Proposed+Laptop+Statement

10/2/09 A combined statement draft- JMB editor Jean’s suggested statement

Advances in communications technology are dramatically transforming the sharing of information. Citizens of the 21st Century live in a global community that is increasingly interconnected. As an educational institution, Ensworth has the responsibility to prepare its students to participate in this new world community and to serve as leaders for using the power and potential of technology to bind us all together more closely.

The best way to teach students how to succeed in the world’s new media environment is build technology into the fabric of school life and to immerse students in it. The use of laptop computers is a critical tenet of the Ensworth learning experience. Through the integration of laptops and related technology, students are introduced to learning on the individual, group, and collaborative and global community levels. To foster these varied, yet critical, learning opportunities, laptops provide an open and engaging environment for the Ensworth student.

Instructors and students at Ensworth High School are provided with a personal laptop to supplement and benefit their teaching and learning practice. The laptop is used to integrate technological components into subject curriculum, as appropriate for their particular subject area. For this reason, Instructors strive to be aware, educated, and comfortable with technology and laptop methods that enhance and expand learning opportunities for their students and within their curriculum. Appropriate modeling of technology use is vital to student knowledge and use of laptops in a responsible way; Instructors are expected to use laptops consistently as an integral part of the Ensworth program. This includes the daily posting of homework assignments, maintaining attendance, disciplinary records, and communication with parents through email, supplemental status reports and course grades. As course materials become increasingly available online, students will be able to utilize quick searching and resource linking without toting around numerous standard textbooks. Laptops are the primary tool for writing, researching, and interfacing with laboratory and mathematical instrumentation. In addition to using laptops for individual writing and small group collaboration, students are able to organize and save their work in network portfolios. The unity of these two groups, students and faculty, is a powerful collaboration in creating an environment of critical thinking, reasoning, and innovation that will continue to serve both throughout their careers.

The Ensworth Technology Department has full access to every laptop when the laptop is on campus, but when students access the Internet away from school, the content filters that control and block access to social sites; i.e. MySpace while on campus are not blocked at home due to the various personal services our Ensworth families subscribe to. We are in partnership with parents to protect our students from cyber predators by encouraging parents to check where their child is searching and read their child's social networking page on a regular basis.

Ensworth High School is dedicated to the development and training of its students and faculty with the ongoing usage of technology. With the full support of the School Administration, professional development includes faculty participation in cross-curricular demonstrations and training within Ensworth, attendance at national conferences, workshops, and partnerships with other schools to share and craft best practices using technology in the classroom.

Technology is evolving at a startling pace. By giving students a strong foundation in the technology of today, EHS is equipping them to be the leaders in using and even creating the technology for the future.

2008 Proposed draft EHS Laptop Statement

The use of laptop computers is a critical tenet of the Ensworth learning experience. Through the integration of laptops and related technology, students are introduced to learning on the individual, group, collaborative and global community levels. To foster these varied, yet critical, learning opportunities, Harkness tables and laptops provide an open and engaging environment for the Ensworth student. In addition, laptops provide a vital cache of skills that go far beyond Ensworth and immediately prepare them life in a fast-paced media-centric world. The skills range from practical experience with a wide variety of computer applications to research to cyber citizenry and ethics. Ensworth students will matriculate with a strong knowledge in the following programs and cyber skills.

- Word Processing - Spreadsheets - Presentation Tools - Movie Creation - Geometer’s Sketchpad - Fathom - Data Analysis Tools - Web 2.0 Tools (Blogs, Wikis, etc.) - Online Research - Online Databases - Copyright and Fair Use

Each instructor at Ensworth High School is provided with a personal laptop to supplement and benefit their teaching practice. The laptop is used to integrate technological components into subject curriculum, as appropriate for their particular subject area. For this reason, Instructors strive to be aware, educated, and comfortable with technology and laptop methods that enhance and expand learning opportunities for their students and within their curriculum. As appropriate modeling of technology use is vital to student knowledge and use of laptops in a responsible way, Instructors are expected to use laptops consistently as an integral part of the Ensworth program. This includes the daily posting of homework assignments as well as the use of electronic textbooks when available, maintaining attendance, and disciplinary records, communication with parents through email, supplemental status reports and course grades. Instructors use their laptops for educational purposes during instruction and in student environments.The unity of these two groups, students and faculty, is a powerful collaboration in creating an environment of critical thinking, reasoning, and innovation that will continue to serve both throughout their careers.

The Ensworth Technology Department has full access to every laptop when the laptop is on campus, but when students access the Internet away from school, the content filters that control and block access to social sites; ie MySpace while on campus are not blocked at home due to the various personal services our Ensworth families subscribe to. We are in partnership with parents to protect our students from cyber-predators by encouraging parents to check where their child is searching and read their child's social networking page on a regular basis.

The administration of Ensworth High School will provide time and training to faculty to support the ongoing usage of technology. This time will allow for cross-curricular demonstrations and training as well as sharing among current faculty members. Support will also be provided for teachers to pursue out of school training in the form of conferences and school visits. Classroom coverage will be provided to facilitate these endeavors.