Any study in human motivation will undoubtedly lead to Maslow's “Theory of Human Motivation”, which logically concludes that humans are essentially motivated by their needs. Knowing this, as well as how much the world has changed in the last decade, it might be tempting to assume that our students' needs have changed along with the world around them. But have they?

For review, let's have another look at Maslow's theory and see what we can glean from it. According to Maslow, all human motivation is driven by a hierarchy of needs, which are typically represented in the form of a pyramid as in the figure to the right. The pyramid is functionally divided into two halves, with bottom half representing deficiency needs and the top half representing growth needs. While the growth needs are what we care most about as educators, it's important for us to understand the deficiency needs before we even talk about growth. 

The deficiency needs are what one might consider to be the obvious needs, with the bottom being the physiological - I need to eat, I need to sleep, etc. Once those physiological needs are met, then we are concerned about physical safety, followed by thoughts of love and belonging, and finally an interest in our self-esteem or sense of self worth. The important thing to remember is that these needs build on each other in such a way that the means to meet higher needs will not be sought until the lower needs are first met. A person will sacrifice their need for love/belonging, for example, if they feel physically threatened, and so on. The notion here is that the deficiency needs all have to be met before we can even start thinking about our growth needs. While schools are doing a pretty good job in these areas (although I have a particular beef with our obsessive over-emphasis on esteem, ie "everyone's a winner, noone's a loser"), we would be remiss if we didn't ask ourselves the tough questions: "Do my kids feel safe at school?", "Are they getting enough to eat?", "Do I create an environment where kids feel as though they belong?"

Once the deficiency needs are met, then an individual moves on to growth needs. In Maslow's original theory he only has one item above "esteem", and that is "self-actualization" or the desire for self-fulfillment and the ultimate reaching of one's potential. A deeper read into the matter, however, reveals that there are some important considerations that must be met on the road to self-actualization, and that there is an ultimate transcendent destination beyond it, which I have broken out in the chart above. He speaks of the cognitive needs - the need to learn, the need to know, the need to understand, and the need to explore. He uses the word "explore" or "exploration", which is something that I think we've lost much of today in education. Once one moves beyond the cognitive, they move towards aesthetics, such as recognizing beauty and the need for order and patterns. And only after that can one understand the nature of their abilities and endeavor to reach their true potential (self-actualization). But the ultimate goal, the one we should all be striving for, is that point where ego steps out of the way and we transcend to a level where we want to help others reach their potential.

Above all, the important detail to remember is that higher needs only gain focus when the lower needs are met, which means that a student's focus can be ever changing, depending on other influences in their life. It's hard to focus on math when you are worried about survival, but you are immensely interested in learning about survival. Likewise, the ultimate realization of a student's potential and consequential wisdom and transcendence will never be reached if we don't create environments where students fulfill their needs to know, understand, explore, and create.

But the interesting thing about all of this is that despite all the technology in their lives and all the changes in the world around them, kids' needs really haven't changed. They still need the same basic things. What has changed is the tools and influences around them that alter the mechanisms by which those needs are met...

More to follow in subsequent posts...

There are a number of things we look for in a netbook, beginning first and foremost with durability. More ...In the hands of younger students, netbooks have a tendency to find their way to the floor from a variety of heights, with alarming regularity. As such, the construction of the netbook must be sturdy. Naturally, this puts models with hard disks at a disadvantage, as a spinning disk is not particularly tolerant of deceleration trauma. Even so, we were initially considering models with hard drives, believing that we might simply keep spare drives on-hand. We have recently changed our opinion on that, however, based on our teachers' expressed concerns and their descriptions of the frequency and spectacularity of drops in the 4th grade.

Hardware compatibility and performance are also important factors. Since we use a custom Ubuntu Linux build on our netbooks, we spend a little extra time verifying that everything works as expected. While we find that the vast majority of devices work out of the box, some vendors' component choices are not the best performing and/or exhibit quirks that can limit usability. For example, several vendors use Broadcom wireless adapters, which require a custom driver and are generally slower to connect than other adapters since they require the loading of firmware with every power up.

All-day battery life is critical, so a 6-cell battery option is a must. We believe that the netbooks must be continuously accessible and instantly available throughout the day to be truly transformative, so anything less is simply unacceptable.

