So, let’s get to it. What’s good about the “Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops” article, written for The New York Times by Winnie Hu, is that this story was not limited only to people who live within the NYTimes paper delivery area. It was immediately available to readers around the world — including youngsters, sitting at their desks, their laptops open, browsers engaged, accessing and interacting with a global library of content.
While the article’s URL was hopscotching the continents from one ed tech advocate to another, students could, regardless of their geographic location, also read and consider the story — and the rather dramatic conclusions that it implied based on such absurdly little evidence.
No doubt, some students concur. Their teachers don’t know what to do with these state-of-the-art computers, sitting between them and their darlings. They’ve been taught how to operate the machines, but little more, and they don’t bother to hide their frustrations and resentment at being pushed into futuristic classrooms that they are neither prepared for nor believe in.
“I’ve covered this material perfectly well for twenty years.” They’d say, “Why change now!”
And computers do go un-repaired for days and even weeks for these students, because the district has not hired additional technical staff for the hundreds of new computers. And available power and bandwidth have, evidently, not been considered by the school and central office administration as they scurried to jump on to yet another bandwagon, without the appropriate planning.
Just as certainly, there were many youngsters, laptops on desk, scanning the story in astonishment, and seeking to reconcile these claims with their own experience in laptop classrooms. These students Googled laptop schools, and although there were some articles about the successes of technology infused schools, they were not so plentiful — because sadly, that is not considered the news story that presumed mistakes at high levels is.
But they find statistics, and they find pictures, and they record the sounds of their clickety-clicking at their keyboards, and the conversations in their classes, and they mix and remix the information to tell their story with multimedia, and podcast it to the world. Alas, their parents see them, and rejoice in how tech-savvy their children are. But The New York Times pays no attention — that’s not news.
Their scores on their government tests do not increase dramatically, but the skills they are developing: to ask essential questions, research, evaluate, collaborate, process, mix and remix, and publish their findings — learning to be active learners in a rapidly changing world — these skills are not tested.
In a world, where local news is global, and global news is local, where a reporters value is measured in how much angst can be generated by their writing, the 3Rs are no longer enough. They are merely elemental — compared to the rich and exciting information skills that are absolutely critical to not only our children’s future, but ours as well. ..and gaining this new information skills can only happen from within this new information landscape. It’s why every child should be walking into their classroom with a computer under their arm, every classroom should breath with the global information landscape, and every teacher should trained and practiced in the life-long-learning literacies of the emerging future.
Hu, Winnie. “Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops.” The New York Times 4 May 2007 4 May 2007 <http://tinyurl.com/27g53r>.
I wish you’d write this as an Op-ed for the Times. As always, so well said.
I am happy to report that my school district is fully supporting new technology and we are starting “1 laptop for each student” in the coming years. We currently work with laptop carts and are already achieving amazing results. I teach foreign language and could not believe the response I even got from very weak students. I feel sorry for the kids that are deprived such an amazing experience. Thanks for the great blog.
Thanks so much for your perspective!
Your point about the test scores not going up (but their not going down either) is very eye opening. Even if the test scores didn’t change, think of all the extra information that the students are picking up by using this modern technology. This is the future that our students will be living in. If our school’s manifestos claim to be preparing students for the future, I don’t think we can afford NOT to embrace this type of technology.
Thanks again for your perspective.
…computers do go un-repaired for days and even weeks, because the district has not hired additional technical staff for the hundreds of new computers.
some students concur. Their teachers don’t know what to do with these state-of-the-art computers, sitting between them and their darlings. They’ve been taught how to operate the machines, but little more, and they don’t bother to hide their frustrations and resentment at being pushed into futuristic classrooms that they are neither prepared for nor believe in.
Districts would never give teachers a new curriculum without some training and support, yet many purchased expensive equipment with out the tech support & integration support to turn the computers into effective tools.
Marco–
It would be interesting for the NY times to report on schools like yours whose districts support the teachers in implementing technology rather than impose the technology on sometimes unwilling faculty members. Great post
Wow, why does the media seem to drive what is right and wrong as far as tools in 21st Century education. In fact, just the other day I listened to two Technology podcasts, both hosted by respected technologists in the US and here in Australia. To my shock they both agreed with stories that were talking about schools banning technology. Both hosts from the show suggested that kids should NOT be using tools like ipods and participating in classes that included video gaming. While I agree educational benefit only comes when these tools are used properly, it shocked me to hear a group of technologists being so narrow sighted on these issues. Once again we are pushing the up hill battle – but when I see the benefits the battle worthwhile. I myself am working on a way to have my classes next year working 1 to 1. In fact I will be puting a call out on my blog soon for help to gather the research in one place….. blog.brettmoller.com if you are interested.
