Several of the state's largest school districts are working to get more wireless, mobile technology into classrooms.
In the fall, the Fort Smith School District will issue Dell Latitudes, electronic touch-screen notebooks, to 1,800 children and 120 teachers at two elementary campuses and one middle school. District officials want to test "digital conversion," or letting students take their computers home.
The Little Rock School District also is pursuing digital conversion.
This spring, the district assigned laptops to fourth- and fifth-graders at four elementary schools to use at school and take home.
The district plans to expand the program to 10 more schools in the coming school year and then to all of the district's elementary schools in the 2015-16 school year.
A federal Race to the Top grant awarded to Springdale School District in December included money that will allow the district over the next three years to buy computer devices for every student in the district.
Statewide, school districts report having at least 140,033 computer devices, about one computer for every three students, said Kimberly Friedman, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Education.
Computer labs have existed for decades, but school leaders have taken a greater interest, especially in the past five years, in issuing wireless mobile technology to individual students, often described as "one-to-one" programs, said Scott Himelstein, director of the Mobile Technology Learning Center at the University of San Diego.
Common devices include laptops, iPads, Google Chromebooks and iPod Touches.
"Mobile devices are so prevalent in our society now," he said.
"Students are coming in with a different ability to learn, a different sense of engagement. Our systems are reacting to that."
In Springdale, the district's application for the Race to the Top grant outlined projects that aim to change how students learn so their educations are more meaningful, relevant and personal.
About 75 percent of the $25.88 million grant from the U.S. Education Department will be spent on acquiring and integrating technology, with the aim of providing each student in kindergarten through 12th grade with a wireless, mobile device, according to a district report.
The district recently purchased 5,000 new Google Chromebooks that will help it gradually transition to one computer per student for the third through 12th grades, said Marsha Jones, Springdale associate superintendent for curriculum, instruction, accountability and district innovation.
The devices cost about $300 each. The district plans to use iPad minis for younger children.
Jones' research of personalizing education and one-to-one programs led her to the book 1-to-1 Learning: Laptop Programs That Work, written by Pamela Livingston for the International Society for Technology in Education.
Jones said Springdale is studying how mobile technology can be used effectively in the classroom, which she said is not a wasted investment.
One-to-one
Livingston, a former technology director for kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools, said the concept of mobile technology in schools has been evolving since 1990, when Methodist Ladies' College in Melbourne, Australia, became the first school in the world to provide laptops to all of its students.
In the mid-1990s, technology companies started one-to-one programs in about 20 schools in the United States.
The one-to-one concept drew the attention of former Maine Gov. Angus King, who used a surplus in his state's budget to buy laptops for every middle-school student in 2002, Livingston said.
One-to-one technology has become a prevalent concept among educators in the United States, even though not every school has it and implementation varies from school to school, she said.
Livingston remembers watching students yawn several years ago in a classroom where they had the same copy of a worksheet on their laptops that their teacher had projected on a screen.
The district had digitized an instructional practice that would not have been effective even without a computer, she said.
She encouraged the school district to get feedback from students and to involve them in the learning process.
Successful programs don't simply retrofit instruction for technology, but require teachers to reflect and think about how to transform their curriculums, Livingston said. Teachers need proper training, and buildings must have the infrastructure necessary for teachers and students to access the Internet at anytime from anywhere on campus, Livingston said.
When students have laptops to carry from class to class and from school to home, they have access to all of their files and can share what they are doing with their teachers and peers, she said.
They can continue their work when they're at home, because all the resources they need are at their fingertips.
"Hopefully when they graduate, they are people who can solve problems and who can think," Livingston said. "When colleges and employers ask tough questions, they are familiar with the idea of finding information, pulling information together, synthesizing information, collaborating with other people, working in teams."
The cost
Districts also have to think about how to pay for the programs once they start, and cost can be a barrier, Livingston said.
Some districts have issued taxpayer-supported bonds to cover the cost.
Others have reworked their budgets and redirected funds that previously went toward purchasing desktops or maintaining computer labs.
Wireless devices, along with a growing assortment of online platforms, applications and software, provide another avenue for tailoring instruction to students' needs, whether students are ready to advance or need extra help, Himelstein said.
"It's not about the device, it's about the teaching," Himelstein said.
The Mobile Technology Learning Center in San Diego has ongoing studies of programs that provide one mobile device per student in five school districts of different sizes and demographics in San Diego County.
The center also began a study in January involving the Houston School District in Texas.
Research on the effect of such programs is continuing to develop, Himelstein said. Studies of one-to-one programs show varied results, with some showing a positive effect on student achievement and others showing no effect, he said.
Many existing studies are small in scope.
The San Diego center is working to determine the best strategies for implementing one-to-one mobile technology, he said.
So far, Himelstein has found that success requires district leaders to spend time proving to teachers that the technology will enhance learning, to articulate clearly the goals behind the change and to provide training so teachers know how to create digital content.
Teachers also need time to learn the technology.
"Teachers really want to learn from other teachers who are doing this well," he said. "They want to watch their colleagues in action."
Metro on 07/05/2014