Part Two of this draft checklist provides a way to monitor school operations for successful deployment of mobile PCs, especially Tablet PCs and Ultra Mobile PCs, in most K20 schools. Research and some teaching universities follow different procedures from ones described in this checklist.

Grant proposal writers may find this and related checklists and definitions useful in preparing work plans for application reviewers to consider.

Part Two expands Section 4 of Part One into Section 4: School Operations - Administration - School Principal; Section 5: School Operations - Teachers; Section 6: School Operations - Curriculum and Supervision; Section 7: School Operations - Instruction.

Part One elaborates the short form checklist. Adapt and adjust these and related checklists and definitions to fit details of deployment of mobile PCs in your school.

Part Three (to be released separately, soon) indicates ways to increase and evaluate student learning rates with Tablet PCs and other mobile PCs as well as to adjust the school public relations plan.

Please let me know what adjustments would make this checklist more useful for you. rwh


Part Two

Section 4: School Operations – Administration - School Principal

Establish a plan to implement the board of education or trustees policies about using mobile PCs in schools, including a schedule, to implement authorizations for using mobile PCs on campus and limits on student, personnel and personal access to public digital infrastructures.

Report progress in successfully implementing your plan for using mobile PCs on the campus for which you have responsibility.

Prepare and publish on school website a list of answers you give to Frequently Asked Questions by students, parents, employees, and community members about uses of mobile PCs in your school.

List criteria to identify when uses of mobile PCs in school operations “work” in each school operating unit.

List cost savings anticipated in delivery of curricula in electronic formats, e.g., electronic textbooks, software based lessons, instructional efficiencies.

Prepare and publish on school website a list successes from using mobile PCs in your school, e.g., cost savings, increased student academic performance.


Section 5: School Operations – Teachers

List and plan ways you will use mobile PCs to instruct students and to record and report their academic performance.

List ways you will use a mobile PC to manage your classroom.

List ways you want students to use mobile PCs to complete school assignments.

? Coursework: Name how you want students, including those absent from class, to address these procedures in class assignments –

Frequency of use, as in how many times, when and where you want students to use mobile PCs to complete class assignments and for independent studies.

Artistic design that involves aesthetic creativity, as in composing music, scripting and recording and editing podcasts, webcasts, music videos and drawings.

Presentations and reports, e.g., in Ink or typeface, PowerPoint slides.

Class Notes, when and how much to record, write, or annotate teacher presentations.

Games, as for skill building with vocabulary, mathematics, geography.

Organize learning priorities as each student rank orders daily “To Learn” lists from the teacher’s lesson plans for that session into folders and timetables.

Studying, as one person reviewing or memorizing academic material previously stored on a mobile PC.

Writing skills, e.g., drafting a letter, document, story, journal manuscript, poem.

Independent learning, e.g., attempting to satisfy curiosity in part about any topic, expanding reading on a class assignment.

Communicating, e.g., submitting assignments electronically, chatting with the teacher or with group members on a group project, contributing to an online discussion about a class assignment.

Information Technology Skills, especially for new students who enroll in class after other students complete an orientation to using mobile PCs in class.

? Internet Information Gathering: List, then detail kinds of online information gathering you expect students to conduct in class, for homework, and for independent study beyond meeting class standards.

? Homework and Projects: Name ways you want students to use mobile PCs to complete homework and individual as well as group/collaborative projects, e.g., reading an online book, checking stock trades, drawing statistical graphs, handwriting a digital book report, designing a website for a project, designing a robot.

List and plan to support ways you anticipate students using mobile PCs differently from using desktops and notebooks to complete school assignments.

Adjust your regular lessons to accommodate teacher and student uses of mobile PCs to complete assignments.

List software by class content areas you will use to support instruction.

List software by class content areas you will use to extend instruction.

List software by class content areas you will use to supplant (replace) your instruction.

List software by class content areas you will allow students to use on their own for learning not included in class minimum learning requirements, such as in state standards.

Adjust classroom furniture arrangement to accommodate student uses of mobile PCs efficiently during your instruction and during scheduled student choice time.

Adjust systems for recognizing student performance in order to take advantage of instant online identification of student academic as well as social behavior.

Plan how you will correct student misbehavior with mobile PCs, e.g., hacking into unauthorized websites, dropping a mobile PC on the floor, reading ahead of assignments.

Report on school website how students do use mobile PCs differently from using desktops and notebooks to complete school assignments.

Plan how you will measure and report changes in student learning rates by using mobile PCs.

Monitor cost of student learning across content areas and across students, e.g., dollar and time cost for a student to learn to read the letter A as /a/ or any state standard item.


Section 6: School Operations – Curriculum and Supervision

List and outline curriculum challenges you foresee for teachers using mobile PCs for instruction.

List and outline responses to questions you foresee about curriculum challenges for teachers using mobile PCs for instruction.

Adjust curriculum development procedures to take advantage of mobile PCs.

Adjust teacher supervision procedures to take advantage of mobile PCs.

List and outline responses to address supervision challenges foreseen for teachers using mobile PCs for instruction.

Provide lists occasionally of authorized free academic software to teachers.

List ways to increase use of software in order to try increase student learning rates.

Create ways to measure, record, and report changes in student academic performance with mobile PCs, including increases in student learning rates.


Section 7: School Operations – Instruction

Adapt instructional methods and procedures for each teacher to use mobile PCs to increase student learning rates.

Adapted legacy lesson content for uses with mobile PCs, e.g., add electronic encyclopedia and database links to pictures, documentary films, and recorded original speeches.

Conduct adapted legacy lessons with mobile PCs.

Create new lessons that maximize use of mobile PC features, e.g., wireless Internet connections, speech recognition, Ink to typefont translation, audio recording.

Select software designed to increase learning with mobile PCs.

Watch for Part Three and later for revisions of the total checklist. I, as probably you, see changes to make.

Many of us are interested in your progress as you use mobile PCs in your school. Consider posting your progress on your school website or in comments on this or other blogs.

By Bob Heiny


Tablet PC Education Blog