And finally, a wireless-N card is particularly important. With 30+ laptops per room, anything less yields performance that is simply unacceptable, unless one increases the density of access points to a level that borders on unmanageable. With N-class wireless, we have found that a single access point per room is more than adequate to service the entire class.

The following netbooks all met, or nearly met the above criteria, and are listed in the order we looked at them. Notably absent is HP, whom we decided against early due to poor experiences with their laptop support division and general industry consensus that they are the least reliable manufacturer of laptops/netbooks. They also do not appear to offer N-class wireless, leaving them in a hole far too deep to dig themselves out of.

Asus EeePC 1005HA

We have found the Asus EeePC 1005HA to be excellent on a number of fronts. It is the most compact of the bunch, with a 6-cell battery that does not protrude from the perimeter of the case in any way. Their super-hybrid engine yields exceptional battery life, and the build quality is quite high, although the keyboard springs feel a bit light. The wireless card is from Atheros, which is very quick, generally reconnecting to known networks in about 8 seconds. The keyboard feels large and comfortable, and is matched only by the Dell for key size. The price (around $312 per unit) is also among the lowest of the bunch. Asus' repair center for the west coast is located in Fremont, CA, which is relatively close to us, and they offer a quick turnaround on RMA requests.

That said, besides the organizational problems I mentioned above, there are a couple of technical issues with this model. They do not offer a solid-state drive option, which eventually turned out to be a deal-breaker for us. And they use a custom, Intel "High Definition" sound card that has proven to be somewhat problematic. Sound output is excellent, however the built in microphone is another story. For this design, Intel decided to route the analog internal microphone through the chip's onboard digital processor, which confuses the sound mixer in the latest build of Ubuntu by labeling the channel "digital" rather than "microphone" or "internal microphone". This leads to the requirement of a separate mixer application for the microphone, which can be a bit confusing for users. I have no doubt that this problem will be solved in short order, but at present it is a bit annoying.

Acer AspireOne D250-1633

Selecting an Acer model is challenging, to say the least. The number and variety of models for the same basic netbook is staggering, with only tiny variations in components. The "1633" at the end may well indicate the number of models available - at least it sure feels like it. This particular model is one of the few with N-class wireless (also, the excellent Atheros card) and a 6-cell battery. The Acer is surprisingly thin, although the 6-cell battery makes it seem a bit thicker on the back. It also protrudes about an inch, making this model feel larger than most of the other models. Everything works out of the box, including all of the special keys and switches that are littered about the case. Like the Asus, it ships with a 160 Gb hard disk. We know there is a solid state option available, however we were unable to find it in any of the (seemingly hundreds of) models that are available.

The keys on the keyboard are small compared to all the other models, with the exception of the Lenovo, and feel rather flimsy. The overall build quality is just OK, with this one feeling like the least sturdy of the bunch. We believe this model to be the least likely to survive a drop, which appears to be an accurate assessment based on the industry report above. The sound card on this model is identical to the one in the Asus, which means it suffers from the same internal microphone issue.

Samsung N130/N140

The Samsung N130 and N140 are essentially the same model with different styling cues. We looked at the N130-13B model, which includes the 6-cell battery, wireless-N networking, and a 160 Gb hard disk. This model feels incredibly sturdy, and is a bit thicker than the others. The battery life is exceptional and the keyboard feels quite solid, although the mouse button is a rather flimsy, single strip of plastic that flexes when you press on the left or right side. The aesthetic styling is particularly nice, as it is the only model that does not have a glossy or flat black fingerprint magnet on its outer shell. On the flip side, it is white with a medium-blue top cover, which may attract Sharpies and/or lead to a rather dirty looking netbook over time.

