Letter To The Editor: Oskaloosa High School’s Implementation Of The One To One Laptop Program

Osky News

Editors Note: The views and opinions expressed in this editorial are not necessarily the views or opinions of Osky News

Oskaloosa High School’s implementation of the One to One laptop program is commendable and State and local leaders deserve praise for their leadership conference (CASTLE) which spearheaded this initiative. However, the statement that an OLPC program puts us ahead of many other states and countries is misleading and may contribute to the complacency and false sense of security Iowa has exhibited for many years which was clearly underscored at the recent Iowa Education Summit. The prototype OLPC program has been in place for more than a decade and it was announced at the United Nations Social Innovation Summit 2011 in early June that 3 million of the program’s laptops
are in 40 countries so far. The US was one of the last adopters and Iowa one of the last of the US.

Many countries are light years ahead of us in the use of technologies in the classroom and in their culture in general. New York Times writer Thomas Friedman documents this digital divide clearly in The World is Flat and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Many of the same countries and some US states have also scuttled their One to One
programs due to unrealistic beliefs and expectations of OLPC programs. Mark Warschauer’s latest book, Laptops and Literacy, makes some salient and instructive points as in his previous book, Technology and Social Inclusion.

Laptops are only amplifiers, not instructional tools, and do little without solid curriculum and good teaching.

Additionally, such implementation can contribute further to an already dismal educational divide. We need to focus on digital inclusion and avoid potential exclusion of culturally, socially, economically disadvantaged, and differently “abled” students. Iowa’s ranking is dismal regarding services to these students, which is appalling given
PL 94:142 (which required appropriate adaptations and accommodations) was passed almost 40 years ago and given the millions we spend on services to these students in the form of Special Education, particularly through the AEAs.

Oskaloosa High School Website states that 38% (2010) of its students are eligible for free and reduced lunch, an indicator of SES. There are also a number of students without Internet service at home. What provisions are being made for the students who could not purchase the laptops or do not have access to the Internet at home? There are local hotspots like the library and ICN, but may be difficult to access for some students due to cost, hours of operation, supervision, etc.

Mark Warschauer’s case studies of (OLPC/US) United States, the only formal research so far, remind us that the laptops are only amplifying tools, not “instructional” in themselves, which is suggested in school administration rhetoric. They “teach” no more than calculators teach. Their usage depends heavily on highly engaged and
specially trained teachers, school administration, and sufficient support structures. There has been no evidence that laptop programs improve reading or writing skills.

This can be interpreted as the technology not adding anything to education, or as standardized tests failing to measure the skills learned using technology, the former
being most likely. Warschauer stops short of concluding that laptops increase the inequalities between low- and high-SES schools from a lack of quantitative and solid outcome data, how some studies suggest that.

Laptop programs do improve students’ abilities to deal with information and to collaborate, but low SES students are less prepared than higher-SES students to take advantage of the full capability of laptops because of fewer language and literacy skills with laptops as well as the aforementioned accessibly problems. “Laptop programs do not help overcome educational inequality. They are best exploited by the more privileged sectors that can leverage their preexisting educational, social and cultural resources. The Sesame Street effect.” (Attewell & Battle, 1999 p. 1). The (educationally) rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

It is incumbent upon parents and tax payers to monitor school expenditures and programs with suggestions gleaned from the research. My personal concern is that with the out of pocket expense and required parental involvement, lower income and disadvantaged students will be left behind again. Have their needs been addressed? Will the
technical support be sufficient?

My second concern is that the research shows staff training and development must be weekly and ongoing. The schools recent decision to share a technology person (repairs, etc.) with the City rather than increase the size of the staff is a concern. Lack of support will be the biggest gripe of teachers and will negatively impact the learning
program. My personal opinion is that the sinlge most important issue in reform is the lack of formal change management and support. After years of throwing programs at teachers and expecting them to embrace them (wholesale and happily) without their input as stake holders and consideration of their needs, we are burning out the best of what the nation used to have to offer. Additionally, have long term expenditures been planned for and budgeted for? $27,000 per year?

Where is the money to come from for the ongoing costs? Will the technical support be sufficient? Is a standardized computer operating system/platform in place? Is there interoperability between and among all students, teachers, and homes? Are these laptops the only ones allowed? The principal will experience significant pressure to allow
all and any laptops into the program. Is a robust network in place that assumes all computers will be on the network at the same time?

Has research-based software been selected and is this software compatible with the operating systems on all student laptops and be able to be supported by technical staff?

Are consistent protocols in place and standard software suites for logging on to the network and printing? For example, will they be able to print to any computer in the
school?

Will student files be shared centrally on a server, or should students save files to their individual laptops or USB drives? Will students have access to the school server and printers from home?

Is there a plan is place and an adequate budget that handles the inevitable upgrades to operating systems, as well as computers that use different versions of the operating systems that may already be in place? Is there a place and budget in place for obsolescence of software and hardware? Damaged keyboards, missing keys, broken monitors, flat batteries, damaged or missing cables, are a constant drain on the school budget, and for now, the per student contribution is $30.00. Is there a plan
to repair and replace broken laptops, batteries and printers? It is the small details that can scupper the best lessons. Does the school provide other technology to supplement the laptop program, including presentation devices such as LCD projectors?

I also noticed the CASTLE conference showcased demonstrations by classroom teachers who have implemented programs using recent technology. Innovation and change are exciting and welcomed and teachers deserve praise for their achievements. However , I feel a sneaking sense of de ja vu. We need to guard against mistaking innovative programs for effective programs and avoid using technology for the sake of technology. We need to strike a balance between local control and State and Federal mandates.

Teachers have a certain body of knowledge to impart and assessments are used to determine how well that has been done. Teachers have been granted leeway to choose content and in how they delivered content and assessed acquisition. That is not universally successful. The irony is that we have research on what works, known, coincidentally, as What Works, a Department of Education clearing house and in many other places. There is a category for programs empirically evaluated for evidence of their effectiveness. A book called “Intelligence and How to get it” is a meta analysis of programs and describes and debunks some of the educational myths (effectiveness of DARE, Head Start) that abound. There are few programs that do work and the reason they work can be surprising. However, there are many about which we continue to speculate and use, but no research bears out their effectiveness, yet we continue to throw money at them. There should be a happy medium in curriculum and methodology selection between mandates to meet stated outcomes and teacher selected tools. Finding what is known to work, using proven methodology and giving teachers some guidelines and boundaries, but the autonomy to work within them, is difficult. However piling on one more program, without considerable planning and implementation of the actual change management involved, which includes stakeholder selection and input, and embracement of all end uses will never work. It never has, and I fear this is the direction
the program will also take.

Two weeks later: Is this my first validation?

Additionally, geeks, are these Apple issues? Unless they sent out a bunch of defective laptops, they are connectivity issues. Follow the money, Apple is a vendor
Project updates‎ _ ‎
Wireless Issues
posted Aug 31, 2011 2:48 PM by Shari Barnhart
Students, Staff and Parents,
I just wanted to pass along the information about the wireless issues we are experiencing. We are having random issues of student and teacher laptops that quit working on the network even though they have full signal in their wireless. Even plugging into a wired connection is not helping.

We are troubleshooting this issue with Apple and our internet content filter. Other 1:1 schools are experiencing the same issues we are having and we are all discussing together to find the cause and the solution.

In the meantime, the best fix for this is to restart the laptop. Sometimes it will take a few minutes to restart so be patient and don’t force it to shut down, as this can corrupt other preferences.