1 to 1: Livingston School Tech Advocates Want A Device For Every Student

Editor’s Note: This article was contributed by Marilyn Joyce Lehren of the Livingston Public Schools

Eighth graders in Laurie Bisconti’s class at Heritage Middle School are having great success finding fossils and artifacts. It’s all about observation and knowing where to look. And like professional paleontologists, they’ve learned to map their findings, analyze them and date them to unlock the mysteries of ancient life.

We observed their dig conference, where students shared the findings and made comparisons, physically and culturally, on early humans. This was an interactive experience with iPads, and Powerpoint, mobile smartboard, internet sources, music, and video, the lesson captured by an LTV film crew to record how technology is being integrated into learning in Livingston classrooms.

The social studies class was one of four classes to be featured on Monday, Oct. 5 when the district’s Technology Committee presented to the Livingston Board of Education a vision for the future of educational technology in Livingston, including a 1:1 initiative (a computing device for each learner) beginning in seventh grade.
 


This was the first formal presentation on how 1:1 could change and transform the way we teach and the way our students learn. It’s the result of research over the past 18 months to create a vision and mission for technology. This includes visits by teams of Livingston educators to districts already providing computers to students, and follows recommendations by professional groups on ways to integrate technology as an instructional tool to transform 21st century learning.

Teachers at LHS and Heritage responding to a tech survey last June overwhelmingly indicated they would incorporate more tech ed into their lessons if they had the technology.

“This is another arrow in the quiver we can have at our disposal to make the learning come alive, to enhance it, not change it,“ says LHS Principal Mark Stern in the 1:1 video.

Learn more about the process and the district’s blueprint for tech ed by clicking here.

The classes that were featured on Oct. 5 include a high school history class that created an online notebook to share research on progressive presidents, a marketing class with the tools to create business plans, and an eighth grade Language Arts class collaborating on online multimedia presentations on Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the master of science fiction.

“On the great benefits of the 1:1 initiative,” Stern says, “is that even though we’re talking about technology, and it seems futurist and sci-fi, I actually think it makes learning more organic.”

After presenting the rationale for 1:1, the Technology Committee hopes to seek consensus from members of the school board, teachers and the community at large that moving forward on the initiative is the educationally proper thing to do.

“People tend to be afraid that a 1:1 initiative and 21st century learning means that all students will be stuck like zombies behind a computer screen every day in class. But it’s actually the opposite of that,” explains Dakashna Lang, the Heritage English teacher teaching Fahrenheit 451.

“What it really looks like is regular, engaging, stimulating teaching that we have all seen, except now with the ability to access resources at the touch of a button and to create in the classroom what previously could only be done at home,” she says.

If the tech committee receives a nod to continue the work, members will next lead the school community in deep conversations on a whole host of considerations, including funding and the type of device best suited for Livingston classrooms. No decisions have yet been made beyond the recommendation that Livingston should move forward on 1:1 to provide the framework to teach 21st century skills in the 21st century context.

“We need to work with students where they are,” says Stern in the 1:1 video. “Our students are online, our students are involved in the tech age, so our schools have to be involved in the tech age.”

Photo courtesy of Marilyn Joyce Lehren

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