No more laptops

For some reason, I can not say that I am totally suprised that Liverpool has decided to get rid of their laptops in the classoom. If they do not see any academic improvements, then why continue to invest in such a large purchase?

However, it did not sound as though they were even trying to use the laptops for educational purposes. Have they even heard of Will Richardson? I did not read one thing about a class blog, a class website, students making their own wikis, podcasts, newsletters, enhanced power points (etc). Obviously grades are not going to increase if all students are doing with the laptops are typing papers, checking their email or looking at porn while in school.

No matter what, there will always be that one student who will break through the security and have access to sites which are not appropriate. Although I imagine it would be hard for a teacher to know what every student is doing on their laptop, but where were the adults while students were hacking buisnesses and looking at porn? If you ask me, the only people to blame for the termination of the laptops are the educators. They allowed the situation to get out of hand and they clearly never took a technology course if they don't know how to integrate the internet and computers into their lessons.

It is unfortunate that this is happening because there are so many students that would be incredibly engaged in blogging and having the ability to publish their own content. The school is at fault here. It is as simple as that. I would love to mail them Will Richardson or Friedman's book so they can realize what a huge mistake they have made. They just decreased those students chances of being Untouchables. How sad is that when we are busting our butts to make sure we know how to make our future students are untouchables? They had the tools and they failed.

That school just cost someone their future career.