With so much going for it in the design department, it was a shame to struggle so with the hardware. While the sound card worked perfectly, the wireless card was a Realtek model that is too new to have a Linux driver, forcing the use of the ndiswrapper/windows driver combo (which is rather slow). There are an insane number of special keys on the keyboard with non-obvious icons on them that do nothing, as do many of the discernible ones, which means it would take a fair amount of work to map them to appropriate actions. We were also unable to locate a solid state option for storage, short of replacing the hard drive ourselves, which is rather expensive.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10v

The Dell Mini 10v is a quite customizable model with a wide-array of options available, including multiple solid-state drives, colors, batteries, and wireless cards. We tested a model that was configured exactly as we would order it, with wireless-N, 16Gb solid state disk, and a 6 cell battery, all in black. The keyboard on the Dell is one of it's strongest points, as it feels very solid and has quite large keys. In fact, the keys are not square, but instead are taller than they are wide, which leads me to believe that they are full height and only slightly reduced width from full size. Touch typists in our district preferred the Dell keyboard to all the other models. The Dell has an Intel sound card that works perfectly in all applications. Battery life is good, although it peaks at around 6.5 hours, which is a little lower than some of the other models. All of the special keys work out of the box. Dell's strong Linux support is also a plus, made obvious through their design and chipset choices.

That said, the Mini is not without its problems. The tall keys create something of an design problem for the trackpad, as Dell was forced to trade trackpad size for key size (see photo above). This lead to a squat and wide aspect ratio on the pad that feels awkward to an experienced laptop user (until they get used to it, of course). In an effort to extend the height of the pad, Dell decided to integrate the buttons, creating click zones in the bottom right and left-hand corners of the pad itself. This sounds like a great idea, however it requires a bit of getting used to, as a thumb press anywhere but the absolute bottom-left or right corner can cause the cursor to jump. Again, this isn't a huge deal, just a quirk that annoys at first.

Other minor issues are the battery and the wireless-N card. While the rest of the models chose to either extend their batteries out the back or, as is the case with Asus and Samsung, conceal the extra cells entirely, Dell adds the extra row of batteries under the back of the laptop. This tilts the laptop up slightly, which the majority of our teacher liked, but also makes it a bit thick to pack in a bag. The only wireless card available with N-class performance is a Broadcom card, which is slower to reconnect to known networks after sleep/power off (for the reasons described above). It generally requires around 17-20 seconds after waking up to reconnect.

All of these are minor issues, of course. The Dell is a solid, well-designed all-around netbook.

Toshiba NB205-N325

We were able to test a pair of Toshiba NB205s unintentionally, as a parent brought them to us to install our software on. While we didn't get to spend a large amount of time with them, our impressions were generally negative. The Toshiba feels extremely solid, even a bit heavy, with an exterior of a similar design to the Samsung (with a few glossy "fingerpring magnet" spots here and there). The 6-cell battery extends out the back, leaving the netbook nice and flat, and the keyboard "chiclet" style keys are similar in size to the Acer, but feel more solid. The special keys appeared to work out of the box, although we didn't have time to test them fully.

That was the good news. The bad news is that there is no solid-state option, no wireless-N option, and the sound card is so abysmal that the only way to make it work is to build a custom kernel with all sorts of patches and tweaks. Out of the box the mic doesn't work at all, and the sound card sends no audio whatsoever to the speakers or the headphone jack. It also has a voltage problem on the USB bus, as they destroyed two of my USB keys. I know it wasn't an isolated problem with just one of them, as I had the same thing happen on both. Take the lack of available hardware to meet our demands, add in the pain and suffering to get the audio to work, couple those with the danger of USB hardware damage, and combine it all with the extraordinarily high cost of this model (this was the most expensive of the bunch) and this netbook is simply a non-starter.

Lenovo Ideapad S10

The Lenovo S10, like the Dell, is a highly customizable netbook. Solid-state, wireless-N (Broadcom), and 6-cell batteries are all available options. The demo unit we received from Lenovo came with a 160Gb hard disk and a Broadcom wireless-G adapter. I imagine we could have got one configured according to our specifications, however this one was readily available, as it was in the possession of the SoCal rep (who happens to live about 10 miles from our district office). It is quite sturdy, with a thick top cover that many of our teachers commented positively on. The 6-cell battery extends out the back like the Acer and Toshiba, and performs much like the Dell at about 6.5 hours of regular use. The Intel sound card just works, as do all of the special keys. Lenovo, too, is quite well known for their Linux support, so we were pleased overall with the out-of-the box functionality. Overall, the S10 is quite well designed.

