Technology Abuse: A Solution?

One of the biggest problems we encountered with technology use in our school last year was the abuse of the physical technology itself.  Keys were being pulled off to be reorganized as a prank.  Students were finding ways to change the accessibility options to confuse less computer-literate students and ultimately their profiles were becoming corrupted due to an overwhelming tendency of students wanting to "personalize" their profiles in Windows.

I didn't encounter this problem in my classes... what I mean is, I did not notice this activity happening in my class, just the frustration that my students had having to deal with the ramifications of these behaviours happening in other classes.

So what was the difference?

I believe it comes from two things:

1. Having looked into Sugata Mitra's SOLE project research I have determined that the best course of action when giving students access to computers they do not own (particularly at the upper-middle class middle school level) is to assign one computer per four students.  This tends to allow students to self govern and does seem to keep them on-task and less likely to personalize.  This is particularly important for times of student-directed research.
2. Currently I am working with students on creating personal reflections.  I have had the students create an outline of what they wish to create first, and on paper, and then submit to me their ideas and explain which technology they would like to use to create the final version of the project.  This limits the amount of time they have access to the computers, and also ensures that they have a plan of action before they ever log-on.  Students are using computers now to enhance their personal responses, if the computer is the appropriate tool, and the use of the computer is happening in a more responsible manner.  Most importantly students do not appear to be "killing time" before they can take the project home to work on.

My criticism of practices that I'm seeing elsewhere is best summed up by an allegory:
When you hand a hammer to a student and say use this, they will, but not necessarily for what you intended.  If you hand them a nail and a piece of wood they'll choose the hammer because it's the correct tool to put the two together.

In conclusion, may I encourage you with this: Don't hand students technology because you want them to use the technology, hand them the project and have them choose the technology to use.  In the meantime it is your responsibility to model as many different TOOLS as you can in your lessons.