Moving from Central to Mobile...

Just like our telephones used to be centrally located but are now mobile and go with us wherever we need them to, so is the trend with computer labs.  I can remember when centrally located labs were really the only option in schools.  Students would periodically, maybe once or twice a week trek to the "computer lab" to play Oregon Trail, or practice keyboarding with Mavis Beacon or some other educational software.  Now, as Picciano (2011) mentions on page 232 "moving students to a central laboratory for several periods per week is effective given limited resources, but it is not ideal."  With the changing standards, most computer use is tied to classroom instruction and mobile labs are more useful and many schools have been able to even implement 1:1 initiatives. When schools decide what type of computer labs they are going to go with they still need to keep the basic concepts of good planning in mind.  When making decisions, the administrators still need to consider the "human needs of people both inside and outside the school- including students, teachers, parents, and taxpayers." (Picciano, 2011, p. 16)  One must always consider what the main goal or objective is with the computer labs.  Are they students learing basic keyboarding and computing skills alone or are teachers incorporating these skills into lessons?  What is the goal of the faculty and administration by adding this technology?  Are the faculty comfortable with technology in their classrooms and incorporating technology into their lessons? These are all questions that must be answered before the decision on a centralized or mobile lab could be made. The current trends in most subject areas require the integration of research, word processing, presentations and technology use within each subject area.  With that being the current trend, I believe mobile or 1:1 is where most schools are headed, but infrastructure and faculty must be supported in this transition.  Today's students must not only be able to produce written work, but they must also be able to produce digital work whether it be videos, blogs, wikis, or other forms of media and to do that we must bring technology into our classrooms. This requires the computers to be with students in the places where the teaching and learning are taking place, which is usually in the classrooms. According to Breedlove (2014) "instead of learning technology in a vacuum, students should be using it the same as paper and pencil." This requires it to be integrated into the classroom activities on a regular basis not as a "token" activity here and there.  The landscape of our homes have most definitely changed in the area of technology, why should our classrooms be any different?  In closing, here is a short clip showing today's kids, with some of those earlier computers I was talking about that we used to play oregon trail on.  This shows us just how far we actually have come in my lifetime, I have to wonder what my son will see.

References:

 Picciano, A. (2011). Educational leadership and planning for technology (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson. 

 Breedlove, H. (2014, September 30). Why You Should Ditch The Computer Lab - Insight ON. Retrieved April 23, 2015, from http://www.insight.com/insighton/education/ditch-computer-lab/