1 to 1 Learning

One student. One computer. One great way to learn.

21st century learners

Today’s learners have grown up in a digital world with cell phones, computers, video entertainment, iPod technology, and the Internet. They are hypercommunicators, goals planners, multitaskers, expert technologists, and active learners.

Yet, students experience a huge disconnect every day when they walk into a classroom. A classroom where pencil, paper, lecture, textbook, review, and test are still the norm. Engaging these students and making education relevant once again is critical.

It's easy for old farts like me to assume everybody will learn the way we did, but that's unlikely simply because the underlying assumptions are changing. When I was a kid human labor was cheap and technology was expensive. Today technology is cheap and getting cheaper, while human labor is expensive and becoming more so. Yet our model of education technology is still so defined by that remembered Apple IIe in the corner of the classroom that is it difficult for many to imagine truly pervasive educational technology.

This is in large part because there is no way that Apple IIe or any PC is going to somehow expand to replace books and teachers and classrooms. For education, the personal computer is probably a dead end. It's not that we won't continue to have and use PCs in schools, but the market and intellectual momentum clearly lie elsewhere.

So forget about personal computers: the future of education probably lies with digital games.

I say "digital games" rather than "video games" or "PC games," or "handheld games," because the platform doesn't matter as much as the application. Whether it is a PC or Mac, xBox or PS3, PSP or Nintendo DS, gaming has done an excellent job of proving that the application is more important than the platform on which it runs.

Stories came out this week from the NPD Group announcing that 72 percent of Americans play PC or video games with 58 percent of those played online. Those numbers -- which apparently don't include kids, by the way -- are HUGE and explain all by themselves much of what is happening to traditional mass media like TV, magazines and newspapers.

The biggest single benefit of our Apple laptop program has been the level of student engagement we’ve seen since our students received their iBook laptops. When they use the laptops, they’re much more motivated to work on assignments.

— Brian Brownlow, Principal, Post Middle School