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While research supports the notion that using laptops improves students’ writing, whether or not it
helps or hurts students’ performance on standardized tests needs to be thoroughly researched. If
laptop students are trained to type on computers and are then forced to handwrite on standardized
tests, do laptops aid or hinder their academic gains?
Perhaps the largest factor influencing the performance of student learning in the laptop
classroom is the teacher. The laptop program teacher needs to be a dynamic individual with a wide
variety of skills. They need to be proficient in ways of teaching and planning, as well as very
technologically literate with a multiplicity of software and hardware. Laptop teachers have unique
challenges to their teaching because of the use of laptop: lesson planning, teaching style, and
teacher training all have to change to accommodate the new learning process required by laptops.
Gary Stager (1999) notes, “… laptop schools expect their teachers not lonely to be comfortable with
30 notebook computers in their classroom, but also to participate actively in the reinvention of their
school (p 79). Changes to the teaching practice most commonly cited by research focuses on more
constructivist teaching activities (Sahl and Windschitl, 2000, p. 4, Rockman, 2000, p. 3). Research
finds that teachers include “more frequent uses of student-led inquiry and collaborative work….
" (Rockman, 2000, p. 3), and tend “to employ more student-centered strategies such as project-
based learning, independent inquiry-/ research, teacher as coach/ facilitator, and cooperative
learning" (Lowther, 2001, p. 9). Learning in a laptop classroom comes to mean developing the
abilities to “participate in meaningful and productive activities" (Sahl and Windschitl, 2000, p. 3),
instead of just focussing on the acquisition of knowledge. Other research found that teachers
perceived laptop programs allow students to “learn more independently, cooperatively, and
collaboratively than through traditional instruction" (Russell et. al., 2004, p. 235). With the switch
from teacher as the expert, to the teacher as the learning partner (Tatar and Robinson, 2003), laptop
classroom have become centers for instructional change. Longitudinal studies would greatly help in
this area by assessing if constructivist learning is a required characteristic of laptop classrooms, or if
it is a just because Constructivism is the current trend in education.
Laptop programs require that students use a different set of skills than a traditional
classroom, and take greater control over their learning. Students also learn that participation in the
learning activities does not necessarily mean being at some physical place. Students who are home
sick from school, in some cases, can log in and get their class notes in real time (Barrett, 2002, p.
49). Not only do students have to look after their studies, but also students in laptop programs are
responsible for carrying and storing a $2000 laptop. For many students, this alone would be a huge
increase in responsibility. Laptop students also do much of their work independently and therefore
have to monitor their own progress, identify the tools and resources they need to use, and know
when to seek help" (Rockman, 2003, p. 27). This increased responsibility puts greater pressure on
the child, and no doubt as a direct response Rockman (2003, p. 27) found that many laptop schools
have greater parental involvement than do their non-laptop counterparts. These research findings
very clearly reflect the socio-economic status of the research participants. While the cost of the
laptop to an economically advantaged family is a nominal investment, for a lower-income family it
either would be not available without financial assistance, or would cause some economic hardship.
These pressures would pass directly to the child, so that while an economically advantaged child
might be concerned about losing their laptop, a lower income student would have much greater
pressures that would drastically change the research in this area.
III. Conclusions
Laptop programs continue to provide rich learning environments that can greatly enhance
student creativity and motivation. Laptops allow students instant access to the Internet thereby
allowing access to the largest collection of human knowledge. Students in these programs benefit
from the flexibility that the technology allows, and learn more independently. Students of laptop
programs are developing a wide variety of skills needed for the 21st century.
Current research has repeatedly established that laptops encourage student motivation, and
now the focus of research needs to prove that laptops increase academic performance. Classrooms
have changed to accommodate laptops, teacher instruction has changed to take advantage of the
computing power, but standardized tests fail to show the resulting gains. Finding a new measure of
student academic performance needs to be found instead of current standardized tests in order for
researchers to prove that laptop programs increase academic performance, and also to demonstrate
the change in learning. These new technological skills however are very hard to measure, and do
not directly correlate to performance on academic standardized tests. While classroom learning and
teacher instruction has changed to develop these new skills in students, tests to measure their
academic performance have not.
Lastly, more laptop programs are being developed each year, but hopefully many more will
be started in lower-income areas so that these students can experience the advantages that those
more economically advantaged enjoy. This will also aid researchers by allowing their studies to
more accurately reflect larger populations, and allow for the study of groups that are not so
homogeneous.
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