At what age do children are allowed to use a laptop at school ?

Recently our school has considered to encourage laptop usage for 5th graders (10-11 year olds) ....but some of us (teachers and some parents) are not sure enough if the children are ready for the responsibility for using, and handling a laptop. Please give some input or ideas. Thank you :)

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Permalink Reply by Joseph Ramanair on May 6, 2009 at 5:14am

I'd say that using laptops at such an early age is not entirely a bad idea. Perhaps you could begin by supplying a classroom with several units of laptops for students to work with in small groups and then take it from there. A decision to supply every child with a laptop should be accompanied by plans on how to engage these students purposefully and responsibly with the laptop or else it will just be another wasteful enterprise. As always, it's never the tool, but what you do with it, that must be considered first.

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Permalink Reply by Charles Fowler on May 6, 2009 at 7:11am

Our school has provided laptops in the classroom on a one-to-one basis starting at grade three for six years - we address the question responsibility for the laptop by having the computers stay at school. It's been very successful, largely because it was done to answer the question, how can we provide access to computers when and whenever it suits our teachers and students - some schools would be able to handle demand with labs of desktops, but our school is a bit constrained physically, so laptops were the way that worked for us.

That program continues through to the sixth grade - for grade seven we ask parents to purchase a laptop, which students can then take home with them, by which point they are up to the responsibility of looking after the machine, and the nature of homework is such that they benefit from having their work and the tool with them wherever they go.

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Permalink Reply by Bernadette Roche on May 8, 2009 at 12:53pm

After a devestating torndao, I lost my computer lab space and equipment. We replaced the desktops with laptops and I now travel into the classroom to teach tech. I use labtops with external mice for preschool - kindergarten, then remove the mice and use them for first - eighth. First grade on up is assigned the same laptop to use each time I teach their grade. They are responsible for removing the power cord, carrying it to the classroom and returning it correctly to charge for the next user. I taught them to carrying them "belly button to belly button" and we haven't dropped one yet.