the way we communicate in school?

I have heard of students emailing teachers questions about their assignments and getting answers that have helped them to complete the assignment. This has allowed students and teachers to communicate with out having to search the halls of the school to find them to ask a question and get an answer.

Students are starting to take advantage of their own down time. I have seen some students look to see what they would be learning about in their next class by looking at the teacher's moodle site. Sometimes they have even began to think about or complete the do now before they enter the classroom.

Students are now able to carry almost all of the resources for all their classes all the time! It's all in the laptop. This has allowed students to review information or jot down a thought about a topic at anytime during the school day.

The challenge now is to invision what would our school look like today if the technology went away?

Planning Planning Planning

This is the start of a blog that I hope to use to capture the progress of a school that will be going through a major transformation this year. I will try to share the good of what works along with what is not working so that maybe other may be able to help us.
In order to improve student achievement and engagement I will be working with the following tools.

• Google Apps for Education. (Major training and roll out for Sept 1)
• Moodle. (Entering my 5th year, this year will help others to get it rolling.)
• PowerSchool.
• Drupal (Portal, System Integration.)

My current task is to develop a set of questions that can be used in an interview format with teachers to help access their comfort with new and existing technology in the school and how they use it to improve student learning.

What questions would you ask teachers?