14th February 2006

States lining up for laptop projects

posted in 1:1 |

I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: One to one laptop initiatives and one to one learning is the future of education. In his budget address to the Pennsylvania legislature last week, Governor Ed Rendell said of his proposed $200 million commitment to provide every high school student in the state with their own laptop at school by 2009:

I would love to say that this idea is one that will put Pennsylvania in front of other states, and that when we were developing this program, we thought we would be at the forefront of the nation. But other states are already blazing the trail. Gov. Reil of Connecticut proposed a similar effort last year and Govs. Romney of Massachusetts and Rounds of South Dakota are also intending to make similar investments this year. Pennsylvania can take our high schools to the next level, but only if we act now to begin the broad deployment of these technologies.

My conversations last week with many different people involved with our statewide Texas Technology Immersion Pilot Project (TxTIP) confirmed yet again that laptop computer hardware offers no panacea for educational challenges. In fact, laptops in the hands of students can serve as a negatively disruptive influence in the learning environment and further complicate an already demanding and complex classroom landscape for teachers as well as administrators.

Some Texas districts are having great success with their laptop initiatives, while others are floundering and even failing. Hopefully states like Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, South Dakota and Indiana seeking to embark soon on their own 1:1 laptop projects will listen to the “lessons learned” from the TxTIP project and avoid making similar mistakes in their own projects. (Hopefully by summer, these governors and anyone else who is interested will be able to read my own completed dissertation– which I am actually working on right now– that focuses on these very issues of success in a 1:1 learning environment.) :-)

On this day..

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 at 12:21 am and is filed under 1:1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

There are currently 4 responses to “States lining up for laptop projects”

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  1. 1 On February 14th, 2006, Norm Garrett said:

    As you clearly point out, some initiatives do well, while others fail. We have had a proposal in our state (Illinois) that is ill-formed. It calls for each student to be issued a laptop computer in 7th grade and to keep it through grade 12. There are several problems with that type of proposal, not the least of which is a failure to adjust the technology every 2 years or so. How would you like to be teaching seniors in high school that are using 6 year old laptops, while the Jr. High kids are using brand new ones? The heterogeneous nature of naive proposals like this will cause more problems that it wil solve. Hopefully, our state will examine some of the more successful programs before jumping into something they seem to have investigated only superficially, at best.

    I’m all for giving students the technology they need, but the program has to make sense, be cost-effective, and be integrated well with pedadogy. Many of these programs seem to be politicians jumping on a bandwagon. It’s like granting hospitals truckloads of band-aids to help the emergency room to become more efficient.

    BTW, I enjoy your blog. Your comments are very insightful.

  2. 2 On February 14th, 2006, Wesley Fryer said:

    Thanks for the comments and compliment, Norm. I wonder if laptop lease proposals are not the best solution for school districts wanting to keep their technology up to par? I think Maine has paid about $300 per student per year for their laptop. The state needs to license digital curriculum as well, but for the hardware I think leasing is probably the best option.

  3. 3 On February 14th, 2006, astephens said:

    I agree that one-to-one should be the goal and the future of education, but… I am a technology specialist in Irving, Texas, and the school where I teach is in the fifth year of our laptop initiative (as a district we are in the third year). Although I think we have come a long way with the program, we still have some miles to go. I am noticing (and am a little frustrated with) staff who have reached a level of comfort and think they no longer need to grow in regards to teaching and teaching with technology. They integrate technology at a mid-range (LOTI level 3 or so) and think that is good enough. I want to motivate these staff members to continue to grow and be excited about emerging technologies and their applications to the classroom, but I am struggling with how to do this. Unfortunately the pressure to prepare students for the TAKS (our state test) is so high that many teachers feel they have to do the ol’ drill and kill and/or write on paper to get the students prepared. I can’t seem to convince the staff as a whole that the laptops, used effectively, can actually help prepare the students for the TAKS. I just feel that our school (and district) is beginning to stagnate in our one-to-one environment and I am not sure how to pull us out of it and get the “excitement” back that my staff seems to be missing… Any suggestions?

    http://www.musingsfromtheacademy.blogspot.com/

  4. 4 On February 15th, 2006, Educational Technology and Life » Blog Archive » States lining up for laptop projects said:

    [...] States lining up for laptop projects (Via Moving at the Speed of Creativity.) “laptop computer hardware offers no panacea for educational challenges. In fact, laptops in the hands of students can serve as a negatively disruptive influence in the learning environment and further complicate an already demanding and complex classroom landscape for teachers as well as administrators.” [...]