Dear Tech Friends:
These are four articles from today's NY Times on ed tech -
I compiled them to one e-mail and put the titles at the top for
ease of perusing and handling.
NYTimes.com Articles:
Take-Home Test: Adding PC's to Book Bags,
It's Not the Computer; It's How (and Where) You Use It,
Keeping Up in Class With Software for a Hand-Held,
Schools Try Hand Held Computers
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Take-Home Test: Adding PC's to Book Bags
By LISA GUERNSEY
BLOOMFIELD, Conn. -- ON a May morning in Mary Kay Rendock's
fifth-grade classroom here, the sounds of the dawning school day
were echoing everywhere. Lockers banged outside in the hall,
10-year-olds chattered as they settled into their seats — and a
crescendo of chimes emanated from 15 laptop computers as every
student in the room booted up.
At Carmen Arace Middle School, where laptops are something that
students carry with them every day, Ms. Rendock's students knew the
drill. Before the tardy bell, they were already scrolling through
pages on their screens, lining up at the printer in the back of the
classroom and handing over their assignments.
"Boys and girls," Ms. Rendock said as she leafed through the
stapled papers, "these are impressive."
But in the midst of all the activity, one girl was barely
stirring. She sat slumped in her chair, staring at the black screen
of a computer that wouldn't boot up. Ms. Rendock walked over to try
troubleshooting. Looking worried, she asked, "Do you think you lost
anything when you shut it down?"
Such are the highs and lows of laptop schools, a growing cadre of
educational institutions that have taken the controversial step of
equipping every student with a portable computer to use at school
and at home. For years, technologically inclined educators have
been pushing this approach — often called one-to-one computing — as
a radical way to provide Internet access and word-processing
programs to students at any time, anywhere.
Issuing laptops may be expensive, but advocates (not to mention
customer-hungry computer companies) say it is far better than
shuffling students off to shared computer labs, where sessions
sometimes last no longer than 40 minutes once a week. And it is the
best way, they say, to bring the power of the Internet to all
children, even those in the poorest families.
Yet many educators are still engaged in vigorous debates about
whether laptop programs are really the panacea that some claim. In
school districts with emaciated budgets, are laptops worth the pain
of cutting other resources? What about the costs of technical
support and teacher training? Won't the computers be magnets for
muggers? And who is going to make sure that students use them for
schoolwork as opposed to instant messaging and video games?
"Before they spend money on something like that, they ought to fix
the leaky roofs," said Kenneth Reinshuttle, executive director of
the Fairfax Education Association, a teacher's union in Virginia.
The Fairfax schools were the focus of similar criticism five years
ago when officials floated a proposal to require laptops for each
student.
But given the advances in wireless networks and the news that some
laptops now cost little more than $1,000 each, the push to outfit
students with computers has taken on an inexorable logic of its
own. NetSchools, a company that provides hardware, software and
wireless networking, is supplying computers to 68 public and
private schools, up from 10 when it started in 1997. More than 800
schools and 125,000 students are taking part in Microsoft
(news/quote)'s Anytime Anywhere Learning program, which the company
started with Toshiba (news/quote) in 1996.
Henrico County, a district near Richmond, Va., recently purchased
a $19 million networking package that included 23,000 Apple iBooks,
which are being distributed this month to every high school
student. In Maine, Gov. Angus King persuaded lawmakers to use $30
million of the state's budget surplus to supply portable computers
for every seventh and eighth grader in the state, starting next
year. And last year in Community School District 6 in upper
Manhattan, administrators expanded a laptop program to include
4,500 students.
"It's clearly taking hold," said Mary Cullinane, manager of the
Microsoft program. "Now we just need to figure out a way to do it
for everybody."
At Carmen Arace Middle School, a public school in a low-slung
brick building serving grades five through eight, the laptop
program was initiated in response to a concern far graver than
leaky roofs. The school, administrators worried, was failing its
students. Scores on standardized tests had plummeted at the school
and absenteeism was running high.
