by In 1990, I had the great opportunity to lead professional development at the world’s first “laptop” schools. Australia’s Methodist Ladies’ College and Coombabah State Primary School were the first schools anywhere to embrace 1:1 computing. MLC is a large independent school that committed to 1:1 computing in 1989. Coombabah is a public school and often overlooked for its place in edtech history. The efforts of the teachers at both schools changed the world and I am enormously proud to have played a major role in that effort.
In the early 1990s, I spent months working at MLC, and then numerous other schools eager to embrace 1:1 and the constructionist principles demonstrated by this pioneering school. In 1993, the MLC faculty and principal wrote a book to share their expertise, philosophy and wisdom with educators in other schools. I hope you find the nearly twenty year-old learning stories, recommendations and tips useful to you. I especially call your attention to the audacity of embracing 1:1 computing more than 20 years ago and the fact that laptops were a way of bringing Papertian constructionism to life.
The book, Reflections of a Learning Community: Views on the Introduction of Laptops at Mlc by Methodist Ladies’ College is long out-of-print and sadly removed from the Web where it resided for several years. As a public service to researchers, educators and historians (and with the help of the Wayback Machine) I am able to share the complete book here. Check out how hip the title of this book is for 1993, since “learning community” has just became all the rage more than twenty years later!
With any luck (and lots of effort) I will soon be able to publish the first doctoral dissertation evaluating the efficacy of 1:1 computing, originally published in 1995!
You should also read Bob Johnstone’s history of educational computing up to and including the early days of innovation at MLC, Never Mind the Laptops: Kids, Computers, and the Transformation of Learning!
The chapters marked by an * indicate that the text describes some of my specific work at MLC.
Reflections of a Learning Community:
Views on the Introduction of Laptops at MLC
AcknowledgementsDownload a PDF of the book here.
Section one: Computing at MLC
- Reconstructing an Australian School by David Loader, Principal at MLC
- The Promises of Educational Technology by Margaret Fallshaw, Computing Consultant, MLC
- The Audacity of Sunrise by David Loader, Principal at MLC
- A Laptop Revolution An interview with Pam Dettman, Head of Junior School
- Educational Computing: Resourcing the Future by by David Loader, Principal, MLC & Liddy Nevile, Senior Lecturer RMIT.
- A Practitioner’s Viewpoint by Maggie James, JSS (junior secondary school, grades 7-8) History Co-ordinator
- Computers for Kids ..Not Schools by Gary S. Stager *
- Initial Research Report by Helen McDonald
- A Technology School for the Future: A Proposal by Ruth Baker, Jeff Burn and Di Fleming
- Design and Technology: The Next Challenge by Ruth Baker, Head of Junior Secondary School, 20.9.1992
- Using Laptops in Schools: The Administrative Implications by Margaret Fallshaw, Computing Consultant, MLC
- Learning with Laptops: Who Pays? by Roger Dedman, Director of Finance, MLC
- Junior School Computing Curriculum by Steve Costa, Deputy Head, MLC Junior School (K-6)
- Computing and the New Teacher by Alison Brown, Teacher, MLC Junior School
- Holiday Program by Alison Brown, Teacher, MLC Junior School *
Section two Professional Development at MLC
- Professional Development at MLC:Requirements for Teachers by David Loader, Principal, MLC
- Computer Pathways: A Model for Change by Di Fleming, Head of Middle School
- MLC Community Education and Technological Developments by Joan Taylor, Head of Community Education MLC
- An Elaborate Pyjama Party by Alison Brown, Teacher, MLC Junior School *
- Teacher Change: Philosophy & Technology by Helen McDonald, secondary English teacher & PhD. student from Monash University *
- Staff Development by Pam Dettman, Head of Junior School, MLC
Section 3 : Appendix
- MLC College Computing Policy
- Constructionistionism at MLC by Jeff Burn, Di Fleming & Margaret Fallshaw
Veteran educator Gary Stager, Ph.D. is the author of Twenty Things to Do with a Computer – Forward 50, co-author of Invent To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, publisher at Constructing Modern Knowledge Press, and the founder of the Constructing Modern Knowledge summer institute. He led professional development in the world’s first 1:1 laptop schools thirty years ago and designed one of the oldest online graduate school programs. Gary is also the curator of The Seymour Papert archives at DailyPapert.com. Learn more about Gary here.