One of my fears with going 1 to 1 with laptops is that people will just use it as a way to have every kid just make more power point presentations, type notes from the board, and regurgitate more information directly from the internet. Having technology is not an end unto itself. We still need to be asking students to do meaningful tasks and use technology to enhance it. I'm just nervous about this and don't want to use technology just for technology's sake. Fortunately, my school has an amazing technology integration teacher who is constantly thinking of ways to be inventive with "Web 2.0" and "Blended Learning."
My students are coming to me with skills in blogging as they've had their own blogs as early as 3rd or 4th grade. Stepping into 6th grade where they aren't regularly using technology yet must be like stepping into a time capsule. With this in mind, I asked them how they'd be handling science class differently this year if we did have blogs. They told me how they'd use blogs to document their experimental process and what they were thinking as they went through an experiment. So, for our second experiment this year, where we are trying to determine if heavier objects fall faster, I had them bring their macbooks to class (if they have one yet- they all have to have one by January- that's an advantage of working in a private school) and begin our cycle of scientific inquiry by documenting, in any visual way they wanted, their observations and questions as it related to dropping objects.