Lausanne Laptop Institute Celebrates 10th Anniversary
Students and Teachers Share Technological Advancements in the Classroom
Lausanne Collegiate School is celebrating 10 years of the Lausanne Laptop Institute, an international conference for schools using or considering laptops or tablets as tools for learning. This annual conference, which attracts over 500 educators annually from around the globe, was established after Lausanne successfully implemented a one-to-one program (1:1, one laptop for every student, beginning in Middle School), the first of its kind in the MidSouth, in 2001.
The 10th Anniversary event begins at the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis on Sunday, July 15, 2012, with pre-conference sessions, a celebration of the Institute’s spotlight school, The Montclair Kimberley Academy of New Jersey, and a keynote address by Dan Hudkins from Harker School in San Jose, CA and Matt Harris from German European in Singapore. The keynote speakers will discuss the idea of targeting and identifying the authentic focus of 1:1 in learning and will explore what the next five years of 1:1 learning might be like, with a focus on key indicators, moving away from tools, redefining 1:1 learning and technology fluency.
The pre-conference workshops offered on Sunday include sessions such as One-to-One 101, Geeking Out with Google Apps and Creativity and the iPad. The Institute continues on Monday, July 16 and Tuesday, July 17, on the Lausanne campus, with 183 academic technology application sessions facilitated by educators, administrators and software representatives from around the world. Topics range from use of various technology devices in the classroom including laptops, interactive whiteboards and iPads to practical application of technology and online research to programs and apps for various subjects including language studies as well as technology support for a variety of different 1:1 programs.
Several Lausanne teachers and students will present sessions during the Lausanne Laptop Institute sharing how they have applied technology to the classroom since the implementation of Lausanne’s one-to-one program, which now includes personal technology devices for every student in grades 5-12 and laptops or stationary computers provided 2:1 throughout the schools PK-4th grade classrooms in addition to promethean/smart boards.
Following are some of the specific courses offered by Lausanne students, faculty and staff:
Monday, July 16 from 9:00 a.m. and again at 12:45 p.m., Lausanne students Jon Mathias ‘14 and Manoj Gollamudi ‘14 and Lausanne Upper School English teacher Kelly Geer and will facilitate the session, “The Making of the Literary Movie,” on turning great literary works into great literary films. Students will lead participants through the process of developing story into script, script into storyboard and storyboard to film. Student films will also be viewed and a discussion of the importance of developing the creative intelligence to foster knowledge that shifts away from traditional paradigms while maintaining the integrity of study of great works of literary achievement.
Monday at 10:15 a.m. on Monday, Dr. Nancy Graham, Director of the Arts at Lausanne will present “Music for the other 80%” discussing how traditional performance-based music classes, such as band or chorus only serve about 20% of the school enrollment and offering suggestions of how to reach the other 80% with the latest tools in music technology.
Monday at 10:15 a.m., Lausanne physical education teachers Pamela Pointer and Leslie Braham will introduce participants to “Electronic PE and Health-Enhancing Physical Education with Technology,” a program that does not reduce activity time in PE but enables students to enhance their own fitness programs by creating exercise videos, tracking calories burned, creating spreadsheets and charts as well as researching sports and games from other cultures.
Monday at 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Lausanne Headmaster Stuart McCathie and other Lausanne administrators will lead a session on “Strategic Planning for Your 1:1 Program.”
Monday at 11:30 a.m., Upper School Spanish teacher, Mavis Negroni, will facilitate “Using Technology to ‘Flip’ the Classroom“ demonstrating the use of blogs, PPts, Prezi, You Tube, podcasts, Quia, Quizlet and a few other resources to grab more and better use of foreign language class time.
Monday at 11:30 a.m., Lausanne Middle School English teacher Ginger Reese will facilitate “Open Up Your Laptop” explaining how the novelty of using technology in the classroom hasn’t worn off with every new creation, addition or smaller version coming out almost weekly. This information session will introduce participants to some new and/or old ideas revisited to help the teacher and student navigate this essential personal educational tool.
Monday at 12:45 p.m., Bryan Beretta, Directory of Academic Technology at Lausanne, will co- facilitate “Can We All Get Along? Finding success with BYOD and hardware diversity with Jesse Lara, Technology Service & Support Manager at The Harker School, San Jose, CA. Queries will include: What happens when you allow your students to bring "whatever they want" for technology in the classroom? The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model for a one-to-one program is gaining momentum but is this merely a technological fad or is it beneficial to the learning environment of our students? In this session participants will discuss and debate the potential pitfalls of allowing a variety of devices on campus and determine strategies for success.
Many more classroom application courses take place on Tuesday including Dr. Julie Elb’s ‘We’re not in Kansas Anymore’: New ways to use film in the 21st century history classroom. Dr. Elb, Chair of Lausanne’s Upper School Social Studies Department, shares, “As teachers, we complain often about the difficulties we face in trying to bridge the gulf between our own specialist knowledge and the world of the teenaged student in the classroom. Often, the culprit we blame is students’ ever-growing dependence on technology. Our students are digital natives, and we are not. They intuitively understand and communicate in a world in which we wander as foreigners, and they are increasingly reluctant to distance themselves from technology long enough to immerse themselves in a world that has no obvious immediacy to them. Their world is primarily about communication through various social media, but the communication itself is brief and superficial, so we as teachers become more discouraged as students apply their technological mentality to the study of complex ideas. Many of us continue to teach through lengthy lectures in the way we ourselves were taught, and are justifiably frustrated that students who surf the web but never dive into it have not developed skills that will let them deeply engage with a topic.” In this session, Dr. Elb will examine the use of three films in the classroom and how they engage students in discussing historical accuracy as well as help educators recognize that film is a collective medium.
In addition to this month’s Lausanne Laptop Institute, Lausanne collaborates worldwide with other schools establishing 1:1 programs as well as institutes and provides administrative and faculty presenters at ASB Unplugged (American School of Bombay, Mumbai, India, February 22-25, 2012), the European Laptop Institute (Frankfurt International School, Germany, September 27-29, 2012), and the South American Innovate 2013 (Graded School of Sao Paulo, Brazil, January 19-21, 2013).
Learn more about the Lausanne Laptop Institute at www.laptopinstitute.com.
