St. Gregory is in our second year as a 1:1 laptop school (grades six to twelve), and as Head I have avoided promulgating a single, school wide, technology use policy for every grade or classroom.  Instead, I have encouraged and urged teachers to work with their students to develop the appropriate plan and policy to their program and classroom culture.  
This is one among many exemplary such, teacher designed, classroom technology policies.  It might well not be right for every teacher and every classroom, and neither Dr. Berry, its author, nor I would suggest it could or should be.    
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Dr. Michelle Berry:  The Vision for Empowering Use of Technology in (APGOV, APUSH, Advanced Seminars):
Dr. Berry believes ardently in the power of information and technology to empower student as citizens, people, and learners.  This means that as a member of Dr. Berry’s class, you will be expected to use technology in a variety of ways in and out of the classroom.   She also believes that History class is a learning community whose success rests solely on the collaborative energy and purpose of the group as a whole (much like communities beyond St. Gregory).  If all members of this community (as often as possible) put their highest intentions toward furthering not just their own personal intellectual and social growth but that of their colleagues as well, then this class will be an effective, successful, empowered, and empowering learning community.

Having said that, there are  a few principles that members of this learning community must agree to abide by:

1) Each student must use technology resources for the purposes for which they are intended. In the classroom, this means using technology resources for the purposes of conducting and fostering the  educational and research activities of the class.  Out of the classroom, this means using technology to further enhance your own intellectual, ethical, and academic growth.

2) Each student must use technology in a non-distracting manner (both to him/herself as well as to others).  For example, if a student is playing a game and the person next to that student cannot concentrate on the learning occurring in the class, then that qualifies as distracting technology use.

3) Each student must demonstrate her/his willingness to learn when it is appropriate to use technology in the classroom for personal reasons (this includes chatting, social networking, shopping, and gaming).  We will have down times — those may be acceptable times to go download that great new song but chatting with your romantic interest in biology during an intense debate about the the proper role of government in society is NOT acceptable.

4) Each student must use technology with the utmost respect for the technology and for their colleagues.  In short, try to keep the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) in mind at all times.  Students must not harass one another, “tease” or mock one another, ruin other people’s work, post dishonest postings, “borrow” work from others (in class, on the Internet, or from other sources) without proper permissions and citations.  Additionally, your access to technology is a privilege.  Respect both the machine and its power and recognize that  St. Gregory’s  use of Web 2.0 is unique and progressive.  You should not ever take it for granted.

5) Each student must recognize that the Web is endless and so the potential for distractions are limitless as well.  In recognizing that reality, each student must devote themselves to learning self-regulation and self-control and must promise to practice various techniques for handling the endless distraction that IS information technology.

This is a limited democracy.  Therefore, we will create other empowering technology use norms together.  It is expected that everyone will do their best to abide by the norms set here and added by our class (which will be posted).  Repeated failure to do so will result in application of the consequences (which we will decide as a group).

In short, if everyone agrees to use the technology in our class for the perpetuation of learning and beauty we will have an incredible year.