Rocky Hill School
Student Laptop Program Information

September 2008

Introduction..and some history

Welcome to the Rocky Hill upper school and "Year Six" of our student laptop program. Our home, the Flynn Center, has been open since September 2004, and within its walls the Rocky Hill Model of technology and the Harkness Table have created a lively and engaging teaching and learning environment. Now, as we look forward to next year, we are more confident than ever about our laptop program and, specifically, about our continued use of the tablet pc as our primary platform. We are excited to invite you to join us in this initiative (see letter to parents).

Eight years ago Rocky Hill School provided faculty in all divisions with laptops so they could begin employing technology to enhance our students' education. This was followed by the addition of a laptop lab in the Upper School during the 2001-2002 school year. Here, both teachers and students enthusiastically implemented a pilot version of a "Learning with Laptops Program." In September of 2003, we officially launched our student laptop program, and students in grades 9 through 11 were required to have a laptop in school. In 2004, our faculty began to experiment with the tablet pc, and beginning with the 2005-2006 school year, we recommended tablets to our students.  Now tablets are required for all incoming freshmen and strongly recommended for students new to grades 10-12.   Our experience during during the past five years has validated the vision articulated by our Headmaster, James Young, back in 2003:

Laptop learning complements traditional learning processes with an approach that is more relevant to the world in the 21st 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.

The Rocky Hill School Student Laptop Program is a major curriculum initiative and represents a commitment to the present and future of education inside and outside of the classroom. Even more importantly, it is embedded in the Harkness method, and this combination embodies the optimal teaching and learning environment.

Faculty continue to redesign and reconfigure their lessons to incorporate the obvious strengths that laptops and Harkness can offer in terms of communication, collaboration, visualization and problem solving. In the state-of-the-art classrooms that the Flynn Center offers, students become active participants in the learning process. Not all classes, however, involve use of the laptop; when the learning activity is not appropriate for laptops, students are asked to put them away.

A critical complement to Harkness and laptops has been the Blackboard Learning System (http://bb.rockyhill.org). Blackboard allows teachers to put course assignments and materials online so that students always have access to them. The use of email and the Blackboard Digital Drop Box have rapidly become the preferred method of submitting homework assignments; Discussion Boards have become an integral part of the classroom, supplementing and extending students' learning.

Laptop use is everywhere - in the hallways, outside on the grass or in the circle, waiting for parents after school, at picnic tables - wherever the wireless network can be reached.

The Laptop Program

For the first year of our laptop program, we conducted extensive research and determined that the laptops offered by Toshiba presented the best balance of cost, features, service and reliability. From the beginning we have strongly recommended that families purchase the laptops recommended by the school rather than bring one from home or buy one from a local electronics store. By standardizing the hardware and software that we all - students and teachers - use, we facilitate more effective classroom teaching and learning, and we are able to keep a functioning computer in the hands of each student at all times through the availability of loaners. The perceived lower cost of laptops purchased outside of RHS can be deceptive; it does not include most of the software necessary to function at RHS nor the significant additional services that RHS provides in the area of maintenance and support.  Students who have what we can call "nonstandard" laptops do not have access to the loaners and we will not repair their computers.  This subject is addressed in more detail in the Frequently Asked Questions.

 Laptop Recommendations

For the 2008-2009 academic year Rocky Hill School will again require all freshmen to the Upper School to bring a tablet laptop to school; students new to grades 10-12 are strongly encouraged to purchase a tablet as well.  Because of its versatility, the tablet is the ultimate teaching and learning machine.  Tablets are ultra-portable, and they allow the student to choose his/her method of content input: typing, speaking, drawing, or writing.  The model we have selected for purchase by RHS families is the Toshiba Portege M700 Tablet, which is offered as a bundle of hardware, software and services designed to support a student's participation in the Rocky Hill School program.

Once again we will partner with Whalley Computer Associates of Southwick and Milford, MA to provide the recommended laptops at a price specifically set for the School.

Timeline

Whalley Computer Associates will coordinate the ordering and delivery of your child's laptop.   A letter from Whalley and the order form will be mailed to all incoming families the middle of June.  To guarantee the prices listed below, as well as to ensure delivery in early fall, WCA requires completed order forms to be submitted to them by July 20, 2008.  Any parents who have questions or concerns regarding the ordering process should contact Adam Scolnick by phone at (508) 634-1111 or by email at ads@wca.com.

After the orders have been placed, Toshiba will deliver the tablets to WCA in August for imaging and loading of software.  Then, on Thursday, August 28, a representative from WCA will arrive on campus with the students' tablets to help us conduct a two-hour "Tablet Roll Out," an exciting evening designed to introduce you and your child to the tablet.  Best practices for handling and maintenance of the machine will be discussed.

Please check our Frequently Asked Questions web page for more detailed information about the student laptop program. If you have questions that are not answered there, you are encouraged to contact Belinda Snyman about curricular issues, Barbara Streuli about technical issues, and Mark Buckley about financing issues.

Rocky Hill School recognizes that the laptop expense represents a substantial and significant financial investment for parents. We are confident that this investment in your child's education will provide exceptional and long lasting benefits.