Thanks again for the great blog Dave, it rates in my number one and has produced so much useful resource for me. GREAT JOB MATE!!!!
Those students are lucky that they each have a loptop to aid them their studies. Their teachers should be thankful for the opportunity given to them which allows them to learn more about new technology. Not all schools have that kind of technology for their education.
Two very telling quotes from the article.
“Last month, the United States Department of Education released a study showing no difference in academic achievement between students who used educational software programs for math and reading.”
These reading programs are nothing more than traditional cloze reading and grammar excercises with a smidge of feigned diagnostic interactivity. The problem is, the people who are designing the educational software are the same drill and killers who are failing kids in regular classrooms. When teachers are given real training and support (and time) in authentic digital creation tools like digital video, podcasting, blogging, wiki’s, etc., then success often follows.
“Many carried laptops in their hands or in backpacks even as their teacher, Tom McCarthy, encouraged them not to overlook books, newspapers and academic journals. “The art of thinking is being lost,†he said. “Because people can type in a word and find a source and think that’s the be all end all.â€
Mr. McCarthy needs to remember that the jobs of an educator is to educate. Perhaps a minilesson and reinforcement about evaluating electronic sources? In 10-20 years (perhaps sooner), most information will be digitized. Everything will be searchable. Heck, if you’re in a district with the means to pay for some of these databases, kids already have access. You can’t make the argument that teaching an 11th grader to navigate and explore the internet is not infinitely more powerful than sending them to a textbook.
rm305.blogspot.com
Thanks, Mr. Malley, for highlighting that section of the article.
I’m a librarian, myself, but would be thrilled if our students had laptops.
And we do need to teach students how to evaluate sources, and how to evaluate when to “google” and when to use database or journal sources.
Secondly, did students think any more when they were selecting a book source from the library shelf? Or did they just find any book as quickly as they could?
We need to design assignments that ask students to think, gather the best sources(online or off) and evaluate them. We need to ask for a variety of sources. We need to ask the deeper questions–ones that require them to think.
The fault, I fear, is in ourselves, not in the technology. But I do believe many educators and many schools have successes because they know it is about the teaching.
I find it a bit ironic that those students who are seniors at the high schools mentioned in the article will most likely be required, or greatly encouraged, to have a computer (most likely a laptop) if they enroll in a college next fall. What does this say about the methodology employed at the schools mentioned in the article?
I’m surprised that no one has noted that there’s a 171 page report about the first three years of the Liverpool Central School District laptop program that clearly shows quickly faculty backed away from the program. I’ve used this 2004 report for years when thinking and designing laptop programs, since it illustrates how a program can rapidly lose ground.
Given these problems, it’s amazing that the program would be considered a clean example of a “typical” program. If it is, then I am concerned.
I have a link to the report and more comments at http://www.k12converge.com/?p=186
Jim Heynderickx
From my experiences, I have seen schools purchase laptops, computers and peripherals. This makes them feel good, and look good on paper because it improves their ratio of students to computer.
This is a misconception, because without proper training and support, the new tools are underused and underutilized. Teacher training and IT support are critical to making the infusion of technology a success.
Another similar story…
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_laptops05.3df8307.html
I’ve worked in 1:1 “laptop schools” since I led professional development in the world’s first two such schools back in 1990. Since then I’ve worked with countless schools committed to truly PERSONAL computing all over the world.
First of all, it is important to know that for the first dozen or so years of 1:1 computing in schools, the terms program, project, pilot, initiative or experiment were NEVER used. Such terms imply a high probability, indeed a likelihood of failure. The recent NY Times article demonstrates that this is the case. It is an absence of imagination and leadership by educators, particularly in the ed tech community that are contributing to this train wreck.
It’s worth noting that NONE of the major edtech advocacy organizations, particularly ISTE did ANYTHING to support Governor Angus King when he was being attacked for proposing laptops for kids in Maine schools. The silence was deafening.
I’ve found that there are three types of laptop schools:
1) The pioneers – who want to revolutionize the learning experience
2) The marketeers – who want their photo in the newspaper (and perhaps higher test scores)
3) Their neighbors – who had no plan, no vision or rationale for using laptops constructively, but when they fail, the wreck the neighborhood for everyone.
