You've gathered your evidence. You've taken a look at how you're doing. You want to stay ahead of the critics. So, how to do you tell your story, share your evidence, and advocate for your program? How can we tell the story of our program and share our evidence?
Before you can tell your story, it is important to understand some of the reasons you might run into resistance and criticism of your 1-to-1 program. These reasons include the following:
Don't worry! There are strategies for telling your story that will help deal with these perceptions. And being aware of these potential perspectives will help insure that your responses will address them more effectively.
- Parents & community members can't relate to it - learning with laptops is very different than what most of the parents, community members, and school board members experienced as students. It is largely outside their frame of reference.
- It is seen as giving students a $1500 toy - Many parents and community members have mostly seen their children explore popular culture on the Internet, chat with their friends via instant messaging, and play games. They may be having a hard time imagining students using the laptops for much of anything else.
- It is seen as replacing academics - Many people (including many educators) are afraid that introducing computers into the curriculum will take away from the core curriculum or exploratory curriculum that has been valued long before computers came around. Laptops are either viewed as potentially replacing other academics financially (concern the district will eliminate one program to fund laptops), or time-wise (concern students will loose important curriculum time to learning computer skills).
Remember, communicating your successes, doing PR, and keeping parents and the community informed is essential. If information is not coming from the school and its educators, then the only news will come from others who may not be as well informed, or as supportive, or as positive.
- Be proactive - Start right away getting the word out about your program. Don't wait for critics or concerns. Be the first one to get information out and make sure that the first information out is positive news.
- Keep parents informed - have an open house focusing on your laptop program or devote time at each open house or parent meeting to how the students are using the laptops. Include news of your 1-to-1 program in your newsletter. Make sure you focus on how students are using them for academics, what the students are learning, and how the technology is impacting that.
- Keep the community and the School Board informed - Make sure your Board gets your school's newsletter. Invite the Board and the general community to special parent nights where the laptop program will be highlighted. Send press releases to your newspaper or invite a reporter to learn about what your students are doing with the laptops (keep it focused on the academics). Did you collect evidence of how you are doing? Have a formal release of the report. Make it an event and invite the community, the press, and the Board. Share your progress, acknowledging where you are still working, and celebrating your successes.
- Tell stories - stories carry a lot more weight with people than straight facts or research. Stories have life and make facts more real. And remember that students are wonderful storytellers. Let them present at your parent nights, write articles for the newsletter, and speak with reporters when they visit your school. If you get them talking about what they are learning in their classes (and your teachers are using the laptops for learning), the students will inevitably talk about what role the laptops are playing.
- Keep parents involved - Conduct surveys to get parents' views. Provide opportunities to find out about (and then address) their concerns. Get parents to volunteer in classrooms and let them see first hand how the laptops are being used for learning. Do any parents have special technology skills they can share? Tap into those and extend your scarce resources.
- Help students become accustomed to learning with laptops in the classroom - Our students might be digital kids, and fluent with many kinds of technology, but that does not mean that they know how to use it well for learning. The more we build their information literacy skills, focus on the content when creating projects, and explore using new applications to delve into the curriculum, the more we not only help them learn better, but the more we communicate that the technology is all about learning. Also, the students will directly and indirectly take that message home to their parents.
- Help parents see the benefits and the academic integrity - Advertise your successes. Highlight your curriculum-based uses of technology in your newsletter. Involve your students in telling their parents about how they are using the computers to learn. At the end of a unit, have a Celebration of Learning one evening and have students set up exhibits of their work for parents to peruse. Let the parents see first hand how learning is enhanced via the laptops.
- Organize your supporters - Which parents have seen gains and improvements in their students? Which parents are finding their children like school better because of the laptops? Which community businesses and organizations will benefit from students learning with technology? Enlist these people in supporting and advocating for your laptop program. Have them speak to groups, write letters to the editor, speak to the school Board, participate in school events, approach or speak with potential funders or partners.
The 1-to-1 Advocate
1-to-1 Evaluation
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The Maine Learning Maine Center for in collaboration with The Institute for the
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Maine Center for
Mike Muir, Director |
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The Institute for the
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Gerald Knezek, Director Rhonda Christensen, Associate Director |
Created by Mike Muir
Last updated:
April 12, 2005