When All Students Have
Thinkpads
A Presentation at the First Annual
ThinkPad University Conference
Orlando, Florida, April 15, 1999
by David G. Brown
Wake Forest University
Outline of Remarks
• Introduction
• Update re Wake Forest
• The Most Important Thing to Remember
about Computers & Teaching+Learning
• Your Lists of Lessons Learned
• Update re ICCEL
Why All Eyes Are On US
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Top of the Line Computers
Portability
Significant Standardization
Fullest Service Vendor
Fund to Succeed
New Computer & Load
Undergraduates + MBA + Med School + Divinity School
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Pentium II 333Mhz
6 GB hard drive
128 MB RAM
14.1 Active Matrix
4 MBPS InfraRed Port
Lithium Ion Battery
SVGA video out
56 KBPS Modem
Ethernet, CD ROM
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Windows 98
MS Office Prof 97
Netscape 4.5
Norton AntiVirus 5
Dreamweaver 2
SPSS 9.0
Maple 5.1
What’s New at ICCEL?
• June 16-18 Conference for faculty re “How
to Computer Enhance Your Teaching”
http://iccel.wfu.edu
• Electronically Enhanced Education: A Case
Study of Wake Forest University ($10)
• Always In Touch ($10)
• Active Planning for Conference
Schedule Next Year
• Consultancies (often video)
Recent Passion
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Customization
• Interactive
• Interdependent
• Individualized
From the times of
Craft Guilds & Small Towns
we have “known” that --•
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Most learning is collaborative
Frequent feedback increases learning
Loyalty-to-group motivates learning
More time on task usually
means more learning
Beliefs of 91/93 Vignette Authors
Pedagogy and Philosophy
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From Interactive Learning
Forthcoming June, 1999
From Anker Publishing
David G. Brown, Editor
Interactive Learning
Learn by Doing
Collaborative Learning
Integration of Theory and Practice
Communication
Visualization
Different Strokes for Different Folks
Computers Enhance My
Teaching and/or Learning Via-Presentations
Better--20%
Source = Wake Forest
Students and Faculty
More Opportunities to
Practice & Analyze--35%
More Access to Source
Materials via Internet--43%
More Communication with Faculty Colleagues, Classmates,
and Between Faculty and Students--87%
Computers allow people---• to belong to more communities
• to be more actively engaged in each
community
• with more people
• over more miles
• for more months and years
• TO BE MORE COLLABORATIVE
YOU NAME LESSONS
LEARNED ABOUT--
Marketing
Assessment
Teaching and Learning
Administrative Computing
Cost Savings
Rules for Play
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Divide into Teams of Four
Chair = Name That’s First in Alphabet
Recorder = Name That’s Second
Team Writes Down the BEST Two Lessons
in EACH of the five categories
• Each Team Posts Ideas on the Wall So We
Can Vote
Guidelines for Voting
• Put Blue Dots on the Ten Most Important
Lessons Listed (excluding your teams’)
• Put Yellow Dots on the Three Greatest Ideas
that are worth considering to take back
home and apply.
• Put Red Dots on all lessons learned that
would not apply at your campus
• THE TEAM WITH THE MOST BLUE +
YELLOW DOTS WINS A REAL PRIZE
Highest Vote Getters re Lessons
50+ PEOPLE FROM ABOUT 20 THINKPAD USING COLLEGES
• Top Administration must experience the
technology
• Buy the computers coming off lease for resale at
cost to the parents of incoming freshmen so they
can communicate w their children
• Reduce support/training costs by building better
on line self help solutions
• Market the whole program, not just the hardware
• Integrate campus information systems to the
laptop program to facilitate
• Students need to be more utilized for t&l of
faculty
• Define measurable objectives
THINK MASTER-APPRENTICE
Spend $s on CCC + Don’t Wire Every Seat + Avoid Sinkholes
David G. Brown
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, N.C. 27109
336-758-4878
email: brown@wfu.edu
http//:www.wfu.edu/~brown
fax: 336-758-4875