The December 1, 2005 article “The Digital Divide: Some teachers use the laptops every day; others call them ‘expensive paperweights’ from Alexandria, Virginia reveals that most reported uses of the laptops by teachers and students involve “sustaining” rather than “disruptive” technology use.
The article author heralds students being able to research online, and cites critics who complain that test scores in the district are going down despite the laptop initiative. The article notes that the school district:
pays about $1.7 million a year to lease the laptop computers — and many students, teachers and parents question their usefulness.
Technology including laptop computes is just a tool. A shovel or a calculator can be used to achieve goals and do things very difficult or even impossible without them, if they are in the hands of a skilled and knowledgeable individual.
The key to laptop project success is professional development, and teachers learning how to to effectively teach the digital natives that populate our classrooms. Laptop initiative success should measured in ways that go far beyond mere test scores. And school districts wanting to see success in laptop programs need to look beyond just the “lowest bid” for deliverying computer hardware to the district’s loading dock. According to this article:
In 2003, seven companies submitted competitive bids to lease the city laptop computers for student usage. Computer manufacturer Dell was the lowest bidder, offering a per unit cost of $416 for 900 units. The annual cost of leasing from Dell is $376,374. The contract will expire in 2007.
School districts pursuing laptop initiatives should contract with vendors to provide not only computer hardware, but also robust digital curriculum software including access licenses to high quality online services like MyAccessWriting and NetTrekker. Part of the package price should be sustained and intensive professional development for teachers. And each school should provide a certified teacher to serve as a “technology integration coach” or mentor for other classroom teachers, helping them learn how to more effectively use the technology tools.
Use of these technology tools should extend into the realm of “disruptive technologies” like blogging, podcasting, and videoconferencing. Students should engage in collaborative problem-solving tasks with other students face to face as well as other students who are geographically distant. We need to prepare kids for the flat world, and that means helping them learn how to solve real problems using real tools, for an authentic audience that genuinely cares about their work.
Research shows that generally, teachers teach out of their own experiences– primarily out of their own K-12 experiences. Today in 2005, we cannot settle for teachers merely trying to replicate the ideal educational environments they experienced as youth. Teachers must step out and take risks to integrate technology in ways they may have not personally experienced before as a student. This is a tall order, but one which our public school system must fill. The future of our children and ourselves is riding on it.
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- The Case for Balanced Internet Filtering in Schools – 2010
- KFC and McDonalds Reinvent Themselves – Why Not Our Schools? – 2009
- Using FeedForAll to update #k12online Podcast Channels – 2009
- Tracking computer use by application with Slife – 2008
- Consider 1:1 learning in Korea – 2007
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- The greatest university of all – 2006