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Crime and Punishment
March 20, 2007 | 1 Comment
Spent the day today working with a few Grade 9 teachers – the front line of our province’s move to migrate the 1:1 laptop program from Middle Schools into the high school level. The discussion was pretty free-flowing…and somehow came around to a conversation about the ease of which- usually undersupervised – students wander away from what we want them to be doing into game sites or other random web diversions.
This has been a big discussion by some of the new 1:1 teachers at my middle school. For many, the task of managing yet another distraction – and an enticing one at that – is just too demanding. Their solution to wandering mouse clicks is simple – take away the laptop!
The high school teachers even seem to be more draconian, with policies in place that clearly spell out cut and dry rules for “cyber misconduct” that, for the most part, remove discretion from teachers. They argue that the ONLY way to manage student use of the laptops is to have strict rules in place, and that removal is the only effective means of discipline.
I have two issues with this…
1. Strict codes that demand strong responses from teachers and administrators often may not take into account any varying severity of “offences”, and sometimes handcuff teachers. There’s an old adage “Say what you mean, and mean what you say” …well…is this always really what we want to say?
2. I believe that removing a laptop – whether it be for a short period or permanently – is akin to removing a book or pencil. The laptop is a tool, and it’s removal should only be used as a course of last resort. It should not be used as a harsh tool for first offences. Thankfully, administrators at my middle school agree with me, and have forbidden the , until recently, common practice of using removal of a students laptop as a discipline practice. Instead, they see it as a clssroom management issue, and have placed the issue squarely back into the laps of teachers to develop solid classroom management practices and routines that address the issues inherent in the use of this new tool into the classroom.
Of course, it has now become a priority for me to work with teachers to develop some common practices. Suggestions?
Technorati tags: education, teaching, technology
1 Comment so far
The next time that the principal makes a mistake, he or she should should be fired. After all, they’ve had years of practice