To jump-start a turnaround, the superintendent at the time came up
with a proposal in 1996 to give every student — all 850 of them — a
laptop computer and to install wireless networks in every
classroom. The school board found support among parents and
unanimously approved the plan, signing up for a $2.1 million,
five-year program with NetSchools. To pay for it, the board cut
several student aide and secretarial positions and used money that
had been earmarked for PC purchases.
After three years of having students tote their computers
everywhere, many teachers said, the school has come to feel like an
entirely new place.
Everywhere you turn, children walk the halls with their
blue-and-gray laptops in hand, usually carrying them like
briefcases by their plastic handles. (The handles are NetSchools'
solution to the problem of overstuffed and heavy backpacks.) Many
of the laptops are covered with stickers so worn it is impossible
to make out their images. A boy in Ms. Rendock's class had set the
wallpaper on his computer desktop to display the cartoon images of
Dragon Ball Z, a video-game series and television show popular
among some pre-teenagers.
On that morning in May, students in classrooms across the school
were typing at their laptops, scrolling through Web pages about
Anne Frank, using e-mail to turn in math assignments and poring
over online maps to learn about the Revolutionary War. When the
machines were not required for a lesson, teachers barked, "Lids
down!" and the room resounded with the snaps of computers folding
up.
Test scores are starting to show improvement as well. In October
1995, a little more than a year before the first laptops arrived,
only 40 percent of eighth-grade students had met statewide reading
goals. By 1999, the last year in which the test could be compared
to the 1995 version, the percentage of eighth graders achieving
those goals climbed to 60 percent.
Whether that upswing is directly attributable to the laptop
program is, however, an open question, since new reading and math
programs were instituted at the same time. But the computers are
almost surely responsible, teachers say, for what many of them
single out as the area of greatest improvement — children's writing
skills.
Teachers say that students are more likely to practice writing at
home, and they no longer roll their eyes when asked to write second
drafts, since doing so doesn't require completely rewriting their
work.
"They are revising and editing so much more," Ms. Rendock said.
"They are able to improve their writing without me taking out the
old red pen."
The positive impact on students' writing is echoed by several
teachers at laptop schools elsewhere. One example is Fairfield
Country Day School in Connecticut, a private school that for five
years has required parents to buy laptops for students in grades
six through nine. (Most private schools ask parents to foot the
bill for the machines.) Elliott Higgins, a 14-year-old student,
said that as soon as he got his computer, he was able to start
writing more fluidly.
"Before, I would end up with a whole garbage can of paper," he
said.
To address concerns about computers that are lost, stolen or
damaged, some public schools have come up with unusual solutions.
At Edison School in Union City, N. J., for example, where a few
classes of students have been issued their own laptops,
administrators keep the children at school until 5 p.m., so that
their parents can drive or walk them home.
Shardaye Hampton, a 12-year-old at Carmen Arace, recites these
rules about her laptop: "You've got to put it under the chair so
it's not stepped on," she said. "And you've got to make sure you
don't eat food over it, because the keys get sticky."
To deter problems, many laptop schools ask parents to pay
mandatory deductibles and insurance fees. Still, the computers see
their share of wear and tear. In almost every classroom, at least
one student — like the glum girl in Ms. Rendock's class — is
without access to his or her computer because of technical
problems. Batteries die and power cords are scarce. Files are lost.
At the Fairfield school, teachers and students learned from
experience that when a person puts a pencil on the keyboard and
then absent-mindedly closes the lid, the screen cracks.
At Carmen Arace, a full-time technician often has to keep ailing
laptops overnight to fix them. During that time, students share
with their peers or resort to paper and pencil.
When the computers do work, they usher in activities that may
distract students from their classwork, like playing video games
and sending instant messages. Although few studies have been done
yet with younger students, a recent Cornell University study of
laptop-toting college students showed major distractions among
users in some classes, particularly those that did not require
rigorous use of the laptops for schoolwork. At Fairfield Country
Day School, a few sixth graders became so enamored of instant
messaging in class — an activity banned at school — that the entire
grade was not allowed to use laptops in class for a month.
