A Tale Of Technology In Two School Districts
- From: "Rotten Apple" <rotten@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 14:33:33 -0500
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105259682
A Tale Of Technology In Two School Districts
by Larry Abramson
June 11, 2009
For schools, computers for students are essential, but they are also
expensive. With budget pressures increasing, schools are looking for ways to
cut technology spending. Here's a tale of two school districts, and how they
are trying to trim their tech budgets without hurting learning.
At John Adams Elementary School in Alexandria, Va., teacher Amberleigh Klaus
is getting her class of first-graders hooked up. Each of her students has a
laptop, and they're all connected wirelessly to the Internet.
Miray Guneric, 7, is so young, she can't spell the password she needs for
World Book online. She stares at her screen and asks a visitor for help: "I
don't know how to spell 'student,' " which is the password she needs.
Miray may be too young to spell, but kids in Alexandria are never too little
to use technology. Alexandria is a highly diverse system of 10,000 students.
The school district, located just outside Washington, D.C., has a rich
offering of technology.
Technology resource teacher Audrey Biggers says she wants her students to be
able to jump online anytime. "It depends heavily on Internet access," she
says.
To do that today, kids need regular-sized Hewlett-Packard laptops that cost
the school about $800 each. Elizabeth Hoover, in charge of the district's
computer systems, says these machines work fine. But she's looking to go
smaller.
Migrating To Smaller Laptops
Hoover holds up a sleek, silver laptop that is much smaller than the
machines the kids are using. It's an HP Mini, which takes up about
two-thirds of the space of a regular laptop and weighs about half as much.
The Mini looks more like an overfed smart phone than a laptop, and it fits
comfortably into Hoover's purse.
She says her district can purchase this model for just over $400, half the
cost of the larger machines that the students are currently using. In
addition to the savings, she's hoping younger students will have an easier
time carrying around the lighter machine. The smaller machine has no CD or
DVD drive, but Alexandria no longer needs these because administrators load
software over a network.
To accommodate a growing student population, Alexandria is planning to buy
500 HP Minis and take them for a test drive.
Beyond the cost, Biggers says there's another reason to give children
technology that is more portable. "We have to play with the toys that they
are playing with," she says. "More students are using hand-held devices for
their communication and their creation. And this is more similar to the
hand-held devices that they are using in their world."
Laptops Unplugged
In the Berlin Township Public Schools in southern New Jersey, budget
pressures are just as intense. Superintendent Brian Betze says he was
considering buying a package of 30 laptops.
"With the same amount of money, we got 350 NEOs," he says.
NEOs are small, dedicated word processors. The manufacturer, Renaissance
Learning, describes them as the only laptop designed for the classroom. They
do not connect to the Internet. Betze says that was a plus for his district.
"There are a lot of parents, including a number of my board members, who
really don't want children to have Internet access in school. So that really
wasn't an issue."
NEOs won't play music or send messages, so they don't create the kinds of
distractions common with regular laptops. That's something Renaissance
Learning highlights on its Web site in its "laptop smackdown."
In online ads, characters representing PCs and Macs appear as charlatans
pushing irrelevant technology on students. A smarmy version of the "I'm a
Mac" character tells a student: "You need Internet access, kid. How else are
you going to IM your friends when teacher isn't looking!"
Teachers at Eisenhower Middle School in West Berlin, N.J., like the fact
that the NEOs come complete with dedicated software for boosting basic
skills. In Dina Botley's 7th grade science class, the teacher uses the
machines to test the kids' knowledge of a recent lesson. She asks students,
"Which of these planets is an inner planet?" Kids choose from among Venus,
Neptune and Jupiter by clicking an answer displayed on their NEOs. A
wireless signal immediately tells the teacher that they have all responded
correctly. Teachers can use the information to gauge how students are
progressing over the semester.
Students seem comfortable with the machines, but they're not crazy about
them. Eighth-grader Rebecca Miller tells Superintendent Betze she prefers
using her home computer.
Betze teases her about this: "You guys miss not having the graphics and the
cool designs and colors?"
"Yeah, when it prints, it's kind of boring and plain," Miller says.
"You mean you have to focus on actual writing, as opposed to adding
graphics! Oh, what a horrible thing!" Betze says.
Alexandria and Berlin Township are taking different approaches to
technology, but they are tackling a common problem - the need to make
computers a comfortable part of learning, without letting gadgets take over
the budget.
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