Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning

"What we all hope for our children's education is undiminished curiosity and creativeness, and solid practical preparation for adult work. Today, there's no doubt that easy access to computers is vital for students. Bob Johnstone has brilliantly and passionately told the story of the worldwide struggle to make today's equivalent of the pencil accessible to all students." --Victor K. McElheny, author of "Watson and DNA" If every kid had a laptop computer, what would difference would it make to their learning? And to their prospects? Today, these are questions that all parents, teachers, school administrators, and politicians must ask themselves. Bob Johnstone provides a definitive answer to the conundrum of computers in the classroom. His conclusion: we owe it to our kids to educate them in the medium of their time. In this book he tells the extraordinary story of the world's first laptop school. How daring educators at an independent girls' school in Melbourne, Australia, empowered their students by making laptops mandatory. And how they solved all the obstacles to laptop learning, including teacher training. Their example spread to thousands of other schools worldwide. Especially in America, where it inspired the largest educational technology initiative in US history--the State of Maine issuing laptops to every seventh-grader in its public school system. This lively, intriguing, anecdote-rich account is based on hundreds of interviews. In it, you'll meet the visionary leaders, inspirational principals, heroic teachers, and their endlessly-surprising students who showed what computers in the classroom are really for.