One learning tool per student is an accepted and expected ratio when we speak of pencils, books, and other familiar items in a classroom. We all assume that private use of these items confers greater benefit than their cost, and only high-cost or rare items should be shared among all students, as in a library for books or chemical sets in a chemistry class.<\/p>\n
Yet this seemingly natural order has a whole other life when we look at information and communication technologies in educational systems. Especially when we focus on computers. Educators and technologists promote either full saturation, a 1:1 model where each student has a computer, usually a laptop, or a shared-use model where computers, often desktops, are deployed in school labs. <\/p>\n
Between these two models there is the initial debate around the different computing platforms and their different benefits, which highlights a more subtle difference in pedagogy, and through that, the basic foundations of what “school” means to a society. <\/p>\n
For July, the Educational Technology Debate we will examine the two models, 1:1 and computer labs, and their respective benefits. Our goal will be to understand which benefits are key, and look for a way in which we can fuse these key benefits into a model that can be deployed in the many educational environments of the developing world.<\/p>\n
Our two respected discussants on this topic will be:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Please join us for what we all expect to be a lively and informative conversation \u2013 your input can start right now in the comments below, and Walter and Mark will post their opening remarks beginning Monday, July 6.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Go to most ICT-enabled schools and you see computer labs set up for student use, which often indicates that “Computers” are taught like a subject (ie. math), or a skill (carpentry). Parents and business leaders look to this model as preparing students with 21st Century skills. <\/p>\n
But could there be a better way to distribute computing resources? A 1:1 computer-to-student saturation that encourages private ownership of technology and individual exploration and learning, rather than a limited shared-use of educational tools. Or is a one computer per student model an administrative and financial challenge with limited additional benefit? And could there be a mixed model where shared and private use can co-exist?<\/p>\n
For July, the Educational Technology Debate we will examine the two models and look for a blended approach that can be deployed in the many educational environments of the developing world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[86],"tags":[87,88,94,93,90,92,91,89],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2643,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266\/revisions\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edutechdebate.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}