"Our vision is to provide all Essex pupils with the opportunity, regardless of social circumstance, access to ICT to enable them to experience the wonder of learning in the digital age."
How Does it Work?
The process begins in schools. Schools which wish to introduce one-to-one laptop access to their pupils must first show their serious commitment to the project. The charity's ICT experts have set down a series of steps each school needs to take to prepare itself for widespread laptop use. These steps include establishing parental and pupil support for the scheme, developing infrastructure, generating some funding of their own and training staff to be sure they can make the most of laptop provision
Once a school has proved its commitment and funding is available, laptops are given to the children on long term loan. They are then used by pupils at school and at home to increase learning opportunities for both themselves and their families. This allows great benefit for the pupil but also enables schools, working in conjunction with services such as adult education to provide opportunities for community learning through ICT - a requirement of the government's ICT strategy.
Contrary to what some cynics predicted, pilot schemes have proved conclusively that giving a child a laptop to take home does not result in it being damaged or abused. Children in the pilot projects, and their families, very quickly recognised the benefit being afforded them by the laptop technology and treated it with immense pride and respect. This was most particularly the case in more deprived areas where access to technology had previously been poor. In many schools parents and pupils are involved in the fund-raising for the laptops and may be asked to make regular contributions to fund the project - this further helps to ensure their sense of being personally responsible for the equipment.
Each laptop has a useful life of three years-after which time technological advances will mean it needs to be updated to be of greatest use in UK schools. The Essex e-Learning Foundation has, however built links with under-resourced and technologically deprived schools in Romania which will be delighted to take on our out of date laptops and continue using them in their education system which currently has only minimal access to any technology at all.