In the hands of our teachers, however, this was their least favorite model. They all commented on its durability, however also hated the keyboard and trackpad. There is a surprising margin around the keys, which makes them the smallest of the bunch. Many believed them to be the same size as those on our 9 inch EeePCs (they are larger, but not much) and complained that they didn't feel as though they could use it on a regular basis. This, of course, isn't all that relevant, as the netbooks would be used by students, but was striking just the same. Lenovo claims that the next S10 will have bigger keys, but it was not available at the time of this review. As for the trackpad, it can best be described as a postage stamp - it's just too small. It didn't help that the Lenovo rep didn't even seem to like it, instead continually trying to "upsell" us to an 11.6 inch Thinkpad model that is not going to be available until next year.

Conclusion

Based on our initial evaluation, the two models we will be offering to our student testers will be the Dell and the Lenovo. Overall, these two are the best performing and most desirable models, based on our needs and requirements. There are certainly a number of other factors that will come into play in the final decision, such as future repair costs. Our experience has been that the three things that are likely to need repair/replacement are the battery, the keyboard, and the screen. Lenovo has been non-committal on this, again pushing the Thinkpad model as one for which they will sell parts. Dell came in with extremely attractive screen and keyboard pricing - even lower than Asus'. Both are offering imaging services, and Dell has even offered "green packaging", in which they will minimize packing materials by placing multiple netbooks in each box without all of the surplus fluff that one might find in traditional packaging. This is particularly attractive for the quantity we are purchasing, as we expect it will dramatically reduce deployment times.

Yet many of us seem to believe that if we can just get the right set of tools into the classroom we can solve all of education's problems. So we take out our whiteboards and replace them with super-whiteboards, and we swap out our overhead projectors for document cameras, and we sprinkle in some classroom responders, just for good measure. We do all this because we genuinely believe that it will make all the difference in the world, mostly because somebody told us that the reason kids aren't learning in the 21st century is because we aren't interesting enough. And I think that's wrong. I don't think that's right at all.

I think the problem that we're having is not that we haven't figured out the right set of tools, I think it's that we're not focusing on the right things. We're not taking a look at technology and it's role in the future of education and asking the right questions.

I was following along with a discussion panel this year at NECC (now ISTE) on social networking in education (which is a topic I often speak about) and panelist David Jakes posited what I believe is the right question. And it didn't have anything to do with social networking or web 2.0 or tools or technology. It was simply this: “What does it mean to be well educated in the 21st century?” I think that is the question we really need to start asking.

To answer that question, I believe we need to take a step back and look at how the world has changed all around us – step back and look at the world our kids are entering and consider what they will face when they get there. We need to look again at their needs, their motivations, and their influences and discover what drives them to learn and grow. Only when we do that, can we rightly challenge the assumptions we have used to build our education systems and consider what school in the 21st century should look like.

More to follow in subsequent posts...

SaugusUSD SWATTEC Project: http://community.saugususd.org/swattec/page/
SaugusUSD Linux on Netbooks: http://community.saugususd.org/swattec/page/Linux+on+Netbooks
Saugus K12 Social Networking Resources: http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/page/Social+Networking
K12 Social Networking Presentation at Harvard: http://www.slideshare.net/jnetman1/k12-social-networking-harvard

Blog Posts and Commentary:
When do Laptops Become School Supplies? (Jim Klein) http://is.gd/3wWvq
Netbooks and Open-source: Rethinking Laptops and Learning? (Jim Klein): http://is.gd/4fCRU
Linux on Netbooks and Whiskers on Kittens (Karl Fisch) http://is.gd/3wWBf
Transitioning to 1:1 Netbook via BYOL (Wes Fryer) http://is.gd/3wWFY
The Value of Comment Moderation and Feedback... (Wes Fryer) http://is.gd/3wWIC
Quit Substituting Expensive EdTech Gadgets for the “Real Deal” (John Patten) http://is.gd/3wWKH

Key Open Source Projects:
The OpenDisc - http://www.theopendisc.com
Elgg Open Source Social Engine – http://elgg.org
Ubuntu Linux: http://www.ubuntu.com
iTalc Project - http://italc.sourceforge.net

K12 Open Source Resources:
CoSN K12 Open Technologies Initiative: http://k12opentech.org
K12OpenSource.com: http://www.k12opensource.com
K12OpenSource.org: http://www.k12opensource.org
Jim Klein's Open Source Pages: http://community.saugususd.org/jklein/page/Open+Technologies
K12 Open Source Help (Contractor): http://k12opensourcehelp.com

Great Netbooks for Linux:
Asus EeePC: http://eeepc.asus.com
Acer AspireOne: http://us.acer.com
Dell Mini: http://www.dell.com/home/netbooks

Students Skype with US Soldier in Iraq from Jim Klein on Vimeo.

