|
May 15, 2001
Laptop Lessons: Exploring the Promise of One-to-One Computing (cont'd)
The Results Are In
From 1996 through 2000, Rockman Et Al, an independent research organization, conducted evaluations of Microsoft's pioneering Anytime Anywhere Learning program-an initiative that provides hardware, content, training, and other types of support for schools implementing laptop programs. Rockman's key findings are that laptop students spend substantially more out-of-class time on schoolwork, score higher in writing and reading assessments, demonstrate improved research and analysis skills, and engage in more collaborative work than non-laptop students.
Kenneth Stevenson of the University of South Carolina carried out similar annual evaluations of that state's Beaufort County School District, which serves a broad economic spectrum, from the affluent Hilton Head Island resort area to rural farming and fishing communities. Second-year results show that students with their own laptops have scored higher on standardized achievement tests than their non-laptop counterparts, with the most significant gains made by those in the free and reduced-cost lunch programs. Third-year results show all laptop students maintaining significant scoring advantages over non-laptop users.
At the Rio Bravo Middle School in El Paso, Texas, where 92 percent of the school's students receive a free or reduced-cost lunch, providing laptops for every student has borne equally dramatic results. Their program, implemented through NetSchools, includes proprietary, infrared-equipped notebook computers for students and teachers; network hardware; and a year's mandated training. After one year of the program being in place, state achievement scores improved significantly, and student attendance rates increased to 97 percent. Based on this progress, the district plans to expand the program to every middle and high school over the next five years.
Participation in laptop programs has come to be associated with more regular school attendance and with students staying in school longer-variables key to learning and achievement. Hartford Public Schools in Connecticut provides a good example of this. In 1999, their dropout rate for students after ninth grade was over 50 percent. The school system was determined to turn things around and decided technology was one good place to start. Today, of the 267 students who started with the laptop program, 92 percent have remained in school and in the program.
Janice Gordon, the mobile learning coordinator who led Hartford's laptop implementation, is much more focused on the qualitative results of the program. In particular, Gordon has observed the change in self-image that disadvantaged students have when they're given the same technology tools being used by their suburban counterparts-and the business world at large. "We're fighting a faceless enemy in poverty, apathy, and student motivation," she says. "At the end of the day, when these students come out knowing they have tools that will take them beyond high school, they see themselves differently."
In addition to motivating students to stick with school, to work better with others, and to score higher on reading, writing, and achievement tests, studies also show that one-to-one computing increases home-school communication and parental involvement. It has also helped empower teachers to move from traditional delivery modes of instruction to methods of discovery and interaction, with increased individualization and customization of learning activities and materials.
Getting Started > > >
Read other articles from the May issue
Send a letter to the Editor in response to this article.
|
