New tools for school: Educators dream of laptops for all schools

Cupertino High School gives struggling students
Palms. East Side Union High School District is
working to get laptops for all 24,000 of its students.

By Katherine Corcoran
Mercury News

Across the nation, schools are taking the radical step
of putting portable technology into the hands of
children. After years of debate over the use of
computers in schools, educators say the new mobility
finally will make technology a classroom tool as
ordinary as textbooks and paper.

“When you bring the laptop into the classroom, now
all of a sudden the technology is transparent,” said
Chris Heumann, science and technology teacher at Kennedy Middle School in Cupertino. “It’s another way to do your
regular teaching.”

With equipment prices dropping and wireless networks eliminating cumbersome cables and plugs, educators
predict laptops and other hand-held devices are likely to become commonplace in classrooms and backpacks in the
next three to five years.

“It’s absolutely the next thing,” said Leslie Conery, head of the International Society for Technology in Education.

Students in Silicon Valley schools already graph math problems on Palms, learn economics playing stock-trading
games on E-Trade, or map out science experiments with flowchart software on laptops.

“The curriculum is the same,” said Bill Richter, principal of Lynbrook High School, which is in the second year of its
laptop program. “It’s just a different way of access that allows kids to be more creative and more in control of how
they learn.”

But this mass distribution of expensive equipment comes with daunting issues, from cost to schools and access for
poor families to teacher training and students’ obligation to use computers properly.

Critics say many schools are not teaching the hazards of such powerful tools.

“There’s a whole set of issues about privacy and responsibility that schools are not paying attention to,” said Ed
Miller of the Alliance for Childhood, an international coalition of educators and child-development experts. “Giving
kids laptops is not the place to start.”

Research is sparse on the effects of portable technology on learning. But proponents say the devices simply make
sense in a world where children will need to be technologically savvy when they join the workforce.

Bridging divide

About 15 percent of school districts nationwide have some kind of laptop initiative, according to technology consultant
Sol Rockman. Cathie Norris, head of the National Educational Computing Association, receives calls daily from
teachers asking how they can get Palms for their classrooms.

In the South Bay, laptop programs are under way in school districts in Cupertino, Campbell, Milpitas and Los Gatos,
among others.

But the most ambitious program by far is in San Jose’s East Side high school district, which serves many low-income
neighborhoods. Superintendent Joe Coto says giving every student a laptop — starting with Andrew Hill High School
in the fall — is the most effective way to give them educational opportunities that higher-income students automatically
get. The laptop initiative, he notes, also will bring technology into the households of about 100,000 people who
otherwise might not be able to afford it.

“The digital divide has been around for a long time, and we think our kids deserve this,” Coto said. “We believe it will
improve academic performance, increase understanding of future careers in technology, bring greater involvement
and communication with parents. And we think it will be an important step for our students who don’t speak English.”

Most districts are starting smaller, trying laptop programs in a single school or, in the case of Fremont Union High
School District, select classrooms within each school. In Lynbrook’s laptop core program, students attend classes in
basic subjects together and use laptops in those classrooms. Students even come to school on Sundays, perch their
laptops next to the library for the wireless service and tap away.

Other schools such as Kennedy Middle and Fremont High schools have mobile laptop labs — rolling carts with
laptops and wireless hubs for lessons in the classroom.

“It’s better for access,” said Antonio Taylor, a Fremont senior who was researching U.S. Supreme Court cases in
government class with a laptop from a portable lab. “When you go to the computer lab, you’re not bringing the class,
just the people. Here we have the whole class, other books and stuff we can look at.”

Cupertino High School — one of nine national research sites for Palm — is looking for the best educational use for
personal digital assistants, or PDAs. Most of its 270 Palms went to low-performing students, who work math
problems and read literature on their PDAs, as well as type notes and write essays with the attachable keyboards.
They can beam assignments or math formulas to each other and to teachers.

Junior Paul Kelley, who acknowledged he can be disruptive, initially had his Palm taken away for playing games with
adult content. But once he got it back, he used it for organization and typing his English papers — which were nearly
illegible when he wrote them by hand. Now he plays “appropriate” games when his work is done, and teacher Jean
Eades says he has become a model student.

“I like to talk out,” Paul said. “But with a Palm, I do quiet things.”

Expensive project

Logistics of launching such technology programs can be intimidating, however. East Side plans to cover the cost of
laptops, wireless networks in schools and even dial-up access for students at home with a variety of funding
sources, including business donations, federal funds and bond money. But Coto admits he has no cost estimate,
and many details still need to be worked out.

Even affluent districts are finding the financing troublesome. In Palo Alto, the laptop program at Jordan Middle School
was shelved when parents heard they would have to buy the machines and decided that was too much to expect
many families to pay.

Fremont Union provides scholarships for students who can’t buy laptops. Cupertino High School lends Palms at no
cost. But not every student has the computer access at home necessary to print, back up data or install new software
on Palms.

Schools have run into a host of other issues, from batteries running out to networks crashing mid-lesson. Teachers
have discovered problems keeping students’ attention when they can look at a computer screen instead.

Lynbrook math teacher Lorraine Cho says teaching a laptop class takes a big commitment, including extra time
finding computer-based materials and creating lesson plans. “Sometimes it’s hard to find things you could do better
with a computer than without,” she said.

But educators believe they have learned from the early days of technology, when they spent millions on wiring and
installing computers, only to have them gather dust because the teachers didn’t know how to use them.

In all local laptop programs, teachers are trained and given laptops first, though districts have had to be creative in
finding the time and money to do so. At Andrew Hill, teachers received laptops and college credits that would move
them up on the salary scale in exchange for spending their vacation time in training.

Contact Katherine Corcoran at [email protected] or (408) 920-5330.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/2994121.htm