This, of course, is not intentional. When educators consider giving laptops to students at any scale, they generally do so only after careful consideration and planning. These plans typically boil down to two primary areas of focus: systems "management" and staff development. Solid staff development is key to the success of any learning initiative, but I believe our approach to "management" to be the root of the problems that plague broad deployment of individual student technology solutions.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that there was a great need for "management" of each device in the past. Traditional laptops, with their relatively short battery life, unreliable software, and general fragility demand a preventative approach to problem solving, as "management" is often the only way to ensure that the technology will function in a remotely reliable fashion. And yet, any honest assessment of the "managed" approach reveals that it only serves to limit the potential of the technology and its impact on student learning and to significantly drive up costs.

So what would it take to escape the vicious "management" cycle? What if it were possible to offer students a device that was reliable enough that it didn't have to be "managed" at all, allowing us instead to focus on learning objectives? I believe it is, but only if we have what I would call a "cell phone" or "device" approach to technology deployment.

To understand where I'm coming from, consider the number one technology used by students today: the cell phone. Why? Because they are inexpensive enough that all can have one, have the battery life to make it through an entire day, and are easy to use, doing just what they need, when they need it. They are always on, always connected, and rarely (if ever) fail. And best of all, no student needs to be trained to figure out how to use one. So, if we could just recreate those key cell phone characteristics in a device that is a bit more capable of content production and requires just as much "management" (ie none), would we not have an ideal solution? Impossible? Not when you combine netbooks with open-source software.

Netbooks are essentially mini-laptops that combine the physical characteristics of a cell phone with the capabilities of a traditional laptop, overcoming nearly all of the hardware obstacles to continuous student technology use in the classroom. They are low cost, provide incredible battery life, and are ready to be used at a moment's notice, with no complex systems of spare batteries to get in the way. They are also extremely durable, especially if one chooses a flash-based model which has no moving parts. Cell phone durability and battery life can make the difference between seamless use and constant disruption in the classroom.

But hardware is only half of the picture. Open-source software is the answer to achieving cell phone reliability and ease of use on a device. With Linux and open-source software on netbooks, all the complexities of typical proprietary operating systems can be stripped away, leaving elegant, cell-phone like interfaces of simple icons, with reliable and secure underpinnings that are not prone to failure, malware, or general instability. All the tools you would expect are there, along with dozens more that you wouldn't. Quick restore features can be used to empower users to reset their systems in seconds, should something go awry, leaving devices no longer needing to be "managed" to "save users from themselves." In short, you achieve interfaces that do not impede the use of the system, rather they enable it by empowering users through simplicity of design and freedom to explore without risk.

The benefits don't stop there. Through the use of free, open-source applications, students gain access to a diverse set of tools and resources for content creation, and teachers are empowered to challenge students to demonstrate subject area mastery using any one of a variety of tools and contexts. Since the software is free to distribute, students can install the same programs on any computer they have access to, creating an environment in which teachers can have a reasonable expectation that technology-based activities and assignments can be completed regardless of the student's location. And free classroom management tools enable teachers to monitor student activity, communicate privately or with groups, take control of a workstation, start a demonstration from theirs or any student's machine, and garner the attention of the class at a moment's notice, all through an easy to use interface on the teacher's workstation.

Add it all up, and you create an environment that takes the "scary" out of one-to-one in the classroom for teachers and students, and brings practical manageability to one-to-one programs. Does it work? Absolutely yes, we've seen tremendous success in our district through the SUSD SWATTEC program. We've done nearly zero training on the laptops themselves, yet students are using them for amazing things on a daily basis, and teachers have embraced them to the degree that they are regularly used all day, every day in the learning environment. Is it replicable? Absolutely. All the software and every detail is available in true open-source fashion on the SUSD SWATTEC web site. Six school districts in four states (that we know of) are doing it now, with great success.

