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Student Laptop Program

2009 marks the fourth year of Ringwood Secondary College’s journey embracing 1:1 technology, as part of a student experience in 21st century learning.  

 

 

View movie  - The Ringwood Laptop Journey (requires Quicktime)

 

So how do laptops fit in?

If the laptops are viewed merely as the occasional-use computers - like those in the computer lab where students do research projects once a term or just for checking their email - then they are indeed a waste of resources. But this is not the vision that justifies the investments required.

 

Laptops are the tool, the technology, and the means that replace, to a great extent, previous media, previous technology. Where a teacher used to reserve a VCR and television to show a ten-minute video clip to a class, overcoming the annoying disincentives involved, it can now be shown in class when needed, whether or not a television is available. 

 

The digitisation of video has freed the teacher from the TV and VCR, their inferior analogue technology and their limited availability, while it has also empowered students by giving them easier access to the information contained in the video. Viewed through this one example, laptops connected to a network represent a better way to use a vast array of digital resources.

 

Laptops are the single tool that supersedes and consolidates the many previous ways of creating, manipulating, editing, sharing and publishing information. Ringwood has also embraced digital technologies.

 

It is not an exaggeration to say that there is the potential, in the next few years for the laptop or a similar device to be the only item students regularly carry with them to most classes. No textbooks. No notebooks. No pens!

 

At Ringwood Secondary College, some of our enterprising teachers do recognize that the technology enables them to design their own courses by giving them incredible flexibility with course materials. Some teachers have created the equivalent of digital workbooks and, even, home-made digital textbooks constituted from text, audio, visual and video sources either found on the web or, perhaps, recorded by them. 

 

Educational wikis, blogs, podcasts and other Web 2.0 learning tools are becoming more widespread throughout the college. The possibilities are only growing. Never before have teachers had access to free teaching materials of the quality, quantity and variety that they do today. 

 

Ringwood Secondary College wants to fully embrace the Digital Education Revolution, not for its own sake but because the benefits that a 1:1 student laptop program brings is the right one. There is a growing body of knowledge now available to us suggesting that we need to continue along this pathway.

  

Link to the RSC forum /discussion board for the laptop handbook and faq:   http://intranet.ringwoodsc.vic.edu.au/forums/