1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work Paperback – Import, 21 June 2009

I got hired to work at a 1-to-1 school and hoped that this would be the ultimate resource so that I would have an idea how to design my curriculum around a laptop program. Unfortunately, I was horribly mislead.Chapters 1-8 are about 1-to-1 program design, implementation, and consideration. Maybe these chapter are useful for the IT rep or an administrator, but it doesn't help my classroom.Chapter 9 is on current learning theories. If you know constructivism, then this chapter is nothing new. It waters down constructivist learning and applies laptops to the theory. Anyone who knows about constructive learning could easily piece the two together, so alas another unhelpful chapter.Chapter 10 is about tablet PC's. So for most of us who have looked at this book as we venture into a 1-to-1 laptop school, the table PC chapter is not helpful. However, I found this chapter to be the most interesting and informative of any chapter I read (...however it was written by a different author).Chapter 11 is the best chapter, but you could easily reach all the same conclusions in a 1 hour brainstorming session. This chapter finally gives some (but only a few) practical examples, and reminds you that laptops don't make up for poor curriculum.Chapter 12 is on classroom management and proposes a whopping 3 strategies. And they all seem to deal with how to get your students to focus on you when you need their attention. Quite a shallow chapter for what most teachers would be worried about before entering a 1-to-1 school.Chapter 13 is a model lesson. However it's not broad enough to work for me on a day to day basis. It's always easy for a new program to show a great single project-based lesson, but what about the other 189 days?So overall, the book lacked comprehensive strategies for management, lesson design, and honestly provided no evidence that 1-to-1 learning is good for our students. I'm definitely a "new school" teacher that believes in big-time technology integration and constructivism, but this resource made absolutely no evidence-based arguments to support its objective. Its not that I disagree with the author, I just wanted to see some proof instead of some correlations that anyone who knows the definition of constructivism could draw.Maybe the first few chapters would be good for an administrator, I can't judge that. However, if you're a teacher looking to learn how to adapt to a 1-to-1 laptop program, you're better served using the internet to search for model lessons and technology blogs. This book just isn't worth the time or money.

We received this very quickly. We are in our 3rd year of our one-to-one laptop initiative at our High School and this is an excellent resource.