I hope that you too will consider rethinking your approach individual student devices through the use of netbooks and open-source. With realistic goals, the right mindset, and the right technology, there's no limit to the learning opportunities available to students and teachers in the 21st century classroom.

1. For the study group, put in all the technology you need to get the results you want. Even though the study is supposed to be about boards, be sure to add a great projection system, new computer, subscriptions to digital media libraries, etc. Make sure that your control group has access to none of these tools.


2. Invest tremendously in staff development to teach the study group not just how to use the technology, but also new teaching strategies for the content in question. While these new teaching strategies might also be applicable in a classroom without all the technology, be sure NOT to provide similar assistance to the control group.


3. Provide continuous instructional support to the study group throughout the study period. Ignore the control group.

Of course, you could make matters even worse by doing what Marzano did for Promethean, which was to use the same group of teachers for both the control group and the research group, and ask them to simply "not use" any of the technology for some lessons. Again, you fail to isolate the tech in question, but this time you compound the artificial inflation of the results by introducing bias from the teachers who love their whiteboards.

Viola! You're sure to get the numbers you want!

Now, let's say we REALLY want to find out if the BOARDS make the difference. To do so, we would need to isolate them by:

1. Provide all the same technology resources to both the study group and the control group, with the exception of the technology in question (IWB.)


2. Invest in staff development for both groups. Teach those who don't have the boards to effectively use the rest of their tools in the classroom, specifically digital media resources (online and offline), presentation tools, interactive experiments and demonstrations, etc. Teach BOTH groups the new teaching strategies they will need to effectively integrate the technologies they have in the classroom.


3. Provide continuous instructional support to both groups.

Unfortunately for Promethean and other vendors, what you will find is that the whiteboards, document cameras, and similar technologies really don't make that much of a difference, and both groups will show gains. You will find that what really mattered was the introduction of a diverse set of media-rich content, effectively integrated into the instructional process through the introduction of new teaching strategies.

All that said, my penchant is to invest in technologies that promote a 21st century, participatory and collaborative learning environment, rather than those that reinforce 19th century instructional models that, as history has obviously shown, no longer effectively prepare students for the world they are about to enter. I'd trade 1 IWB for 15 netbooks (which are about the same price as a soup-to-nuts IWB install) any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Lets move our technology investments away from the perimeter of the classroom, and toward the center - where the kids are.

What we must never forget, no matter what circumstances are forced upon us, is that without failure, there is no success. We learn when we fail. We grow when we fall. Science is all about learning from failure, and failure is a key component of innovation, without which nothing would ever be tried. 

This is especially true when it comes to technology. While we may pretend that there is truly such a thing as a "digital native", the reality is that kids are not more familiar with or better with technology as a result of their proximity to it. What they possess is a complete lack of fear, a willingness to try, fail, and try again - to innovate, explore, and discover. Often they achieve their goals, sometimes, they don't, but that's OK because the value of the exercise is in the process, not the result. There is more critical thinking and problem solving in one failed experiment than a thousand standardized tests. As Arthur Ashe once said:

Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.  --Arthur Ashe

Which is why I always enjoy videos like this one. They remind us of how important failure is in our lives, and why we should be creating environments where failure is always an option.

This, of course, got me thinking about exactly what part of "that" was actually part of the curriculum. And perhaps more importantly, what is "that" and how can we make it so that it does not interfere with or become the curriculum, so that the focus can be on what students do with it, rather than on the technology itself. In that sense, I think we are at a tipping point at which the fundamental components of a real technology infusion in the learning environment has the potential to become a practical reality for all of us, much more so than it ever has in the past. More ...

To understand where I am coming from on this, one must first recognize that the primary reason technology has not reached its potential in the past is largely due to its complexity. I'm sure we all agree that every student should have a personal device, yet we understand that complex implementation requirements combined with expensive equipment running complicated, unreliable, and insecure operating systems creates an environment in which things are always broken and failure is inevitable. Massive support infrastructures larger than most school districts can ever hope to afford are a requirement for such an environment to be effective, which, when left unfulfilled, leads to ultimate abandonment in the classroom, with only the most hardy souls sticking to it, trying to make it work. Tolerance for failure among teachers is generally low.

