Of Course Computers Don't Improve Achievement!

Earlier this week, USA Today published Computers May Not Boost Student Achievement. The article shares several research studies presented at the American Educational Research Association's annual meeting in San Francisco. The article begins:

Give a kid a laptop and it might not make any difference.

That's the message from research presented here Monday, which suggests that spending millions of dollars to bring technology into kids' homes and schools has decidedly mixed results.

This is disheartening news for an advocate of 1to1 programs. I don't mean the part about how laptops might not make a difference, but the fact that they are asking the wrong question. You don't need research to know that laptops don't improve achievement.

We don't ask if textbooks improve achievement. We don't ask if pencils improve achievement. Likewise, we don't ask if stethoscopes improve health, or if hammers improve buildings.

I guarantee (even as a 1to1 advocate) that if all we do is hand kids laptops we won't improve grades or test scores. The issue is more complex than that.

One of the major issues is the fact that laptops as a tool are themselves complex. They aren't a single purpose tool. A laptop is more like a swiss army knife. It has lots of tools and possible uses. But it can also be misused as easily as it can be used productively.

We start to head in the right direction when we ask the question "How can laptops be used to improve achievement?" In fact, I believe teacher practice is one of the most important factors that impact the impact of laptops in schools. (See, for example, my recent posts Do Something Disruptive and More on Type I and Type II Uses of Technology.) I like to say, laptops don't improve learning; teacher do.

But teachers alone don't carry the weight of the success of laptops. They haven't grown up with technology. Understandably, many teachers don't know how to use more than routine uses, let alone how to teach with them. But even when teachers are expert at teaching with technology, they don't have the positional authority to set direction for the school, nor the expertise to keep equipment running or to do networking. Yet these are all factors that will impact if student achievement is impacted by the introduction of laptops into learning environments.

The question has to be, "What are the conditions and factors that contribute to laptops helping to improve learning and achievement?"

Based on our work in Maine, I believe that there are 6 components for success. I've already mentioned that teacher practice is one of the critical components. Leadership is the second - especially setting expectations for use and building a shared vision for the school. There are also four supportive, but necessary, components: professional development, technology access and support, partnerships, and funding.

Only when researchers (and educators) recognize the complexities of introducing laptops into schools will we get the information, data, and research that will really help us improve achievement.