Choosing A Design for the Technology Rich Classroom

The technological advancements that have been made over the past 25 years have changed the way the human race works, plays, and thinks. The future of mankind has been inexorably changed by our ability to communicate globally 24 hours a day. Never before has the human race had the capability of sharing ideas, opinions and knowledge with the ease that has come to pass in our lifetimes. The students sitting in our classrooms today have grown up with this technology; it is not new or magical to them, but rather, it is and always has been the way the world works. On average, 13- to 18-years-olds spend more than six hours a day using digital media, and contribute more than $175 billion annually to the retail economy in the US (http://images.apple.com/education/k12/onetoone/pdf/1_to_1_white_paper.pdf).

Obviously, students whose daily lives are consumed significantly by technology based activities (texting, downloading music and videos, emailing, surfing the internet, collecting images on cell phones, gaming, etc. are not likely to be engaged by old school delivery methods in the classroom, so a transformation of the classroom is critical, and progressive schools and educators are keen to move quickly toward paralleling the classroom experience with that of everyday life. If more than six hours of our students’ waking hours are spent using digital media outside of the classroom and that has become a primary communication tool for them in their daily lives, it makes sense that the classroom should mirror real life.

Even a cursory read of the most recent literature on technology in education or a peruse through the many technology initiatives currently underway in many school districts around the world, indicates, without question, that the direction of technology rich classroom design is moving quickly toward the 1:1 computing model. The flexibility and mobility of the “laptop school” changes everything about how, when and where students learn and teachers teach, but providing each student with his or her own computer is not all there is to it. In addition to the technology, teachers must be trained to make best use of this technology and be prepared to explore new teaching theories and methods that compliment the use of the latest gear.

In institutions where this transformation has already taken place and with success, the improvements reported in teaching and learning are impressive. In addition to advancing equitable access to technology for all students and thereby narrowing the digital divide, 1: 1 schools are reporting improvement in attendance, behaviour, and the development of observable, measurable, higher order thinking skills in their students. For academic outcome, they are reporting higher overall GPAs and significantly higher grades for English language arts and mathematics.


1: 1 learning environments reporting these kinds of successes are focused on problem-based learning and/or authentic learning.....


A state leader in technology integration, Cascade High School in rural Idaho, uses its 1 to 1 learning environment to engage high school students in authentic projects, connect with field experts, and even influence public policy. Students in advanced biology have designed wetlands, engineered solutions to save struggling trout populations, and even convinced local ranchers to change how they use land. Their technology breaks the barrier of place and time, enabling them to do authentic, stimulating work in their academic studies, while living in a remote rural area (http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/winter_00/5c.html).



Similar initiatives in Canada have produced similar gains for students and school districts.....


The School District #60 in Peace River North in Alberta focused its 1to 1 learning in the area of writing, citing significant gains in the number of students that reached the top two levels of writing achievement. Overall, student writing assessments showed the greatest improvement in form (i.e., organization). Prior to the laptop program, girls significantly outperformed boys on the district writing assessment. Two years into the project, that gap had disappeared, with the percentage of boys and girls meeting standards at 89 percent and 88 percent, respectively. The district also attributes the 1 to 1 learning program for narrowing the gap between Aboriginal students and the general student population (Jeroski, S. (2005). Research Report: The Wireless Writing Program 2004–2005).

David Vandergugen, principal of technology services for Peace River North, commented, “In our first year of district-wide implementation, we saw student scores improve dramatically with 92 percent of our students meeting provincial education standards for writing, compared with a pretest score of 70 percent.”


After reviewing the research and based on our own classroom experiences, our group decided to adopt the 1 to 1 model for our target institute. The many possible applications of the technology available and the multitude of positive outcomes reported in cognitive, behavioural and social domains, make the choice very easy indeed. However, within the 1 to 1 model, there are different options to choose from.


The 1 to 1 model may mean that laptops are available to all students 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. This is the most desirable option, but some schools have opted to limit laptop availability to classrooms during school hours. In these institutions, laptops can be signed out by students during the school day or are available in the classroom from mobile carts only during the school day. The 24 hour a day model is preferred because, with this model, teachers can enrich classroom learning by assigning engaging homework assignments, students can continue work on their projects outside of class time, teachers and students can take advantage of on-going communication after school hours, and parents and extended family can more actively participate in the education of their children/grandchildren through access at home to email, teacher web pages, blogs, etc.

With the adoption of the 1 to 1 -24 hours per day design, the expectations are that student achievement will improve, the digital divide will disappear, teaching methods will advance and more effectively meet the needs of today’s learners, students’ learning experiences will become more relevant and personal, communication between students, parents, teachers and administrators will improve and an ongoing discourse will be established between these parties that will contribute to both the academic and personal success of each individual learner.

Evaluating the success of such programs will necessitate a revision of common assessment and evaluation protocols. Obviously, certain aspects of student learning (e.g. reading comprehension, numeracy and writing skills) can be assessed using more traditional methods. Test scores, GPAs, and results from standardized tests can measure outcomes on the objectives associated with academic achievement. The difficulties arise when faced with task of measuring the myriad of cognitive, behavioural, and social outcomes observed as a result of the integration of technology across the curriculum, and now, into the after school life of the student. There are many intangibles that need to be considered but are much more difficult to measure and link directly to a causal element. For example, increased attendance, improved attitude toward school and learning, teacher confidence, student confidence, student and parental satisfaction are all important outcomes, but new and effective ways of measuring these more mercurial benefits will have to be developed and linked directly to the use of technology and appropriate teaching methodologies that compliment the technology.


Physical Layout and Design Principals for the Technology Rich Classroom


In our classroom design, the traditional blackboard would be replaced by four interactive white boards and two wall mounted date/video projection screens. In this technology-rich classroom, students and teachers can send information to any one of the four whiteboards located around the room directly from their laptops. The opportunities for expanding and enriching the classroom learning experience are best described in the following example:


The teacher can simultaneously conduct a science experiment with his/her students using a digital document camera that projects to a large screen while displaying a Web-based animation depicting a related scientific process on another screen. In addition, using another screen, an Internet2 connection and some wireless microphones, students can videoconference with an expert on the scientific topic they are studying. Finally, the teacher works along with the students using a spreadsheet to crunch data from the experiment on an electronic whiteboard while the students are doing the same on their wireless Internet connected palm pilots or laptops. Of course all of this is being recorded to a DVD or to the Web so that students may take a second look later on that evening while doing their homework or studying for the next day’s test (http://www.techlearning.com/shared/printableArticle.php?articleID=196604071) .