There was an explosion of creativity, innovation and discussion about the nature of teaching and learning found in laptop schools between 1990 and 1995. Then something happened to reverse the trend towards the best of progressive education, decentralized control and interdependent learning. It was the web.
The web allowed the personal computers, maintained and used by individual students, to be tethered together and controlled by low-skill non-educator network managers. Simple tasks like installing a file became the Marshall Plan and the computer ceased being viewed in terms of John Dewey and Seymour Papert in favor of pedagogical metaphors of instructional delivery. McGraw-Hill and Pearson were firmly back-in-charge.
The web made students dependent and reinforced the mistaken notion that learning was primarily based on information access, rather than the construction of knowledge. Computing gave way to looking stuff up and it should come as no surprise that when the dominant metaphor for using a computer is looking stuff up, then kids will look up inappriopriate stuff. Or at least adults will hyperventilate over the prospect of kids doing the wrong thing with the laptop.
The vision of using computers MUST be greater than kids blogging, conducting research or doing homework together. Papert, Kay (and lesser mortals like myself) have been writing about what might be done for the past forty years. The current state of affairs is intolerable. With all due respect, the focus on information severely limits the expectations for what students might learn and do with computers. The lack of visible change in practice accompanying the use of the computer in these ways does little to ignite the public’s imagination. I wrote about similar issues here: http://www.districtadministration.com/page.cfm?p=1278
I’ve been doing a new keynote, “Ten Things to Do with a Laptop: Learning and Powerful Ideas,” based on a paper my friends Cynthia Solomon and Seymour Papert published in 1971, “Twenty Things to Do with a Computer.” This talk presents a wide variety of ways in which laptops may be used to not only make the current curriculum more comprehensible, effective or efficient, but to create opportunities for kids to learn things impossible without their own personal computer. You may read the original article at: http://districtadministration.com/pulse/commentpost.aspx?news=no&postid=17638 Read this 35 year old document and see how well your schools measure up today. (It’s humbling)
In addition to reading the work of Seymour Papert, I recommend the following book about laptops in education: http://tinyurl.com/2nlexx
I’ll be writing a LOT more about the subject of laptops in education over the next few months. In the meantime you may find resources at http://www.stager.org/laptops.html and http://www.aalf.org
Interesting comments, Gary. You make a strong point about an absence of imagination and leadership, but do you give educational leaders a pass by focusing so much on the web itself? I could imagine a school that was constructively energized by the ideas you discuss, through creative leadership, and the web itself could be a neutral value.
I think those schools did the right thing in dropping the use of loptop. Since they weren’t using it for education, it’s better that they give it to schools with students who doesn’t have any knowledge about computers. This way, they will not be able to to use their loptops in a negative way.
Geri,
I can’t live without the web. I’ve been teaching online for more than a decade, run businesses online and publish online. However, I do not view the utility of the web as the solution to the challenges of education innovation. Technology is rarely if ever neutral.
Schools have been governed by pencil and paper for centuries. Computers, if used constructively, can create all sorts of new experiences and forms of expression.
The overreliance on the Web as what you “do” with computers in schools and the sloppy logic suggesting that you can just slap “2.0” onto school and declare victory is what concerns me.
Laptops are about personal learning space, freedom and decentralization. Schools use the network as a pretense for reducing this potential. I witnessed how 1:1 computing changed and became more precarious when schools began to over-emphasize the web. The educators who argue for keydrives (flash ram) rather than laptops are ridiculous. The Flash drive is way to store bits. The creation of bits requires a computer.
Who can argue about the intangible benefits of mobile computing? Anyone want to give back their laptops? What do you say to a poor Latino kid in Romoland, California who thought that they were finally part of the 21st century society when they were trusted with the valuable, useful and cool laptop only to find out that the adults paid to serve them have screwed up and now must confiscate their laptop? This is a human tragedy.
Do you really think that every kid won’t soon have a laptop whether a school district provides them or not? I’ve often said that one of the main reasons a school should invest in laptops is that it gives the adults a few years to practice before the kids bring them anyway. (think iPod, cellphone, $200 sneakers, etc…)
The adoption process will be the same as in the past. Kids get them. Schools ban them. Schools confiscate them. Schools allow them. Textbook companies find ways to make them boring and unpleasant. Schools announce that the new technology “failed” to raise test scores.
