This article originally appeared in the November 2007 Drumbeat.

Karl Fisch, Arapahoe’s Director of Technology offers some rationale as to Why Wireless at our high school.

Ron Booth, Principal

As Arapahoe High School begins to offer wireless Internet access for personally owned devices, one of the questions that some folks have is, “Why? Why would you give students one more way to be off task when they are at school?” The answer to that question is not simple, but we would like to take a few minutes to share some of the reasons we view this as an extremely positive development for our students.

The most obvious reasons are rather straightforward. There is a wealth of information and resources available to our students via the Internet, and online resources are an integral part of many of our classes. This includes resources that Arapahoe and/or Littleton Public Schools creates and provides for students online such as:

• The Campus Portal, which gives students real-time access to their grades and assignments.
• Teacher Web pages, which can include assignments, notes, worksheets, presentations and links to additional resources.
• Electronic Databases - online, subscription-based services such as EBSCO and ABC-CLIO that Arapahoe pays to bring the best reference tools possible to our students.

Then there are the vast resources of the open web, which include not only sources of information and knowledge, but communication tools and practically unlimited storage capabilities. AHS teachers utilize blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools to enhance and extend their students’ learning, to knock down the walls of our classrooms and the idea that learning only takes place in classrooms, with desks that are in straight rows, and only happens between 7:21 a.m. and 2:16 p.m. each day.

There are other reasons that may not be so obvious, but are perhaps more important in the long run. Our students will spend the rest of their lives in a multi-tasking, technology-driven world and will need information and communication technology literacy in order to be successful - in both their professional and personal lives. They will need to be continually learning throughout their lives. “Lifelong learner” will not be an educational buzzword for them; it will be an economic and personal necessity.

The world our students are entering is a much different world than the one in which most of us (their teachers and parents) grew up in. In a flat world, in a constantly connected world, in a world where the answers one needs may be found from the teacher down the hall, from a server in Indiana, or from a blogger in India, students need access to the tools of the modern learner. We feel that to be successful in the 21st century, our students are going to need different skills, abilities and habits of mind than we did in the last century. They will need to know how to create and maintain their own Personal Learning Networks. Our students must know what to do when they don’t know what to do. They will need to know how to learn.

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. - Alvin Toffler

Our students are the ultimate knowledge workers - their primary “job” is to learn - and we need to make sure they are able to take advantage of the resources available to them. By offering wireless access, we are allowing them to practice “just in time” learning, whether they are in the classroom, the library or the cafeteria.

We need to engage our students through relevant, timely and meaningful activities. We cannot limit them just to the knowledge available to them within AHS, they need to explore and interact with the global society of which they are a part. Technology is not the goal, but rather it is the enabler that allows us to achieve our goals.

These are just technologies. Using them does not make you modern, smart, moral, wise, fair or decent. It just makes you able to communicate, compete and collaborate farther and faster. -Thomas Friedman

We are trying to foster a collaborative environment among students - sharing not only with other students in the classroom, but with other classrooms around the world. Students need not only to be able to present information to their classmates, but to share their work with the much wider - and often more authentic - audience that the Internet provides. We need to move from an isolated to a connected classroom. None of this can happen if technology and access is an “add-on.” Students need ubiquitous access to these 21st century technology tools.

The computer is the primary instrument for intellectual and creative work in our society. -Gary Stager

Wireless access to the Internet is a force multiplier; it allows students to leverage the knowledge of folks all over the world.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you ever going to be 18 again?
• Are your students ever going to be your age?
• Should we be preparing students for the world as it was when we were 18, or for the world as it will be when they are our age?

As far as students being “off-task,” our philosophy at Arapahoe is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don’t, they know we will have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don’t assume they are going to mess up. We give our students responsibility, and then help them live up to that.

We have created an environment where students are both respected and nurtured, where they are treated as professional learners, where they are seen as individuals that can contribute to the common good. An environment where they are viewed not just as passive consumers of information, but as active producers, who add meaning and value to the information. An environment where students are encouraged to interact, not only with others in their classroom, but with others in their community - and in communities around the world. Our students need to learn in a responsive information environment, where they are able to ask questions and seek answers, not just from their teachers, but also from the vast information and human resources that the Internet enables.

Our students are facing an unpredictable future, much more so than any of us faced. Yes, we didn’t know exactly what our future would hold, but this generation is the first generation in history to really have no idea what the world is going to look like when they are adults. They need to be continual learners, to be able to teach themselves, to seek out and refine their own learning networks so that their learning doesn’t end when they walk across the stage at graduation. “Students need to know what to do when they don’t know what to do!” In order to do this, they need practice. We are offering them that opportunity, as well as our guidance.

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. -Albert Einstein

Why Wireless? Because their century demands it.

Karl Fisch, Directory of Technology
Arapahoe High School