24/7 access to laptop in learning

<Trends & Issues, Ch3 p28(1.a)>

The three reasons why 24/7 access to laptop which the curriculum materials are installed on with wireless in classes have very little effects on the instructional practice.

The first reason is teachers’ poor skills and knowledge to integrate these software and the materials installed on the laptop into classes. Instructors who haven’t cultivated the systems, knowledge, and skills of handling laptops and software for instructional practice might have problems to make up classes’ schedules and effective contents for learners to be able to learn positively and effectively in the classes. Also, it should take a ton of times for instructors to make use of the installed materials so that it makes easier for learners to understand complex contents in all subjects, especially Math.

Second factor is that more new models of instructional practice for it. The curriculum materials installed on the laptop should have lower quality depending on subjects, and teachers need to more ideas to integrate them into classes effectively in all subjects. They might help for students to have more concreter ideas with digital pictures and informed website, though administers and teachers should have resistance to perfect change in the process that new models and theories for appropriate use this style are developed.

The most important one is lacks of communications and interactions among learners and instructor. If they access laptop for 24 hours a day and every day of the week, it can’t be said that there are high communication processes and interactions among them even if the users are connecting via the internet. Communications and interactions via direct physical activities between students and students, students and instructors, and sometimes students and the instructional contents are necessary for cultivating human qualities and “alive knowledge”.

<Trends & Issues, Ch3 p28(1.b)>

Here, I give two strategies to mitigate these factors I presented above.

First, the professors need to have more lectures that give the basic ideas and trainings to active teachers and even post-teachers so that they can stand on an equal footing with the project and be ready for handling these materials and software in the classes.

Second one is Web2.0 that users can communicate and learn by speaking actives on the laptop like Voicethread should be adopted into the project not only communication on the screens. If so, the users recognize the classmates’ voices and can have more effective interactions among them, and they are also more motivated by the voice instructions from learners.