Feb
8
1:1 Site Visit – The Nueva School
February 8, 2008 | Tagged 1:1, laptops, middleschool, nueva | Leave a Comment
Today my colleagues and I spent the day at The Nueva School in Hillsborough, CA. We were hosted by Matt Levinson, the Head of Middle School, and were there with the intention of hearing about their brand-new 1:1 laptop program in grades 6-8.The Nueva School is a 40-year old K-8 school located in Hillsborough, CA with an emphasis on gifted students. They currently have an enrollment of 370 and will be expanding to 400 within the next several years. This past Fall they rolled out 1:1 laptop computing for 6-8th grade on the very first day of school. There was inevitable fallout and it served as a wonderful cautionary tale about what not to do! While they got off to a rocky start, they are already putting in place some changes for next year’s rollout to 6th Grade.We had a great opportunity to spend close to an hour talking to 8th Grade students about how they felt 1:1 is going at Nueva. Students are amazingly enthusiastic about the new laptop program. They claimed that they use their laptops 2-3 classes per day, and that most of the use of laptops is not during class. Home use is both academic and social. Students expressed pleasure with the large amount of compelling software on their laptops, (ranging from the full Adobe CS Suite, to Office to iLife & iWork, Geometer Sketchpad, Flash, 3D modeling software, Mind Mapper, etc.) which they frequently explore and use in a way that would not be possible without 1:1. A few students recounted how difficult sharing sharing a family computer was prior to 1:1. “It was a living nightmare.” “I don’t have to wrestle with my brother for the computer.” They loved having the same software and platform at school and at home, which contrasts sharply with the frustrations they had transferring work electronically prior to 1:1. They appreciate how everything is backed up every 15 minutes to the server, and the Open Directory system alleviates worries about machines crashing or forgotten at home. Teachers and administrators worried at first about the distraction factor, but found that once the initial novelty wore off, the amount of distraction was limited in 8th grade. Kids articulated that laptops are more environmentally friendly, create equity between all students, help them to organize their work all into one location and communicate with their teachers.As we continue to explore the possible road to 1:1 for our own 6-8th graders, our Technology Committee has set up a wiki to keep ourselves organized. To see the wiki, go to http://mcdstechcommittee07.wikispaces.com/
