Wi-Fi in Watertown, South Dakota Schools

South Dakota school district rolls out laptops for high-school students and teachers

By Miriam Jones – Govtech.net

Watertown School District in northeastern South Dakota will provide wirelessly enabled laptops for 1,400 students and 85 teachers this fall.

The district will receive hardware, infrastructure, support, implementation, training and accidental damage protection. Watertown purchased the Gateway laptops — which will feature built-in Wi-Fi wireless capabilities — as part of a program to help students learn more effectively, while helping the district avoid costly small classes.

Educators have recently argued that technology can effectively teach in larger classrooms, providing one-on-one learning and avoiding the often-expensive process of reducing class sizes. In one study, Lewis Solomon analyzed the West Virginia Basic Skill/Computer Education (BS/CE) program, and found that technology was more cost-effective in improving student achievement than creating smaller classes, creating more instructional time or providing cross-age tutoring programs.

An additional survey conducted in Maine, in which all seventh- and eighth-graders received a laptop, found that state reading levels improved from 40 to 65 percent, primarily due to students’ increased interaction with technology.

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