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September 15, 2002
The Trouble with Maine
By Jerry Crystal
The vision behind Maine's laptop initiative should be applauded, but the reality may give one pause.
This fall, the great state of Maine begins a four-year odyssey that will put an Apple iBook wireless laptop computer in the hands of every seventh- and eighth-grade student and teacher in the 241 middle schools of the state. In Governor Angus King's words, the holy grail of this endeavor is "to produce the most digitally literate society in the world." Is this a worthwhile and honorable goal? Absolutely. But while radical innovations like the Maine Learning Technology Initiative are important, especially in these days of conservative approaches, so is creating a program based in reality-one that incorporates enough financial resources, training, and support to ensure its success, and ultimately produce measurable learning outcomes for students. As a technology specialist charged with implementing a middle school laptop program during the 1998-2002 school years, I would like to go on record with my concerns. Maine needs to address several issues in order for MLTI to reach its full potential.
Funding
Considerable resources have been committed to the project: $37 million to cover the costs of the laptops, wireless servers, routers, laptop repair, and technical support; plus an additional $2 million for professional development with promises of other monies to be sought out in the future.
At first glance this would seem to be a more than adequate amount of money for the project. However, there are essential items not covered by these funds. These include the upgrade of local electrical systems to support the first, and subsequent, waves of laptops; resources to connect the wireless networks to existing networks, which would give teachers access to student information systems; and computers for administrators, curriculum specialists, and on-site technology personnel to allow for true integration of the technology into the framework of the school. Additionally, MLTI does not provide for laptop carts for storing and recharging. (Educators can, however, download do-it-yourself plans for building a cart at the Piscataquis Community Middle School's Web site.)
Leaving these items up to the financial discretion of individual school sites will mean a lack of consistency across the board, from implementation to evaluation and perceptions of the project's success.
Training
Supporting MLTI are nine regional integration mentors, 241 technology integration specialists (on-site teacher volunteers), and numerous other teachers drafted to provide assistance.
While this may seem like a well-rounded group for providing training and support, consider this: The regional integration mentors will be leading professional development and providing guidance to 233 schools coming on board this fall. That equates to about 25 schools per mentor, or an average of four days of support per school per year. The technology integration specialists, expected to deal with the day-to-day technical support and training issues, are also full-time classroom teachers. As a result, support to project participants will always be in conflict with the demands of the classroom. As for the other teachers drafted to help the project, their official technology training, prior to the beginning of the school year, amounts to a mere two days.
In my experience, the best and smartest type of support for technology implementations such as this is support on demand. The MLTI planners would be wise to ensure there's a school-based educator whose sole responsibility is support of the project. This would allow for in-class demonstration lessons, one-on-one and team training sessions, as well as more time for the technology integration specialists to address the countless other issues inherent in such a large undertaking. The use of technology in the classroom should be part of participating teachers' formal evaluation, thereby motivating them to seek out training opportunities throughout the year, which MLTI officials have said will be available.
Supporting Tools
Even the boldest of adventurers usually have maps to guide them, so I was surprised to find the MLTI Professional Development Plan-written over a year ago-has no clear, detailed list of technology competencies for either teachers or students, not to mention criteria for how this project is expected to affect parents or local communities.
Another quibble: there's no one Web resource that puts it all together for participants. The Maine Department of Education curriculum index, while listing helpful links to various pilot projects, provides very few sample lessons and no implementation strategies. The best tools are MaineLearns.org and LaptopME.org, nonprofit sites with decent links to concept modeling, collaborative learning, and other resources.
How could Maine improve? By creating a state-of-the-art education portal, which could communicate project goals and benchmarks, provide distance learning and training opportunities, and act as a mechanism for collecting and tracking relevant data essential for project evaluation and future grant submissions.
Jerry Crystal is technology integration specialist at the Hartford Magnet Middle School in Hartford, Conn.
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