Now, before I dive too deeply into this, let me start by saying that the title of this post may be slightly misleading. In no way do I believe that the death of desktop is anywhere near. They certainly have their advantages in certain situations. My classroom just doesn’t happen to be one of those.
If you own a desktop, where does it sit in your home? If you have desktops in your classroom, where are they located? I bet in both situations, they’re isolated somewhere, facing a wall. Well, I suppose this could allow for limited distractions. If I have nothing to stare at but a wall, I’m most likely going to focus a little bit more at the task at hand. But is that what you really want for a classroom? Do you want your students faced away from everyone? Do you want them isolated?
In my classroom, and I’m sure in yours as well, I try to bring as many opportunities for collaboration as possible. Students learn best from working together. It’s important that they have opportunities to collaborate, no matter what the topic at hand. That’s not always the easiest to do when students are packed in like sardines, trying to find a way to gather around a desktop computer. I have 5 desktops in my classroom, set up on two tables in the back of the room. This is the only place I can put them due to the fact that this is the only place with ethernet jacks. I’ve tried fitting groups of two or three students at a computer to work on a project together. All that ends up happening is students have to try to jockey for position just to be able to get a glimpse of their computer screen. If collaboration is the goal, the desktop is definitely not the key.
Now, I know I’ve been very fortunate in the technology that I’ve acquired over the past year or so. I know the desktop is the only option still for most classes. Even having five desktops previously, I’m very fortunate compared to what a lot of other schools have. Other schools within my district have only two or three desktops per classroom. And I know some of those aren’t always fully functional. Just this year, through Donors Choose, I’ve received 14 Chromebooks. Then, through a combination of Donors Choose and the school, I’ve gotten 4 iPads, a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and a iPod Touch. But, it’s not the fact that I now have at least one electronic device per child that really impacted me within a short time of having these, it’s how much easier collaboration has become.
Students can now pick up a Chromebook, move anywhere in the room, and three or four students can easily gather around it to work on a Google Presentation as many recently did as part of their Genius Hour project. Or, students can work together on an iPad to create a Phoster of a math concept we’ve been working on. Or, they could use Foldify to determine surface area of a rectangular prism net, print it out, and construct it. In the process of all of this, they’ll be learning from one another. They’ll be learning how to share ideas. They’ll be learning how to work as a team. Isn’t that what we want in our classroom? Don’t we want our students to gain a deeper understanding of a concept through the collaborative process?
If offered a choice between five brand-new, top of the line desktops or one or two Chromebooks or iPads, I’d choose the latter in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even give it a second thought. I would rather have one or two of these devices where students can share in their experiences rather than five stationary computers. And that’s not what I want from my classroom, I don’t want it to be stationary, I want my students’ experiences to constantly be moving forward.
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