In the spirit of the open philosophy, we decided early on that we
wanted our kids to be engineers and inventors, and
not technology tourists.
And here's where we broke from tradition.
During our class meetings,
we spoke with all of our high school students about the program.
We brought them together, and
we started that conversation with the words, "We trust you."
What we didn't want to lose sight of was the fact that any one-to-one
program, when you're giving every child a computing device,
that is fundamentally an instructional program.
It truly shouldn't have anything to do with technology.
Right, not that technology isn't important, but
it is the learning that is the focus.
>> We've always been looking at it from the standpoint of, we
have to educate students for life after high school, and
with technology being such an important factor,
just about every job that the student's going to go into,
It wasn't matter of, should we do it?
It was more of, when do we provide students with a laptop?
>> When you give students a chance to explore, you're teaching them to
be responsible, and in their future, hopefully in their careers,
they will have learned in my class, and in their other classes,
how to be responsible users of technology.
It's not going anywhere.
>> So why would we ever consider giving a 16-year-old
root access to a laptop?
I think the question we should be asking is why would we not give
students ultimate autonomy and
control over their technology devices.
I think by unlocking devices, and giving kids truly open technology,
it empowers them to not only understand what's underneath
the hood, but understand that they can impact the world,
through software, through technology.
They can be part of the decisions that are being made, and
not the result or the end user of someone else's decision.
>> Good morning, how can we help you?
>> Hi, my laptop, [INAUDIBLE]
>> Just for frame of reference,
one-to-one help desk models are not unique.
This model of having student apprentices is,
I shouldn't say common, but it's not uncommon.
The level we give our kids is uncommon.
I think that's the differentiator.
There is a cost associated with allowing a 16-year-old
to completely dismantle a laptop.
They could cook boards, they could fry things, the whole works could
come out as a complete mess, and sometimes it does.
But the power in that, is that the student learned, wow,
I cooked that board, now I know how not to do that.
Or I learned, that's what I shouldn't be doing.
Right, the power is in the experience.
>> I think it's a beautiful thing that the students
are there behind the help desk.
Because that flattens that,
well it's just an adult telling us what to do.
>> Since we've gotten the laptops in school,
it feels like the teachers and students are a lot more connected.
>> It was a new experience, collaborating with the student
on teaching and not just, the teacher teaches the student, but
that he felt valuable in the class as well.
>> There is no distinction between the teacher and the student.
Everyone is on equal footing, and the best ideas win.
How can that not make sense for education?
>> For me to say, this is how you do things.
That would completely destroy any type of collaboration.
>> My students, a lot of what they do is collaborative.
I don't think that they learn the best from me.
>> That's where I think it ties into not only an open source and
the mentality of sharing and making it better, but
then in addition, to preparing them for those jobs that we don't know.
>> Anyway, I think we miss something,
again I'm just babbling here, just a few ideas and thoughts,
but I think we lost something when education became so
rigid and formalized, and we moved away from the apprenticeship model.
>> The curriculum itself, we don't write,
we couldn't write a curriculum for this, no matter what we did,
because the problems are different every single day.
And not only the problem's different,
they're different across multiple disciplines and subjects.
So our students are gonna be faced with,
how do I solve x application problem that applies to science, and
then turn around and say, well, this might be a network issue.
Or maybe it's a hardware issue.
And now I'm working on a program that is germane to art.
How do you write a curriculum about that?
>> We do repairs.
We do software.
We help any way we can.
But just being here just makes me happy.
I think the help desk has really helped
sort of introduce me to a work environment as a teen.
>>The program to me is just kind of an escape from myself.
I'm not really assessed on whether or not I can memorize things for
a test, it's more of applying myself and accomplishing goals.
It's not the normal classroom. It's completely different.
This is one of those defining moments in my entire career.
Just working with the initial group of students that were part
of our one-to-one help desk.
Here's an example.
Ben is one of four core students that formed, really,
the nucleus of the initial one-to-one help desk.
>> My name is Benjamin Loong Thomas.
I graduated in the 2014 year.
>>He was a kid that didn't really like school.
We would go into parent-teacher conferences and
feel deflated at the end of them because they just didn't see
Ben for what we saw at home.
>> In my freshmen year, I didn't really have too much of a focus.
I was kinda just like, all right, I gotta wake up, go to school.
>>He got an IEP, I think in second grade?
For a learning disability.
And later, he was diagnosed with ADD.
>> I remember sitting in an IEP conference with a guidance counselor
in 9th grade for Ben.
And her saying that Ben's not going to be going to college and
we shouldn't plan on that,
we shouldn't focus on that and that really was hard.
>> So your sophomore year you created the application?
>> Sophomore year we created the application.
Junior year, we did the showcase, and then that summer is when we
started working on the applications that we use in the student help desk.
We kind of set up the building blocks that most of the students
today follow.
>> The end of that year, we were at an an IEP meeting with him and
they were helping him plan out his next year of classes, and
all of a sudden they wanted him to be in college placement classes.
>> My college professors definitely see that
I'm a little bit ahead of the curve.
The other students hadn't really had too much coding experience.
They weren't really exposed to open source.
I mean, this was just an opportunity for him to showcase his talents.
He didn't have that opportunity before.
>> I would not be where I am today, without the one-to-one program.
>> But it was just remarkable how it changes the conversation.
When you say to a student, you know something?
You're an important part of your own education.
It's freeing, it's empowering, right?
It makes them feel, I think for the first time,
they feel that education is not being done to them.
They're actually an active participant in their own education.
And I think that's the power of trusting kids.