"QA is guided by the principle that quality education involves the development of a student's cognitive, physical, social, moral and affective capabilities to the extent that innate capacity and modern pedagogy can achieve"
![](/files/"sa01.jpg")
Gary Stager press release
Qatar Academy embraces laptop and constructivist learning
Last week teachers, students, parents and the wider community were able to learn more about teaching and learning with laptops from internationally renowned consultant, Gary Stager, PhD. Gary, has helped learners of all ages on six continents embrace the power of computers as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for expression. He has worked with the first and the best laptop schools around the world, is a collaborator in the MIT Media Lab's Future of Learning Group and a member of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation's Learning Team.
While at Qatar Academy Gary delivered a community keynote "Ten things to do with a laptop - Learning and powerful ideas", demonstrated model lessons using 1: computing across ages levels, talked to parents, teachers and administrators, and conducted constructivist learning workshops.
At each teacher session Gary spoke with passion and knowledge; at each model lesson he pulled out activities that provided a new way of looking at computers in the classroom; at meetings with the administration he challenged current thinking and reinforced the notion of best-practice meaning student-centered. As Gary says, "Less us, more them", learning is about having support in the classroom and allowing the learning to happen.
Qatar Academy is planning to implement 1:1 laptop learning next year, with Grade 7 and 8 students being given personal laptops to use 24/7. "Laptops support the quest for mobile, digital and ubiquitous learning and access to 21st century literacy objectives", says Head of Information Technology and E-Learning, Julie Lindsay. "We have had an exceptional week exploring what our classrooms and curriculum can look like with the advantage of laptops providing user-ready access to rich resources both online and offline."Other areas of the school also have access to mobile computing, with the Primary School planning towards 1:2 laptop immersion at some levels next year.