On the flip side we have the students, who are not so "native" as some would purport, yet also not afraid to try new things. They don't generally need to be taught how to use technology, primarily because they are more than willing to try, fail, try again, ask others, and generally figure things out. What is their number one technology? Cell phones. Why? Because they are inexpensive enough that all can have one, have the battery life to make it through an entire day, and are easy to use, doing just what they need, when they need it. They rarely (if ever) fail and none need to be trained to figure out how to use them. And they bring their own - we don't provide them.

So knowing this, how do we create an environment with technology as simple, affordable, and reliable as the cell phone, yet with the power to bring truly transformative change to the classroom? I believe through the fusion of three powerful technologies: netbooks, open-source software, and web 2.0. 

Netbooks overcome nearly all of the hardware obstacles to students bringing technology into the classroom. They are low cost, typically less than half that of a traditional laptop. They provide incredible battery life which enables them to easily be on a students desk all day, ready to be used at a moment's notice, with no complex systems of spare batteries, charging stations, etc. to get in the way. They are also extremely durable, especially if one uses the flash-based models which have no moving parts. Cell phone durability and battery life can make the difference between seamless use and constant disruption in the classroom.

Open-source software is the obvious answer to achieving cell phone reliability and ease of use on a device. With Linux and open-source software on netbooks, all the complexities of typical proprietary operating systems can be stripped away, leaving elegant, cell-phone like interfaces of simple icons, with reliable and secure underpinnings that are not prone to failure, malware, or general instability. All the tools you would expect are there, along with dozens more that you wouldn't. Quick restore features can be used to empower users to reset their systems in seconds, should something go awry, leaving devices no longer needing to be "managed" to "save users from themselves," as many tech directors might put it. In short, you achieve interfaces that do not impede the use of the system, rather they enable it by empowering users through simplicity of design and freedom to explore without risk.

With the hardware and software in place, the final piece of the puzzle is this: leveraging our students' natural drive to create, share, and connect - to be social - through the use of web 2.0 tools. The use web 2.0 tools in the classroom creates a powerful, participatory learning environment. Not only does the mere production of content for an audience bring about a certain authenticity to common tasks, it also breaks down barriers, makes the classroom porous, and creates a sense of community among students, teachers, and parents. What does it mean when 2nd grade students can see the work of fourth grade students and decide to take on that task themselves in a self-directed, online activity? What happens to learning when students create content with the express intent of helping other students understand key concepts? What is the impact of teachers being able to connect with students at any hour, regardless of whether they are in their class or not? Concepts such as these shake the very foundations of 19th century learning models and bring powerful new ideas about teaching and learning in the 21st century.

When we combine these three, I believe we have the ingredients of transformation at our fingertips. Does it work? Absolutely yes, we've seen this success in the SWATTEC program. We've done nearly zero training on the laptops themselves, yet the students are using them for amazing things on a daily basis, and teachers have embraced them to the degree that they are regularly used all day, every day in the learning environment. 

So what's the magic? How do we make these into school supplies? My thoughts are as follows:

1. Set up a purchase program for parents who wish to buy a computer for their students, with the incentive being that the students would own the laptops and be able to take them home, as well as carry the same laptop through grade level changes and the like. Their low cost places them well within reach of a typical family (most have expensive cell phones, after all.)
2. Make as many laptops available at school as possible for those who are unable/unwilling to purchase one.
3. Install all of the same programs that the laptops have on them on every machine on campus, and give the software to parents to install on their home computers.  All of the software can be installed on any machine running any operating system, be they classroom computers or those in a student's home, without restriction or expense, creating an environment of ubiquitous technology access.

The trick, of course, will be achieving critical mass of parent supplied netbooks. 60% probably isn't enough, unless the district has the wherewithal to provide enough backup equipment to accommodate the other 40%. But, if the parents provide 70-80%, and those who don't are provided with equipment to use at school and all the software for use at home, have we achieved our goal? When do the laptops become school supplies? If we no longer have to teach students how to use the laptops themselves, no longer have the burden of providing significant support for them or training on how to use them, and we make sure all of the tools are free and easily accessible no matter what device the student uses, does the laptop suddenly become like a calculator? One of many means to an end? Thoughts?