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Student Laptop Program
Letter from the Headmaster to Parents (January 2003)
Dear Parents:
Beginning in the fall of 2003, all freshmen, sophomores, and juniors will be required to have laptop computers, purchased by their families through the school.
This ambitious program fulfills the vision that helped launch the school's first technology initiative in 1999. Believing that "technology infusion can transform the education process, facilitate incremental improvements in learning, be a vital tool for educators' professional growth, and prepare students for life in a high-tech world," (Miller, Learning and Leading with Technology, March 2001), the Board of Trustees spearheaded a drive to raise money for a campus network, for faculty laptops and for a laptop classroom. Now we are ready to take the next step.
As an Upper School family, you undoubtedly have questions about this program. We would like to answer the most important one.
Why are we doing this?
- Laptops expand a child's learning environment, traditionally the classroom, beyond the school's walls.
- Laptops make better use of a learner's time as the time for learning is no longer confined to the school day schedule. Students also have immediate access to the flexible resources they need, when they need them.
- Laptops increase the frequency and effectiveness of interaction and communication, for example through one on one or group discussions on line.
- Laptops represent the most powerful tool available—outside of the students' minds—for working with information, a tool that facilitates the management, analysis, assimilation, and presentation of that information with more sophistication, greater creativity and increased confidence.
- Laptops offer students more freedom to take better advantage of their particular strengths as a student while also providing them with the tools to shore up their weaknesses. More significantly, in a classroom with laptops, much of this learning and skill building takes place in a collaborative manner.
- In schools with established laptop programs, research indicates that students
- perform more extensive editing and have become better writers;
- use more problem solving and critical thinking skills;
- use a greater variety and number of information sources in research projects.
- Our strong college-preparatory curriculum becomes even stronger through utilization of this important pedagogical tool.
Laptop learning complements traditional learning processes with an approach that is more relevant to the world in the 21 st century. By authentically integrating the laptop into a Rocky Hill student's academic program, we expect to graduate young men and women who are active learners, who love learning, who know how to learn and adapt easily, and who can construct their own knowledge from the information they discover. The mission of the school, "to guide our students…in the pursuit of knowledge and self-awareness," will be realized in a program of excellence.
Learning with laptops is not the stuff of the future, but an imperative of the present. I invite you to join us as we prepare our children for the world they live in today as well as the world they can expect tomorrow. Our new Upper School academic building will be outfitted in such a way as to incorporate wireless, laptop technology into each classroom and area.
There will be two separate laptop information sessions for parents and students to attend. They are scheduled for Thursday, February 6, 2003, 8-9 a.m. and Monday, February 10, 2003, 7-8 p.m. Please note that one is morning, and one is eve ning. Also, this will provide an opportunity to answer all of your questions.
This spring, all details of the laptop, its specifications, purchase arrangements, and timetable will be available to all parents and students. Our website will also provide access to a laptop page which will provide important links relevant to this process.
I look forward to this next step in the development of our Upper School academic program, a program which will continue to prepare students in all ways for their place in the world.
With every good wish,
Cordially,
James J. Young III '70
Headmaster
N.B.
The laptop model that families can purchase will be chosen next spring and will be configured to the school's specifications, including all educational software that will be used by the students in their academic program. More information to come!
Resources about laptop programs:
http://rockman.com/projects/laptop/
http://www.learningwithlaptops.org
http://www.stager.org/articles/CAlaptoparticle.html
Back to Student Laptop Program
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