The laptops are coming article

McFarlane, S. H. (2008). The laptops are coming! What I am learning from my school's

infatuation with computers. Rethinking schools. Vol. 22. No. 4. pp. 22-26.



This author wrote about what happened when her student population received laptops. The author was excited and glad that the students were getting them. What she didn't expect was the amount of work both professional and personal time it would take to get this innovation going. The frusteration for her was the lack of information or expertise they were getting as far as the feasibility of the use of this new technology use in her class. It was trial and error from the beginning. The district kept giving workshops and trainings as they went along to help the teachers. At the end she listed both the negative and positive benefits for her students. And since the computers are part of her program now, she wrote onto the article about where to go from where she is now. The most important aspect she brought up was to make sure in planning a curriculum that it is based on social justice and equality.
In reaction to the article, I'm amazed at how unprepared the teachers were in the amount of work they had to do in doing this. The laptops and computers are in my classroom. I am glad that I don't have to do what the school did, in using the computers in all aspects of the curriculum as they seem to have done in the school mentioned in the article. I am learning as I continue to teach. Slowly and carefully, I am starting to introduce computer use to my 5 and 6 year olds. It is hard to go right into it since they are in Yupik immersion!