Journal 1 (NETS - T 5) Taking Laptops Schoolwide: A Professional Learning Community Approach - Learning and Leading with Technology, Vol. 38 No. 1

Green, T., Donovan, L., & Bass, K. (2010). Learning and leading with technology. Taking Laptops Schoolwide: A Professional Learning Community Approach, 38(1), Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201008#pg1

The International Society for Technology in Education examined the practice and habit of elementary and middle school level students employing laptops.  While the ISTE research team covered the array of student grade levels K-8, they came upon a discrepancy that struck them hard.  The research team became aware of a disparity and decided to dig further.  The striking difference that took most of their attention was why some schools incorporated technology much easier than others in the same district.  The ISTE team was impressed by the smooth continuity some schools had uniting their students to their laptops and were dumbfounded by the realization of failure that plagued the other schools.  As the ISTE research team explained a successful school was the result of an omnipresence of technology, a practical approach indicating main features to computers and technology performance - the curriculum imbued with technology - and the cooperation of educators.  The ubiquity of technology plays a giant role in the student's capability of adapting to technology.  The ISTE research team gave little credit to this god like trait of technology required for success within the schools and gave little to no information about the unfavorable or failing schools.  What they did credit was "the district adopted Richard DuFour's Professional Learning Community (PLC) approach to planning: a focus on learning rather than teaching,.." (Green, Donovan, & Bass, 2010)  The research team could not stress enough the success of the PLC Approach.  The research team gave many examples of teacher collaboration and student success resulting because of the PLC approach.  The PLC Approach developed a congregation of educators and gave rise to an environment where ideas were to be unfolded and synthesized upon by colleagues.


 Question #1.)  Is the PLC Approach everything that it is hyped up to be?

Yes, The PLC Approach is the driving force motivating the educators to assemble and better understand their established relations with their colleagues, students, and school objectives.  The students could not become proficient in technology without the educators creating a curriculum saturated in technology.  The successful schools with the technologically imbued curriculum made for technology proficient students.


Question #2.)  Would the PLC Approach have any effect in a school lacking the ubiquity of technology.

I think not, although the PLC Approach would have an effect it would have to be geared towards something already in place.  With the absence of technology in a school, the collaboration of a curriculum with technology would simply be theory; pure speculation.  Although, the cause of educators collaborating for a technologically fused curriculum could effect the students outside of the schools, inwardly the students would be lacking the tools for practical use.