"Computer Labs" of the Future: What Should We do in Computer Time?

This week I was asked a question by a principal that really inspired me. His school has been 1:1 iPads for three years. This principal noted that his school doesn’t have a lab (and likely never will), nor will they have computers. This being the case, he wanted to know what technology classes look like for schools that have implemented iPads? What are the general standards that they should be implementing in their teaching? While this school does have tech classes for their students, it’s more iPad applications – but no keyboarding or other computer literacy/programming. What an interesting question. This principal wants to be sure that his students are gaining the computer skills they will need to be productive citizens in the 21st Century. How would you reply?

This is how I responded. My philosophy is that we need to teach students today to go beyond keyboarding. They need to know how to effectively search for information online (asking questions, finding answers, How to evaluate websites), how to be safe online (digital citizenship: CommonSenseMedia.org), to evaluate information, synthesize information from multiple print and digital sources, and communicate learning using multimedia. These are the New Literacies (Preparing Students for the 21st Century) that we need to teach students today.

We focus on Creation vs Consumption so having students take information they learn on their iPads and learn how to present it using multimedia tools such as Puppet EDU, Haiku Deck, Google Slides and so many more great tools. I love how student technology use can look in schools as shown in this video Learning and Creating with iPads in Kindergarten​:

This meets the ISTE standards for students  focusing computer time on (1) creativity and innovation, (2) communication and collaboration, (3) research and information fluency, (4) critical thinking, problem solving and decision making, (5) digital citizenship, and (6) technology operations and concepts. The last area is the only one that talks about how to use the device, with an iPad how to take a screen shot, save an image, use the camera, etc. And this is only done so students can create using these functions and be prepared for the next device they will use.

Now that many classroom teachers teach computer themselves, perhaps we have more time to integrate technology into the content areas so students use devices to learn and communicate learning. How does your school teach computer?