Spending a large amount of time learning about technology in schools has been very informative and hopefully given the district an insight on the benefits and downsides to one-to-one technology in the schools. The news article “ICCSD considers one-to-one initiative” gives you in depth, cold, hard, facts. Experiencing different schools that have a relatively different learning environment is an important advantage of being a reporter. Another advantage is the insider information that a reporter earns.

Every student in Cedar Falls High School gets a Chromebook and brings it to class. It’s used for notes, worksheets, and class websites. So let’s look at this, what’s better, what’s worse? When a school hands you a computer for yourself you have to take care of it. You have to keep track of it, not break it, charge it, and remember to get off Netflix and do your homework. Although if you fail, no worries, it’s all on the Drive (unless you didn’t even do your homework because you have to get to the season finale of your personal guilty pleasure) ; but you still have to pay to replace or repair your computer. The thing is, it sounds like the chromebooks break. A lot. Is it really okay to give a reckless teenager a piece of junk and tell them, “you break it you buy it,”?

On the brighter side of this technology, having everything you need with you keeps all students extremely organized. How many times have you heard of a students getting a bad grade because they lost an assignment or couldn’t find it in time? The electronic method makes this scenario far more rare. Giving everyone a computer also levels the playing field which I think is extremely important. If we all have equal access to computers we’re given a better chance to all succeed at education.

The biggest problem with the one-to-one initiative wasn’t the technology but the preparation. First, the network needs to be prepared to handle an entire school having at least one device connected to the internet. After all the students will all have actual access to the internet, the users need to be prepared. Teachers need to determine their comfort zone and plan lessons around that, assuring it runs smoothly and also recognizing the students’ comfort zone. Students need to understand how to use the device as well. This means there will probably be a lot of learning to do.

The one-to-one initiative would benefit our school and our students. We’d have the access to better organization, more communication, and more education in general.