In the 2009-2010 school year, Milken Community High School committed itself to becoming a "1:1" school, wherein each student and teacher has a personal laptop computer in class at all times. In a 1:1 environment, the computer becomes a natural extension of the learning environment, a powerful and ubiquitous tool and a powerful tool to drive the development of collaboration, research and programming skills. Furthermore, we have begun developing digital learning portfolios for each student. These portfolios will give students the opportunity to store their work digitally and demonstrate that they have mastered learning targets and graduation requirements. These portfolios, generated in part in Advisory and in part in classes, give students a powerful, new digital voice. We began the transition to 1:1 with only 7th graders in the 2009-2010 school year, committing ourselves to expanding the program one grade at a time until all Milken students are 1:1 in the 2014-2015 school year.
Technology is a powerful educational tool for adolescents, just as it is a powerful productivity tool in the university and workplace setting. It is one of the primary ways in which citizens interact with each other and increasingly with government and other civic institutions. The design, development and publication of student-created knowledge (in places like web pages, video and social networking sites) is central to the 1:1 environment.
A critical dimension of technology at Milken is that we recognize that technology is a tool, similar in many respects to other technology tools (like printing) and radically different in others. Our educational framework for technology is centered on our mission and predicated on helping students master key skills that speak to our Vision of the Graduate. Technology is not for itself; it does not serve itself.
In the middle school, we educate so that students will use technology to solve problems, make informed and ethically sound decisions. We want our students to think, select and use appropriate resources, software, simulations and tools to solve problems, support learning and research. We intend that our students will use technology to facilitate work within peer teams to solve problems and research and evaluate the accuracy, relevance, appropriateness and bias of electronic information sources.
In the upper school, we direct our energies towards four technology standards.
- Media Literacy - Students will understand the effects that new media technologies have on communication, ethics and culture. Students will learn to decode, analyze, evaluate and produce communication in a variety of forms.
- Online Collaboration - Students will be able to use and evaluate digital collaboration tools, social networks and other vehicles to collaborate with peers, experts and others to investigate curricular problems and issues. Students will develop solutions and products for audiences both inside and outside the classroom.
- Information Literacy - Students will be able to use and evaluate a variety of information sources. Evaluation skills center on discerning accuracy, relevance, appropriateness, comprehensiveness, ethics and bias.
- Digital Media Production - Students will develop the skills to design, develop, publish and present products using technology resources that demonstrate critical mastery of course content and skills.
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