Above all these concerns, however, is the question of money. Even
with discounts from suppliers, the computers, including wireless
networking cards, typically cost at least $1,000. Multiply that by
thousands of students and the bill gets unmanageable very quickly.
And that is not including the costs of training teachers,
rebuilding courses to match the introduction of the Internet and
paying for technical support — all of which teachers say are
absolutely required if a laptop program is going to work.
"Simply making the purchases of the hardware is not going to
change student achievement," said Barbara Stein, a senior policy
analyst at the National Education Association. "That's why it is so
key that it be part of an overall education plan."
Then there is the cost of the wireless networks. Mark Edwards, the
superintendent in Henrico County, said he had already found that
some school walls were so thick that he would need to double the
number of AirPorts, which are Apple's wireless devices for
delivering broadband Internet access.
Even Jerry Crystal, technology coordinator for the Bloomfield
district who directed the laptop program, said he worried that the
costs might start to look unreasonable in the eyes of
administrators facing tight budgets. He has wondered, he said,
whether the school could still increase student achievement by
pursuing a far-cheaper approach using laptops that are distributed
daily to limited numbers of students and pushed from classroom to
classroom on carts with wireless access. And he is conducting an
intense evaluation of the Carmen Arace Middle School to determine
exactly what students are getting in return for those $500,000
checks the school board has written each year.
It is an attempt, Mr. Crystal said, to answer a question that has
hounded him since the laptop program started: "Are we getting
$500,000 of improvement out of these kids?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/technology/circuits/23LAPP.html?ex=9995663
26&ei=1&en=d7b503e92ad6541b
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It's Not the Computer; It's How (and Where) You Use It
By SHELLEY FREIERMAN
Statistics on computers in schools fly fast and furious. Nearly all
of the public schools in the United States are now hooked up to the
Internet, but the location of computers in the school and how often
students have access to them may make all the difference.
"These statistics mask a lot of diversities," said Robbie
McClintock, the director of the Institute for Learning Technologies
at Teachers College, Columbia University. He gave two examples of
how 100 computers could be allocated among 100 students: in four
computer labs with 25 students each, or in five classrooms, where
each of the 20 students would have a computer. "These distributions
lead to a very different educational experience even though the
ratio is the same," Professor McClintock said.
Students scheduled to work in computer labs for an hour each week
often do drill-and-practice lessons in subjects like typing or
math, he explained. Those in a classroom setting can use the
computers anytime. In one 16-week program, for example, students
use software to learn about the ancient world by excavating a
virtual site in ancient Mesopotamia or Greece.
The best educational model, Professor McClintock said, is one in
which a student can take a laptop home every night. "This moves the
education program from the school into the students' hands on a
24-hour basis," he said.
When asked to compare the growth of computers in schools to
previous advancements in education, Professor McClintock reached
all the way back to the 16th century and the introduction of
printed books into Western culture. "This is a long-term process of
fundamental educational change," he said. "Schools need to have
plans for 10 or 20 years out to integrate the technology tools into
their programs."
Ultimately, the value of technology in education is up to the
teachers. "The experience can be very good," he said, "or it can be
like wheeling a VCR into a classroom and turning it on."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/technology/circuits/23SLAP.html?ex=9995577
03&ei=1&en=db34dc195282de87
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Keeping Up in Class With Software for a Hand-Held
By JEFFREY SELINGO
THE days of the Trapper Keeper are over. An icon for students of
the 1980's, the three-ring binder included folders for organizing
schoolwork by subject and featured covers of popular rock and movie
stars, all enclosed by a handy Velcro flap.
Today students are increasingly carrying hand-held organizers like
the Palm or the Visor outfitted with software to help them track
assignments, prepare for tests and even conduct science
experiments.
"It makes my backpack a lot lighter," Jay Novack, an eighth grader
at Ann Arbor Open School in Michigan, said of his Palm. "It has all
the stuff of four or five books."
Already common among college students, Palm-based hand-held
devices are now beginning to show up in some high schools, middle
schools and even a few elementary schools, said Elliot Soloway, a
professor of education and computer science at the University of
Michigan.