Gary,
You are spot on with this comment: “Who can argue about the intangible benefits of mobile computing? Anyone want to give back their laptops? ”
I imagine the reporter who wrote the article used her laptop for notetaking, internet searching, emailing the interviewees, and writing the article. The laptop is a basic business productivity tool. Why shouldn’t we be teaching our high school students how to manage that tool?
I also think it is misguided to evaluate laptop use based on achievement test scores, as the article implies. Using laptops for basic productivity is a way to prepare our students for the world beyond high school–shouldn’t we be using high school as a laboratory to teach them about ethical and responsible uses?
I also wrote more about this on my blog–I feel articles like this just allow those who want to avoid technology the excuses to do so–without examining the deeper problems at hand.
Carolyn,
I don’t think we need to teach students to “manage their laptop.” We need to teach them to do new things and learn in new ways with their laptop. I part company when you write about productivity. When did that become the purpose of education? Surely chores may become less irksome, but should we be worried about productivity? Education isn’t assembly line work.
I not only asked the reporter about her laptop, but when she asked if I thought that the district provided “enough professional development,” I asked how much professional development she received for using her computer on the job. It MAY have amounted to an hour or two.
The reflexive excuse of “not enough professional development” doesn’t say much for the learning ability or flexibility of teachers. They’ve had 25 years to get comfortable with basic computing. Lack of PD is a sloppy lazy excuse. Teachers should use computers to benefit kids and professionals develop when in a context in which such personal development is expected and supported.
Gary,
We’re probably using the definition of productivity differently.
I use it to mean computer uses beyond skill drill programs, and in school I think of it as programs that students use EITHER to support their tasks or that they use to create, collaborate, communicate as a transformative part of their learning. So I suppose I mean all the ways we use computers professionally….which I don’t see as a limiting definition. We use them professionally for blogging, writing, imaging, creating videos, global connections….
I think to many students, technology isn’t a separate entity, but a natural part of what they do. But I do think the metacognitive discussions with students are important—the deeper understanding we all gain by talking about how we think about things adds to our own uses.
Thank you David for sparking a wonderful page of responses and inquiry regarding the Hu’s NYT article. I especially appreciate your comment about the failure of tests to assess perhaps the MOST important learning skills that should be emanating from our nation’s middle and high schools: “to ask essential questions, research, evaluate, collaborate, process, mix and remix, and publish their findings — learning to be active learners in a rapidly changing world.” I would add a couple factors to your list – the incredible power of personal organization and the enabling to support differentiated learners and differentiated instruction that comes from well developed laptop programs.
In reference to Gary’s trichotomy of laptop schools, as a school who is clearly at the “pioneer” level with regards to seamless integrating latpop use throughout every aspect of the learning process, I offer an open invitation to anyone interested to visit, observe, and depart with their own conclusions of what happens when every student, every teacher, every administrator has their own assigned laptop in an environment of mutual trust – where NO tech skills are overtly taught, but where everyone actively uses these tools throughout their entire day. Find me 3 people throughout our entire school who would argue against laptops to support learning and I will buy you lunch!
For fun, you can actually take much of the NYT article and substitute the word “laptop” with the phrase “paper and pencil” – and begin to see the incredible hypocrisy of “blaming the tool.”
“Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Paper and Pencils.”
“Yet school officials here and in several other places said paper and pencils had been abused by students, did not fit into lesson plans, and showed little, if any, measurable effect on grades and test scores…”
“More than a couple centuries ago, schools began investing heavily in paper and pencils at the urging of school boards and parent groups who saw them as the key to the 19th century classroom.
I hope, as the incoming PK12 Representative on the ISTE Board, that I can help lead a national effort to help highlight the power that ubiquitous access to 21st century tools can have on 21st century notions of learning.
Howard Levin
Director of Technology
The Urban School
1563 Page Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
415-593-9525
hlevin@urbanschool.org
http://www.howardlevin.com
Telling Their Stories: Oral History Archives Project
http://www.tellingstories.org
———————————————-
Upcoming Presentations:
Making the Laptop Disappear: Moving to Seamless Integration, June 25, NECC Atlanta – http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007
Laptop Mentor, July 15-17, Laptop Institute, Memphis – http://www.laptopinstitute.com
Telling Their Stories: Producing Web-Based Digital Video Interviews, July 30-Aug 2, CIT San Francisco – http://www.urbanschool.org/cit2007/seminars.html
Both educators and parents need to advance their technological knowledge in order to best prepare students for the future.
