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Benefits Of A Student Laptop Program
- Rapidly advancing technology has led to very powerful notebook computers priced at attainable levels. Schools that help their students and teachers harness the information processing power laptops provide will place their students at a competitive advantage. Students will be more engaged in learning the content of the curriculum while at the same time developing deep competency using the problem-solving environment provided by the computer.
- Laptops help promote a positive shift toward more project-based, hands-on learning, away from teacher directed learning. Teacher directed learning will not and should not disappear. However, the information manipulation environment provided by laptops allows teachers to move to a facilitative instruction design.
- Writing is done across the curriculum. Word processing software makes writing a significantly more enjoyable process for students. Students will do more writing and revision when they have laptops.
- Mathematics education can be made much richer and engaging by helping students explore math with the aid of software tools like spreadsheets, Geometer’s SketchPad, Mathematica, Maple, etc.
- History, social studies, and current events instruction can be tremendously enriched by students having immediate access to the vast wealth of information available on the Internet. Laptops provide the environment for the presentation of, and much more importantly the creation of, multimedia rich descriptions and analyses.
- Science education can be greatly enhanced by the data gathering, data analysis and simulation software tools that run within the digital workshop the laptop provides.
- Foreign Language instruction success correlates highly with the time students are able to spend in immersed environments. The multimedia capabilities of laptops allow students to spend more time listening and speaking in the language of instruction. With the right software, and a set of headphones, a laptop can function just like a language lab workstation. Laptops also provide access, through the Internet, to the media of the countries where the language of instruction is the native language.
- In art, music and drama laptops provide easy access to examples of best practices. Students can visit virtual museums, listen to music clips, and watch videos of great performances. Students can also use computer software to assist in the creation of artwork, music, scripts and digital video.
- Laptops can provide easy storage and access to a student’s accumulating body of work. By viewing previous work students can better gauge their own progress and avoid repeating tasks already accomplished.
- All students, male and female, develop a strong competency in using computers. Providing laptops to students goes a long way toward eliminating any future digital divides in the use of technology.
Even informal studies of laptop use in schools have identified an increased student enthusiasm as one of the program outcomes. This anecdotal evidence was confirmed in a recently released study of middle school students participating in the Maine laptop initiative (Silvernail, 2004). Over 12,000 students returned surveys in the fall of 2003. Students indicated their level of agreement with a list of statements about laptops and school.
The results are extremely positive about laptop use in school:
80% “I would rather use my laptop”
80% “I am more likely to edit my work with a laptop”
75% “Laptops help me be better organized”
70% “Laptops improve the quality of my work”
70% “I am more involved in school with a laptop”
70% “I do more work when I use my laptop”
70% “Laptops make school more interesting”
The most important and consistent finding in the research is that the critical factor in the success of a school laptop program is the extent to which it is embraced by the faculty. The ideal program model appears to be one where laptops and training are provided to faculty members, in advance of the student population.
