Computers, Classrooms, and the Art of Thinking

As 20 more SD high schools get ready to join the state's Classroom Connections program, putting laptops in the hands of every student, the New York Times notes that some schools around the country are abandoning the one-to-one computing concept [Winnie Hu, "Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops," NYTimes, 2007.05.04]. Why? There are the predictable shenanigans of kids hacking the school network and cheating on tests. Some teachers find they lose valuable lesson time to fixing computer glitches, while the schools themselves face increasing computer repair expenses. But the big reason is that for all the time and money spent on incorporating technology into the classroom, educators are hard pressed to find solid evidence that putting a computer in every student's hands increases academic achievement.

So should every South Dakota school trade in its computers for chalkboards and books? That's a question for each district to decide, based on its resources and goals. Computers may increase the opportunity for kids to hack into important files and cheat on tests, but kids were riffling through file cabinets and tucking crib notes in their socks long before the first Commodore Pet trundled into my elementary school library. Schools and teachers do have to be ready to spend some time and energy ensuring the security of their networks. They also will spend more time and money on tech support.

Schools with the resources to absorb those extra expenses may get a return on their investment in building technological skills among their students and in increasing their access to educational resources. However, if the budget is tight and a school is looking for an investment that will increase test scores or other measures of academic achievement, laptops for every student may not be the right choice.

Sometimes new technology opens new avenues of learning that Archimedes and Newton would have drooled over. Sometimes, we don't even need a blackboard to get the job done. Whatever tools we use to teach, we need keep our eyes on our goals. I'll leave you with the end of the NYTimes article:

Alice McCormick, who heads the math department [at Liverpool High School], said most math teachers preferred graphing calculators, which students can use on the Regents exams, to laptops, which often do not have mathematical symbols or allow students to show their work for credit. “Let’s face it, math is for the most part still a paper-and-pencil activity when you’re learning it,” she said.

In the school library, an 11th-grade history class was working on research papers. 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.”