Some times parody is the best response:
Somewhere, N.Y. — The students at Somewhere High have used their school-issued paper and pencils to exchange answers on tests, sketch pornography, stab each other, and issue anonymous bomb threats. When the school tightened its distribution of paper and pencils, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the bulletin board of local coffee shops for others to follow (which they did).
Scores of the papers rip and shred each month, and every other morning, when the entire school has study hall, the supply cabinets inevitably run out of paper and there are long lines at the pencil sharpener sending students roaming the halls for more paper and pencils instead of getting help from teachers.
So the Somewhere Central School District, just outside Syracuse, has decided to phase out paper and pencils starting this fall, joining a handful of other schools around the country that adopted paper based programs and are now abandoning them as educationally empty — and worse. ……..
Lack of professional development is not a sloppy excuse. Your standard teacher uses a computer for word processing and internet. Possibly they do their banking or taxes using stand alone programs.
Obviously, if we want our students to do things beyond these basics, teachers need support and professional development. The problem is the perception of the role of teacher. Many teachers teach as they were taught. They wonder what is wrong with teaching with an overhead and cellophane. After all, that is how they were taught, and they learned enough to have some expertise in the field. Furthermore, this thinking is reinforced when their students pass exams.
So, in essence, why change? Now, I know the answer to this question, because I was lucky to get involved with some progressive organizations when I first started teaching. I have been steeped in the culture of technology. Others have not. They are not involved in conversations about the flattened world or the changing needs of business or Web 2.0 or multimedia creation.
Even those of us who are find it difficult. Teachers are always plugged in during the school year. You know the story, homework, planning, parents, etc. It’s difficult to find out about changing technologies, much less institute them into the classroom. Furthermore, it becomes near impossible when you consider the lack of resources, the absent TIS guy (or girl), administrative passwords prohibiting installation of necessary programs, server glitches, computers slightly below fully functioning, student malfeasance, standardized test pressures, incompatible educational philosophies and agendas. Need I go on? In industry planning and meetings interrupt work. You can’t exactly place a student body on hold while working out the latest widget.
Saying that asking for professional development is lazy or sloppy is just ignoring the realities of the current educational system.
And you can counter by saying that we need to wake up because its the world we live in, and you’d be preaching to the choir, but until there’s a top down mandate, we whom are working from the grass up are still going to struggle.
TWENTY FIVE YEARS!
That’s how long there have been computers in American classrooms. I hear constantly how teachers are afraid of computers, don’t get computers and are so much worse at using computers than their students.
In subjects like math, the majority of students NEVER use computers in the study of the subject.
This is not because kids are digital natives and adults are digital immigrants. It is because adults have made a conscious effort to be non-learners.
We can complain about the kids, a lack of professional development and standardized testing all we want, but that will not change the reality of our schools. We can hire people to keynote professional development days or run two-hour workshops on Web 2.0 and it won’t matter a bit.
We need to raise our game and our expectations.
If we know what is right, we should do it.
Conscious effort to be non-learners takes care of the people who have not bought in. These are the type of people in my district who refuse to check their district email. They actually refuse to even consider looking at their email. In what other field is this possible?
But, there is another subset of people who want to use technology, but are limited because they lack access, resources, pd, know how, etc. These are the people who need PD.
Lastly, funny bit of the day. The district I work for has this blog and teach42 blocked because they are blogs. Now, these URL’s don’t even have the word “blog” in them (they also summarily blocked any typepad or site with the word “blog” in it). That means someone saw these sites and made the conscious decision to put them on the blocked list. That gives a little taste of what we’re up against.
Thanks for the wonderful refutation of Winnie Hu’s piece. I, too have written her a letter with my own perspective on this, as a publisher and as a former computer consultant who worked with computers in places from wealthy pre-schools to ABC No Rio, a Lower East Side community center.
Unfortunately, after Googling Ms. Hu, I found that she makes a habit of doing misleading pieces with the same sorts of ill-considered gloss on complex subjects.
A few of us have been discussing this piece and related issues here, where I’ve also posted a copy of the letter that I wrote to Ms. Hu.
At least this piece is getting more folks considering the issue again and it’s heartening to see the coherent and factually supported discussion that I’m seeing here and elsewhere.