Opinion

By Mary Axelson, News Editor, 21st Century Connections

Mix a scrapped program with significant public funding and the press is there. If the local paper happens to be the New York Times, the attention can spur debate across the nation.

So it was when a Times article (Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops ) reported on a laptop computing initiative at Liverpool High School (Liverpool, NY), which was scrapped after hacking, cheating and technical repairs rose--and test scores did not. The author, Winni Hu, then went on to describe other laptop initiatives that have been deemed, by at least some parties, to be failures.

The Fallout

Educational leaders who are experiencing success with one-to-one computing initiatives worry that the controversial article will provide justification for cutting or eliminating effective programs. An article in The Pittsburgh Tribune Review (Pa. schools say high-school laptop program works so far) provides one example. Pennsylvania's laptop program, which includes more than 100 high schools, is working well, the article reports:

Educators say that so far, Pennsylvania's program seems to be avoiding pitfalls that have plagued some school districts in other states that have tried out the idea.

At a time when many students have access to an assortment of technological gadgets at home, it makes sense for schools to have the same tools available in the classroom, said J. Thomas Frantz, superintendent of the Punxsutawney Area School District in Jefferson County, which has equipped 13 high school classrooms with laptops.

"They have laptops at home, iPods, cell phones ... and then we have them open up a social-studies textbook and ask them to outline a chapter," Frantz said. "They're not learning the way they're living."

In spite of local support, however, the The Pittsburgh Tribune Review points out that some Pennsylvania lawmakers are using the Times' article as an argument for cutting funding:

Republican lawmakers, who resisted the Democratic governor's idea when he first proposed it last year, are opposed to expanding it, citing state budget pressures and a need to evaluate the program's effectiveness.

They also point to a recent report in The New York Times, which said the Liverpool, N.Y., school system is joining a handful of districts in other states that are abandoning laptop programs because of misuse by students, technical problems, and a lack of educational value.

"With so many other budget pressures this year, it makes precious little sense to focus tax dollars on a program that has, at best, a questionable future," said Erik Arneson, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware.

Taking a Closer Look

A number of educational leaders point out the need to look more closely at the specifics of a floundering program to understand why it is not working as planned -- and what the planners of that program might be able to learn from other, more successful one-to-one initiatives. As techlearning.com blogger David Warlick puts it so lucidly in "What's Good About the May 4 NYT Article?", lack of sufficient professional development or technical support might doom a specific program but they don't negate the real needs that program was set out to address.

A closer look at Liverpool's year three report provides further data that would support Warlick's contention: "With three years of data, the picture of how laptops are used at the high school is becoming clearer. Typically in the tenth grade, students, parents and teachers find the laptops to be a good tool in the learning/teaching arsenal. Use is relatively high at this grade, and a majority of those involved at this level find the project beneficial and worth continuing. Three years of survey and observational data support this finding."

The report's bad news: "However, as students continue on to the eleventh and twelfth grades, laptop use declines, and declines noticeably. With the decline in use comes increasing doubt about the value of the computer to the learning process - and a growing unrest related to the value of the laptops versus the costs parents must bear so that their children may participate in the Program."

What accounts for this significant decline in use - which, in turn, leads to a significant decrease in impact (if you don't use them they're not going to help)? The report's author, Kenneth Stevenson, a professor of education at the University of South Carolina, concludes that, "The major problem limiting laptop use and acceptance was adult and political." He then goes on to describe a major power struggle between the district office and the 11th and 12th grade teachers in which the teachers viewed the laptop program as a top-down mandate, reached without their input in an attempt to make the administration look good, while the district administration saw its job as overcoming faculty resistance to change.

The study - and the Liverpool laptop program - clearly has a lot to teach districts about technology implementation. However, many would argue that what it teaches has far more to do with communication and involving stakeholders than with the pros or cons of one-to-one computing.

Scandalous Hip Wiggling?

In the movie the Hudsucker Proxy, a character who invents the hula-hoop shows the toy factory president a pencil-drawing of a circle, expecting that he will fully comprehend the joy and fun illustrated there. Similarly, laptops advocates see obvious but undefined benefits. "Scandalous hip wiggling!" scoff the opponents. Reactions in blogs and discussions fall roughly into these two camps.

A primary argument by the detractors echoes that in Terry Turner's Watching Washington blog ("Schools Overlook the Obvious") in which he asks, "What part of ‘teenager' did the local school board not understand?" Some point to a student's t-shirt in the Times' photo, which reads "I'm a drinker, not a fighter," and ask what chance we have of expecting such an adolescent to use a computer responsibly.

A number of respondents to Ann Althouse's Althouse blog echo the belief that kids can't be expected to behave. As one writes:

Honestly, I'm a responsible adult and often get distracted by the Internet from my work on the computer, so why would the average adolescent be more disciplined than an adult?

Advocates Respond

While critics of one-to-one have been quick to point to the bad news, the blogosphere is buzzing with counter-arguments. The majority of responders to the Althouse blog, for example, echo Ann Althouse's final words to the critics:

Speaking of distractions, it sounds like you're trying to distract us from the fact that you gave them internet access but kept it inadequate, that you hate the idea that they're taking control of what they want to find out about (especially sex), and that you've been failing all along to educate students and you were foolishly hoping giving them laptops would magically fix that.

On Joanne Jacob's site, Freelinking and freethinking on education a commentator identified as JerichoFallsDown, chimes in with,

I run an ed tech blog over at blog.infiniteach.com and so needless to say... i love education (I am a teacher) and I love technology. However, what this study has discovered should have been obvious, as stated already. Technology can never replace good pedagogy, yet we think that it will. We think that if we put an iPod or laptop into the hands of every student, these students will automatically become the best students you've ever seen. That's ludicrous. If a student doesn't care about his schoolwork now, give him a computer and all your doing is giving him one more thing to tinker around with instead of his homework. 'nuff said.

This comment from the Engadget blog site offers another commentary on the failure to plan:

I work in a "laptop school" as a history teacher in an urban district. I agree that there is a HUGE issue of the students not utilizing the technology properly. You can't just put a WiFi enabled laptop in front of a kid and expect him/her to become a better student. However, I think that with proper student *and* teacher training, having a laptop can be a great benefit. You just have to use it in the proper way. Imagine the class as being one giant mobile video lab, or students as a crew of bloggers at the Constitutional Convention. Laptops are a tool like any other. You can use a pencil to write a paper, or stab someone with it.

The problem is that a lot of people who hold the purse strings do not understand what it take to roll out this much technology in an entire school. You need specific training, follow up trainings, upgrades, tech support, monitoring...I could go on. To dismiss laptops in the classroom outright is a mistake. With careful consideration, they can be a true asset to the students and teachers.

Or as another Engadget contributor, "jjonesdtrt," puts it:

This is a perfect example of confusing technology with behavior. If a student is distracted and off-task with a laptop in front of them, does that mean they were engaged and interested before? I doubt it. ...

....Computers have become convenient scape-goats for our own failures to engage and challenge our students....
And the results of avoiding these programs is that students will continue to get their first exposure to productive technology use in college, or the workplace. They're abusing these resources now 'cause we're not teaching them anything different, and they're learning how (and why) to use these resources completely on their own. How will we teach them otherwise if we don't use them ourselves, or provide for their use by students?...wait for them to get fired from their first jobs for surfing eBay during working hours?

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