1:1 Laptop Initiative
The purpose of the one-to-one initiative is to place a
Mac Book laptop in the hands of every student and teacher in high school in
Mitchell County Schools for use at school and at home during the school
year. The original goal of the 1:1
initiative is to enable North Carolina teachers to use 21st Century tools and resources to teach 21st Century content and skills to 21st Century students. The initiative will help enable every student
to graduate from high school prepared for a globally competitive workplace,
post secondary education, informed citizenship, and a successful life in the 21st Century.
A 21st Century learner possesses the following
skills: learning and innovation
skills—critical thinking and problem solving, communications and collaboration,
creativity and innovation; digital literacy skills—information, media and
computing literacy; career and life skills—flexibility and adaptability,
initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural interaction,
productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility. Through the 1:1 initiative we will be helping
to prepare a future workforce that can and will be globally competitive and
digitally literate.
This initiative is unique in that every
student will benefit from this project.
Each student will be able to use the device according to their needs at
the time. An important part of a 1:1
initiative is that the device is available to the students not only at school,
but at home as well. When we surveyed
our current student body in the Fall of 2010, we learned that 81% of our
students currently have Internet access at home. This initiative will allow the laptops to be
used at home. We are currently adding a
filtration device that will allow these laptops to be filtered at school and at
home. Through the filter students will
only be able to access content that we allow. Also, both the student and the
parents will be signing an acceptable use policy for the devices, prior to the
device deployment.
Having a 1:1 environment at our school
provides alternative ways for students to learn. Our Grad Center students, who are able to
take credit recovery courses in order to graduate on time, would be able to
take these courses online at home. Other
special populations groups would benefit as well, such as: home bound, medically fragile and teenage
pregnancy students. Because these at
risk students may be potential drop outs, we would be giving them another
solution for staying in school, since they could complete these courses from
home using the provided laptop, hence reducing the drop out rate.
There are many benefits for Mitchell County
that will result from a 1:1 environment, such as improvement in the quality of
our schools and the quality of our workforce. As far as increasing the number of jobs in a
community, research states that through a 1:1 laptop initiative we are creating
a better educated 21st Century workforce. We will also be improving the quality of our
school system, which will aid in economic development in the attraction of
businesses to our area. A 1:1
environment would also train students to be able to work in a virtual
environment which would allow them the opportunity to still live in and
contribute to the Mitchell County economy. Through the e-learning our students
will receive we will have a better educated workforce which will lead to direct
job creation.
We will be having a 1:1 celebration and
information session on Monday, September 12 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at Mitchell
High School. The celebration will
include representatives speaking about the grant, about 1:1 initiatives in
other locations across the state, our plans for the 1:1, hands-on use at the
celebration with the MacBooks, t-shirts and other items for sale to students,
parents and the community regarding the 1:1 initiative, and vendors will be
selling food. We invite everyone to come
out and take part in this celebration and learn about our 1:1 initiative. Contact Kim Hodshon for more information at
828-766-3437 or email at khodshon@mhslive.net
There will be a required parent meeting on
Monday, December 5 at 6:00 p.m. at Mitchell High School and the deployment of
the Mac Books will be during school on Monday, December 12.