Expanding Students’ Horizons with 1:1 Technology

Two of the most powerful impacts of 1:1 technology can never be measured on any standardized test. As a result of having constant access to a computing device in school, students are furthering their 21st century learning skills and, in increasing numbers, are expanding their college and career goals. Let’s examine each of these in turn.

21st Century Learning Skills

A traditional American saying used to declare that education was primarily about the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. A successful 1:1 program, however, teaches students far more than these core subjects. These additional skills are frequently called “21st century learning skills” and have been defined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills as including the following:

• Information, Media, and Technology Skills
• Life and Career Skills
• Critical Thinking
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Creativity

When done properly, 1:1 programs allow students to not simply listen to lectures and read textbooks, but to actively seek out their own learning. Technology allows students to communicate with a worldwide audience and to collaborate with classmates as well as others from virtually anywhere in the world. Students can demonstrate their learning by creating presentations, videos, websites, wikis, and podcasts rather than simply completing worksheets and taking quizzes. In addition to being extremely motivating for students, this is precisely the kind of creativity that employers want their students to demonstrate as well. That leads us to the next huge advantage of 1:1 programs…

Increased College, Career, and Citizenship Goals

In the past, many students’ career aspirations were limited to the jobs they saw which employed people in their own family or hometown. (Plus a few others that were so common that they became cliché: it seemed every child planned on being a future astronaut or professional athlete.) This was particularly limiting for students in high-poverty urban and low-opportunity rural areas. Similarly, many students internalized limited expectations in terms of what college opportunities might be available to them upon graduation from high school.

The Internet, and particularly 1:1 programs that help to provide an Internet-connected computer into the hands of all students, have served to level the playing field. Students can now be exposed to a vast array of college information and course content (such as MIT’s OpenCourseWare) for free. Through communication tools such as Skype, students and classrooms can now connect with subject matter experts and gain exposure to career paths of all kinds, not just those commonly seen locally.

Although high school students have the most to gain in this regard, even middle and elementary students can begin to expand their notions of their own future college and career options; as one fourth grader wrote to me after spending his first year in a 1:1 classroom and in a school programming club, “My plan for the future is to create my own website and design math games and apps for elementary students.” Without the tech exposure a 1:1 classroom provides, it’s unlikely that child would have considered that as a potential dream for his future.

This is perhaps the most compelling case of all for the widespread implementation of 1:1 technology for students everywhere: that students will be able to expand their horizons beyond their own physical environment, seeing themselves as creative, innovative global citizens with lofty aspirations about their own future college and career successes.

Mark Pullen is a 1:1 classroom teacher — he submitted this post on behalf of Worth Ave. Group. Worth Ave Group provides laptop, tablet computer, and iPad insurance to schools and universities.