Technology in the Classroom with the right Objectives

Mike Gotta recently blogged about an effort in NYC to test the effectiveness (cost and performance) of a one laptop per child environment. They blog about it here.

The effort's main issue is that..."(m)any laptop programs have failed to increase student achievement and purposeful learning because teachers have been provided with devices and training but no meaningful redesign of the instruction and curriculum now possible with the technology." I couldn't agree more.

Simply providing the technology to children or the classroom does not, in itself, change the performance of our children. Teacher training, curriculum re-development, and community support are needed to reach what should be the goal of every educational institution...that children thrive.

They go on to acknowledge that gains among the under performing students are higher/better than those of average or above average students...but all are improving. Implementations like these where no one class of children are left out of the benefits should be applauded.

The only issue I have with the way this was presented deals with the stated goals and their order. As I mentioned above, the goal of any educational institution is for their children to thrive. That's issue number one in my mind. Their first goal is listed as "Lowering the Total Cost of Ownership." While I realize that each district must be responsible for the direction and use of taxpayer funds, I believe they have to first ask, "will it help our kids" and then ask "can we afford to implement it."

I'm sure that how they considered, debated and decided on this program, and I applaud their efforts to increase the educational enhancement of all their children with the use of technology, in cooperation with the teachers and staff who are responsible to implement it. Technology is becoming and will be a major part of education in the 21st century.

Comments

[patricia ptacek]

The interest point here is that OLPC (http://laptop.org/) was originally designed to bring technology to children in third world countries. The XO was built for children in ares where resources are scarce. It creates a mesh network that allows users to piggyback wifi of each others machines to create connections in places they were once impossible. Given the fact that conditions in NYC public schools and other urban areas are as dire as they are, it was just a matter of time before someone realized the XO could be a viable low cost (200 per unit!) alternative for under-served areas of the United States. The costs are so dramatically lower, it almost takes the "well, One-to-One won't work because we can't afford it" out of the argument. Then you can start to look at the efficacy of the technology and practice.