Rarely does something come along in our lives that is utterly transformational. It has. And fortunately, our school district is truly visionary, setting the pace for educational excellence for the entire nation. As your principal, I can not wait for Mabry students and teachers to get their hands on these powerful tools--to have The Power to Learn!
Having easy access to such powerful tools (63,000 laptops) will transform the education of Cobb County's children by providing equal access to information for all children, making the educational environment substantially more interactive, providing access to increasingly rapid assessment feedback, making dramatic increases in lesson creativity possible, providing unprecedented possibilities for collaboration and differentiated instruction, and expanding educational opportunities for all children.
Mabry's mission is to maximize student academic achievement. I can think of no tool that would be more empowering than laptops for every child and teacher in our school! The power workspace is a digital workspace, and we would be irresponsible not to prepare our students today for their digital futures. With the laptops, children's learning space expands beyond the classroom walls and reaches out to the best resources in the entire world. Children can reach farther faster. They can manipulate information with unprecedented speed and facility. They can become producers of knowledge-based products rather than just consumers of information.
I think a lot of people may just see computers as expensive gameboys. But our teachers at Mabry see the tremendous educational value of every teacher and every student in our school having access to his/her own laptop. I just couldn't be any more excited! The future's so bright, ya gotta wear shades!!