"Games are going to drive kids to buy the Palm, and they're going
to bring them to school," said Dr. Soloway, who has developed free
educational software for the Palm operating system through the
university's Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education.
"Eventually, teachers will have to figure out a way to use them in
the classroom."
So with a Palm and a Visor loaded with nearly two dozen
educational programs, I decided to become a student for a week,
keeping track of a packed schedule of class assignments and
cramming for potential pop quizzes. While most applications involve
a nominal registration fee, many are available in free trial
versions. All of them work with any hand-held computer using the
Palm operating system, usually version 3.1 or above.
One of the most common student uses of a hand-held computer is to
keep track of assignments and grades. Due Yesterday
(www.due-yesterday.com), $15, and 4.0Student (www.handmark.com),
$19.99, are good replacements for pocket calendars. Both provide
tools that allow you to enter information about courses, including
meeting times, contact information for professors and assignments.
They offer views of due dates that can be customized by the week,
by individual course or with all classes included. Assignments and
test dates can be exported to the Palm's datebook and to- do list
with either program, allowing students to coordinate schoolwork
with the rest of their lives.
Due Yesterday also includes a feature called "due next," which
alerts you to your next assignment and how many assignments you
have turned in late in that class (just in case you want to skip
writing that English paper to finish studying for a chemistry
exam). For the student who is always fiddling with a calculator to
determine his grades, 4.0Student presents "what if" scenarios to
predict grades through the end of the semester. It also calculates
grade-point average based on grading policies for the class or the
school in general. Data from the semester can be backed up and
stored from any computer with Web access at fourostudent.net. (The
Web-based service costs $39.99 for one year and includes a copy of
4.0Student.)
Once your schedule is entered into the Palm, several programs can
help with homework assignments or with preparing for the big test.
A suite of programs called ImagiMath (www.imagiworks.com), $39.95,
includes ImagiCalc, a full-function calculator; ImagiGraph, for
plotting graphs and even animating them; and ImagiSolve, a math
worksheet that helps solve equations with a tap of the stylus.
Students around the sixth-grade level can try Bubble Blasters
(www.handheld.hice-dev.org), a free math game developed by Dr.
Soloway's center at Michigan with floating bubbles that contain
answers to multiple-choice questions about fractions, decimals and
mixed numbers. The object is to choose the correct answer before
the bubbles float away.
Another entertaining way to learn math and science, although much
more expensive, is ImagiProbe, another ImagiWorks program, which
sells for $329 and attaches to the back of the Palm. More than two
dozen sensors can be added to the probe, which allows a user to
conduct science experiments. For example, you can measure the pH
level of your backyard pool, the dissolved oxygen in a nearby
stream or your heart rate while on a treadmill. The data collected
over time can be plotted on graphs on the Palm, and notes and
sketches can be added. When you finish an experiment, you can beam
the results to other hand-held devices. Most of the sensors cost
between $30 and $70. ImagiWorks also sells kits that include the
probe and a few sensors.
To prepare for quizzes or tests, students can try BoneUP
(www.palmgear.com), $10. You can create multiple-choice, true-or-
false and flash-card questions in a variety of subjects and decide
in which order the questions will be asked and how the program
should handle wrong answers (for instance, whether to give you the
right answer). Bone UP also tracks the questions you answer
incorrectly and poses them more frequently. Quizzes can be edited
in Palm's memo pad and beamed among classmates.
If you're getting ready to apply to college or graduate school,
Kaplan, the test preparation company (www.kaptest.com), offers
Kaplan To Go at $24.95 to $29.95, which allows you to practice for
the Scholastic Assessment Tests, Graduate Record Examination or
Graduate Management Admission Test in specific test areas or take
full practice tests. The software includes a glossary, in case
you're a rusty on integers or irrational numbers, and pop-up menus
explain why an answer was incorrect.
Aside from tests, reports and research papers usually make up the
remainder of a student's assignments. But using a hand- held device
to type anything of substance is time-consuming, even if you have
retrained your hands to learn the Palm's Graffiti handwriting
recognition program. If you're planning to use your hand-held
computer to write papers, it's best to invest in an attachable
pocket keyboard, which sells for about $100. I wrote this story on
a Palm, using a collapsible keyboard and the word processing
program WordSmith (www.bluenomad.com), $29.95.
