The book I read this week is Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning by Diana Neebe and Jen Roberts.
I started the book, not knowing what 1:1 meant. I made a guess that 1:1 could be teaching one on one: One teacher per student. Actually, the 1:1 mentioned in the book refers to the one computer device per one student model. The authors are English and social science teachers who believe that the 1:1 approach can be applied in different courses.
This book is like a companion guide to the teachers, and of course, lecturers, who are interested in using the 1:1 model in their classrooms. The authors provide links to the resources they mention in the book on the companion website, pluginpowerup.com. When the readers read about a particular technology and wonder how it works or what the technology looks like, they can check it out by going to the website right away.
The thing I really like about this book is how Neebe and Roberts put their experiences in guiding and training other teachers. Their experiences are portrayed as storytelling. The readers can learn the human side of teachers who are using technology in their classroom in a non-academic way.
The fact that Neebe, the first author of the book, is a Google Certified Innovator and Roberts, the second author, is a Google Certified Teacher might intrigue some readers. Anyway, please do not misunderstand that they only talk about Google applications. In fact, they use several different applications from different companies.
The book title, Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning, tends to suggest that the authors might have too positive thoughts toward technology or they might be in the ideal world, normalizing technology when technology is actually a privilege.
It is true that the authors have a positive attitude toward integrating technology in a classroom, but they are aware that not all students have access to the Internet. They suggest in the book that teachers should check students’ technology accessibility when they plan to adopt the 1:1 model. If students are unable to access the Internet at home, the teachers should look for an alternative way for these students to finish their work at school.
The authors assert that students without Internet access are truly left behind. That’s the end of their answer to the question, “what about students who don’t have Internet at home?”
The authors’ answer, to me, leaves behind the teachers and schools that cannot afford to have adequate access to technology. What I want to hear from the authors might be suggestions of how to make the 1:1 work within this limitation.
While reading the book, my mind was wandering around the adaptation and application of the tips and techniques suggested in the book. I just hope that a democratizing force that comes in the form of 1:1 program will spread to my country soon. I am hoping for the best.
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