I have also included a link to a couple of flickr photo galleries if you would like to see pictures from the event, or the journey to India.  This picture was taken from the third floor at ASB.

Here are five strategies include students as part of the solution AND create strong local communities of practice around the use of technology.

• A technology ecology - Creating an expectation that modern technology will be used for academics, schoolwork, communication, administration, community outreach, and teaching. A key success factor is teaching students how to support their peers as mentors and leaders. We should not continue to expect that simply teaching teachers technology will magically trickle into classrooms.
• Student tech teams - The 21st century version of the old A/V club, this strategy expands the definition of tech support from fixing broken things to also include just-in-time support of teachers as they use new technology. This digital generation is ready, willing and able to help improve education, we just need to show them how.
• Professional development 24/7 - The old idea that teachers would attend one workshop or a conference and immediately start using technology has been proven wrong. Truly integrated technology use requires a bigger change than that, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Teachers require more support in their classrooms that they can count on when they need it. Teacher coaches, PLNs, and classroom embedded PD can help, but students can also provide teachers with this constancy and supportive community.
• Students as resource developers - Students can help develop the resources every teacher and student needs to use technology successfully. These resources can be help guides, posters, instructional videos, school websites, or teacher home pages. Students of all types can use their talents to build customized resources for their own school. Artists, actors, and techies can contribute to this process.
• Students as stakeholders – Whenever schools initiate new technology programs, there is typically a call for all stakeholders to be included. Parents, teachers, staff, board members, and members of the community are invited to participate — but rarely students. Even though students are 92% of the population at the school, and are 100% of the reason for wanting to improve education, their voice goes unheard. Students can bring passion and point-of-view to the planning and implementation of major technology initiatives. They can be allies and agents of change, rather than passive objects to be changed.

The high tech victory garden
Building a self-sufficient community of technology users means that whenever possible, you build home-grown expertise and local problem-solving capability. This is the high-tech equivalent of a victory garden, with teachers and students all growing their own capabilities with each other’s help.

In this tough economy, no one can afford to ignore the potential students have to help adults solve the problems of technology integration and support. Students are there, they just need adults to teach them how to help, and then allow them to help.

Citizenship is a verb
And after all, aren’t these the 21st century skills and citizenship everyone talks about? Citizenship is a verb - learned by being a member of something important, solving real problems, learning how to learn, collaborating, and communicating. Let's make digital citizenship mean not just teaching students rules, but actually giving them a valuable role as members of the learning community.

The problem of technology integration is real and the economy is forcing us to do more with less. How foolish of us to overlook students as part of the solution, especially when the reciprocal benefits to the students are so great.

Sylvia Martinez
Generation YES

Since that initial meeting, many Iowa schools have benefited from the collaborative networks that were created on that day.  The educators from the various one to one schools now collaborate through Twitter, email, and a group blog on Posterous.  Teachers from the various schools have also begun to connect their classrooms across district lines using Ning and other social web applications. These various networks have not only been advantageous for school districts, but also for educators.  Many educators have now created personal learning communities that allow for very focused professional growth.

One of the biggest accomplishments from that day may be the first ever Iowa 1 to 1 Institute that will take place on April 7.  The institute, which was first made public in January, was capped with over 500 participants at the end of February, and requests to attend are still pouring in to us.  The advertising budget for the institute was zero.  It was publicized through Twitter, email, and posts on various blogs.  This institute stems from conversations that began at that meeting back in November, and its success can be attributed to many of the networks that were formed on that day. 

As a member of CASTLE, I am extremely excited about the collaborative networks that have been formed throughout the state and even nationally.  The current and future one to one schools and their students will benefit from the power of collaboration that has been created between these educators.

Nick Sauers-Leadership Training Coordinator, CASTLE

Although easy always sounds great, rarely are any drastic changes easy.  Transforming the education system certainly cannot be considered an easy task.  Bernajean Porter has developed a technology and learning spectrum for schools.  Her spectrum may be a great way to start conversations with other educators about the use of technology for learning.  Unfortunately, many technologies are designed to help educators continue to do things the way they have always been done.  Many of our technologies are not student centered, but rather teacher centered.  In those cases, technology becomes a really really expensive way for educators to continue to do the same things they have always done.

Interactive whiteboards are a prime example of an expensive piece of technology that does nothing to transform education. I'm not claiming that there aren't any good ways to use the interactive whiteboard, but rarely does it seem to transform education.  In fact the video by Smartboard does a great job highlighting my point.  In their video, the teacher is at the front of the room and the students are all sitting at their desks (very happily I must say).  I'm amazed by how many times the word easy is used in their video.  Again, I'm very hesitant to believe a dramatic change in education is going to be easy.

Here are some questions that you may want to consider before purchasing technology for your school.

Does the technology transform education?

Do STUDENTS benefit from the technology?

Is student learning enhanced with the technology?

Is the technology student centric or teacher centric?

Although there are many other questions we could ask, these are some good conversation starters.  Before spending thousands of dollars on technology, it is extremely important that you can ensure that the technology you purchase helps meet your district goals.  Hopefully schools that move to one to one use the technology to transform education as opposed to a continuation of doing things the ways they have always been done.

• Creative eProblem Solving (Resourcefulness)-Providing students with questions that require students to look online and develop their own answers.  These questions aren't questions that can easily be answered with an internet search.
• Crowdsourcing-Having students use collaborative networks to solve problems.
• River of Information (Expanding of the mind)-Students using resources to receive and filter information.
• Data visualization-Looking at data or information with visual representations.
• Mash-up Creativity (combining elements)-Combining two things that have never been combined before to complete an entirely new thing.

If you take a look at my notes from the session, you can find a much more in depth description of each area along with numerous examples.