Wordsmith is compatible with Microsoft (news/quote) Word and has
the feel of a word processing program built for a computer,
although it was designed for a hand-held device. Like all word
processing programs, WordSmith lets you choose fonts and point
sizes, align text to the left, center or right, and cut and paste.
It also has the same kind of search- and-replace features as
programs for desktops and includes keyboard shortcuts. A major
drawback of WordSmith is that it doesn't include a spelling
checker. Company officials say they plan to include one in the next
version, to be released this fall. Until then, if you're a poor
speller, you might try WriteHere, a bare-bones but free word
processor developed by Dr. Soloway at Michigan
(www.handheld.hice-dev.org). It includes a spelling checker.
Finally, when you're ready to print your assignments, check out
Printboy (www.bachmannsoftware.com), $14.99 and up. The software
allows you to beam almost any document directly from your hand-held
device to an infrared printer. If you don't have an
infrared-equipped printer, you can buy an adapter that converts
your printer to accept beaming, or simply connect the Palm with a
serial cable, or do it the old- fashioned way -- hot-sync the
document to your desktop.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/technology/circuits/23BASI.html?ex=9995575
03&ei=1&en=baa9edff5bb0ec47
/--------------------
Schools Try Hand-Held Computers
By LISA GUERNSEY
WHENEVER school boards start swooning over the potential of new
educational technology, skeptics often make a deflating point: In a
few years, they warn, some gadget will come along that will make
this one seem dated.
This year, that new gadget is the hand- held computer. Palm
organizers and Pocket PC devices are being tested in a small but
growing number of schools.
The largest proving ground may be Consolidated High School
District 230 in Orland Park, Ill. There, more than 1,700 Palms will
be distributed this fall in the program's second year. Another
large deployment — one device for each of 850 high school students
— is occurring this month at Forsyth Country Day, a private school
in Winston-Salem, N.C. Dozens of other schools, public and private,
are experimenting with hand-held devices among select grades and
classrooms and for specific assignments.
The pilot programs are early signs of another technology debate
that may soon hit school districts: Which is the smarter
investment, a fleet of laptops or a pack of palmtops?
To Rick Martinez, director of instructional and information
technology for the Alamo Heights Independent School District in
Texas, affordable portability is the selling point for hand-held
devices.
"We cannot afford to purchase computers for every student in the
classroom, but we can afford these devices for our students," said
Mr. Martinez, who equipped a high school biology classroom last
spring with iPaq hand-held computers and specialized software from
MindSurf Networks, an educational technology company. For every
laptop he might have purchased, Mr. Martinez said, he can buy three
or four iPaqs.
At River Hill High School, a public charter school in Clarksville,
Md., iPaq computers are being distributed to ninth graders. Lin
Storey, a literature teacher who coordinates the program, said she
appreciated how easily the devices could be toted. "For what we do
in an active, vibrant classroom, we need the kids to move around a
lot," she said.
Students with laptops are more likely to be glued to their seats —
a drawback for teachers who want to engage children in shared
projects in the classroom or on a field trip, she said.
Educators who have tried the hand- held devices in class also
praise their calendar functions, which can alert students to due
dates, and their beaming abilities, which encourage students to
share and critique one another's work.
But not everyone is convinced that hand-helds are the next
must-have machines. Some schools have banned Game Boys because they
create distractions. Why worsen the situation, some educators ask,
by giving students a device that needs only a few downloaded
programs to become another game machine?
It is the small screen size that worries Trevor Shaw, a technology
coordinator at the Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, N.J., who
writes for eSchool News, a monthly newspaper about school
technology. In an article last fall, Mr. Shaw said he liked the
devices' portability, but did not envision students' using them for
in-depth research or writing.
"I think asking my students to compose their term papers on one,"
he wrote, "would amount to cruel and unusual punishment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/23/technology/circuits/23PALM.html?ex=9995567
66&ei=1&en=430ed970adf71aca
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