One-on-One Laptop Program Research

Silvernail, David L. and Dawn M. Lane. "The Impact of Maine's One-to-One Laptop Program on Middle School Teachers and Students." Maine Education Policy Research Institute. University

of Southern Maine Office. Feb. 2004.

I chose to do one of my research blogs on a laptop program because we talked a lot about United Community's program that they just began. I was curious to see the effects that other research found on student achievement and engagement due to a laptop program.

This particular research was done in Maine (2002-2004) at a middle school where all 7th and 8th grade students were provided with laptops and teachers were also provided with training opportunities on how to incorporate laptops into their curriculum. Some highlights of the research was that over 70% of teachers said it helped them to meet students' needs by providing individualized curriculum and 4 out of 5 teachers said it improved students' motivation and engagement. In fact, teachers said students prepared better quality of work. Students reported that the laptops helped them to stay organized, get work done faster, and produce better quality work and ninth graders who no longer have laptops said their work quality has declined. This is very interesting and what I would expect.

The program started as the idea of former Gov. Angus King. He wanted Maine to move beyond what education had traditionally been doing to shift into the age of technology.In 2002, 17,000 seventh graders and their teachers received laptops. Wow! That is a huge number compared to United. When we were talking about bigger schools not being able to do provide this program, I thought that was definitely true. But 17,000 students getting laptops? That is amazing!

Of course teachers were found to use the laptops mainly for producing instructional materials, but interestingly, they were underusing them for handling student information and assessments. One teacher said that they are still "paper-based" when it came to that. Students used their laptops most for finding information, then organizing information, and finally for taking notes. The lowest use is for taking tests/quizzes using laptops. Some teachers no longer used textbooks because of the up-to-date information they could find using their laptops. Many teachers reported that they were better able to meet the learning standards for their school.

Overall, this research shows that a one-to-one laptop program has significant benefits for student work and teacher quality. I am excited to see how the program at United turns out. I wish there was enough money out there to provide more schools with this opportunity. It is a great step toward changing the mentality of the past and turning students into successful citizens in the 21st century.

Digital Books Galore!

It's times like last night that makes me wish I was a lower level teacher...just a little bit. The Web 2.0 resources just keep coming. I've started a Google Doc of a list of the resources we've talked about and it's getting pretty long. Hopefully, I remember what they all are. I can't believe the FREE stuff out there. The sites for the children's books were awesome! I would also totally use them with older kids, even high schoolers because they like that kind of thing sometimes. Just for a change of pace. I would use children's books for a struggling reader class I taught, and even though they acted like they thought it was lame, I know they enjoyed being read to in that "elementary" way.
I mentioned students being able to distinguish between unreliable and reliable websites last night. We had just talked about that in CI 501 a couple nights before and how important it is that teachers don't limit the exposure students get to the internet. That doesn't mean they should be able to do whatever they want, but giving them a list of websites they CAN use totally defeats the point. In a reading for that class, it said that web browsers were the most commonly used technology in the classroom but teachers were not comfortable with teaching about the responsibility that students need to take when sorting through information. It's a skill that everyone needs to learn in order to be critical readers in this digital world. Maybe teachers need some professional development that shows them how to give some power back to the students in that area of using the web.

Elementary Activities

I actually enjoyed class the other night. Even though we did mostly elementary activities, it was fun! I found myself thinking of higher level applications for some of the programs we used. Probably couldn't use the scholastic site at the middle/high school level, but I can see how great of a resource that would be in elementary schools. Too bad it's so expensive. I had no idea why we brought our 10 "things," but it was a nice surprise to create our own "I Spy" pages. What a great idea! All of the activities would engage students.
I'm disappointed that the speaker is coming on Oct. 7 because of course, that's the one class I can't be at! Would it be possible to podcast it or videotape her, so that I could see it later? That question is obviously for Dr. Schmidt, so hopefully when she reads this, she can answer that question. :-)
I guess I don't have much to say this week, but I'm definitely excited about all of the web 2.0 resources we are finding out about. I wish I could use them in a classroom, but since I can't, at least I can share the wealth of knowledge with teachers I know.

I appreciated Dr. Schmidt's comment on my last blog about TeacherTube being already safe. I, personally, haven't used it but will be suggesting it to those AMS teachers when I go there to sub on Friday.

Today, I'm subbing at Ankeny High School for a special ed teacher and although (admittedly) I'm not doing much, I did sit in on an Economics class where the teacher announced that tomorrow the kids will be using a program to calculate auto insurance costs with purchasing or leasing an actual vehicle. This is potentially a good project where kids are using technology and real-life context. Unfortunately, I will not be able to see how it goes. I've been reading about transfer of learning for another class and they talk a lot about not "overcontextualizing" learning because students won't be able to transfer those skills to another context. I hope this car project is general enough to help the students actually have some transfer of learning. I feel like it probably will be successful at that because they're looking at different options and such.

Back to CI 556 last week...I thought it was funny that Dr. Schmidt said that TPACK was what she'd been doing all along but just hadn't put it together into a framework. I had JUST said to the person next to me how the reading about TPACK was kind of "duh, I've heard this all before." That probably sounds bad, and I don't mean it to but really, TPACK makes perfect sense, so I guess someone had to put it into a framework for teachers to "neatly" be able to utilize. I liked the activity we did with it, too. It was pretty clever and made it a very visual concept.

Great new Web 2.0 resources!

Class this week was...interesting for me. Since I am secondary, I was pretty bored with Bailey's Bookhouse. Because I sub in all areas, I have had experience with the "center" use of programs like that. I can see how obviously using it ALONG with an instructional purpose would give it a more meaningful learning experience for kids. But I can also see how teachers sometimes just need fillers, and Bailey's would provide that purpose also. The other resources were much more interesting for me. They are a lot more open-ended which lends itself to all levels and grades of students. Seeing just a few of the thousands (I'm sure) of resources I could use does actually make me miss being in a classroom full-time. There's soo much I could do with these resources! I guess I'll have to be content with sharing them with the LA teachers I do work with and know pretty well.
Speaking of sharing resources...I did share Wordle with a 7th grade LA teacher, and she kinda brushed it off! I didn't actually have time to show her a Wordle creation, so that probably would have helped, but really...she could have acknowledged that there are resources she could be using that she doesn't even know about! Anyway, that kind of upset me if you can't tell. :-) I also had a conversation with that same teacher about how Ames schools have blocked YouTube. She and her co-teacher did actually use it for educational purposes last year, so she's very upset that they have chosen to block such a great resource. It's funny because her husband works for Ballard school district and they have chosen to keep facebook and YouTube accessible to students and teachers. They are just trusting that teachers will be responsible and use it appropriately. I feel like it's pretty much censorship when the technology director (or whoever decides these things) block sites that do have great possibilities to enhance learning. I know it happens in a lot of school districts, so is there something that can be done to reverse that? Can teachers get together and document their use of these sites so they see the benefits of them? I don't know if some teachers care enough to do that, but I think they should definitely try!
Moving on...I started reading the Mishra and Koehler article and I love that they give examples of the Web 2.0 resources they have used for their research of TPACK. I plan on researching some of them (especially the specialized search engines) and possibly using them for my resource review in CI 505. Very cool technology out there that is right at our fingertips!