The billions spent on wired schools have produced zilch in the way of results, says a supposedly new study from the University of Chicago. So what’s cookin’ here? Yo, Quinn? Got some thoughts from the U of C campus even if you yourself didn’t do the study? Was the Stanford Achievement Test a good, reliable way to assess the students performance in this context? And if so, could part of the problem be lack of appropriate content and proper focus on using it well? Also, just how different is the study from previous work by the U of C business professors Jonathan Guryan and Austan Goolsbee for the National Bureau of Economic Research?
I’m keeping an open mind. There are major questions as to how effectively schools in California (studied for the earlier work) and elsewhere have absorbed Internet technology. In most cases the answer is, “Badly.” Time for a coordinated, TeleRead-style approach? From the start, in the early 1990s, I’ve suggested that a well-stocked national digital library system should be accompanied by proper training for librarians and teachers. Why are pols so in love with hardware and wires and so miserly about giving professionals the knowledge they need to use the technology? This distain for preparation, content and appropriate use has been a major complaint of some top edtech experts, and they’re right. Indeed the past Guryan and Goolsbee work seems to challenge the implementation of the technology, as opposed to saying that edtech and wired schools are definitely worthless as concepts.
Meanwhile Lt. Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois has unveiled the I-Connect proposal for laptops for all 169,000 seventh-grade student in his state’s public schools. Ideally the initative will not just include Net connections but also provisions for appropriate content and well-integrated use of it. Quinn (no relation to the TeleRead Quinn) does in fact promise training for teachers to help them integrate laptops into the curriculum. Bravo! May the initiative work out.
There’s hope in other ways for edtech. Despite the U of C study, some edtech endeavors appear to have reaped major benefits. From the Daily Review Atlas in Monmouth, Illinois:
Modeled after the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, I-Connect will allow Illinois students to learn anywhere at anytime with their laptop computer. Henrico County in Virginia introduced a similar laptop initiative for students in grades 6-12. Last school year, students in that school district achieved the highest SAT verbal and math scores ever recorded in the county, just four years after the program began.”
Cause-effect? And if so, why were the results different from those reported in the U of Chicago study, which, of course, appeared to have been about wired schools rather than laptops per se? Better teacher preparation and better integration into the curriculum than at a typical wired school?
Additional Technorati Tags: Illinois, Henrico County, edtech, educational technology, Pat Quinn, University of Chicago, schools
A couple things. For one, I wasn’t able to find out a whole lot about the Stanford Achievement Test. On one comparison with the ITBS test– which I took as a kid– I noticed that it tests listening through 8th grade (instead of 2nd grade with the ITBS). Unless the video bloggers win their war on text, I can’t see Internet access helping much with that.
Someone here commented that “If employability is a measure of student performance, and online skills are required for employment, then we should question this aspect of study’s research significance.” Not a bad point.
I don’t know if there were additional details of the school programs in the study that aren’t coming out here, but it seems pretty intuitive in a way. Why would you expect that just hooking schools up to the internet would make a big difference? You can give someone a car and expect them to get around easily, but if they don’t know how to drive or have a map, that’s not going to happen. What are students doing on-line? (How) is the internet being incorporated into curriculum? What sort of training do the students (and the teachers) have? These are questions that need to be asked.
First off, you and the others were too kind. Someone should have called me on the typo in the headline. Fixed! I’ve always been a rotten proofreader–even in the typewriter days; no one can ever blame the Net for that.
As for your conclusion, yes, I’d heartily agree. Of course, the students can’t be prepared if the teachers aren’t. Let’s hope that the Illinois program will address problems at both levels. If nothing else, it needs to go beyond the technical issues per se to deal with such matters as critical thinking skills in an online context.
David
I do applaud Lt. Governor Pat Quinn for its efforts in bridging the digital divide. Surely, I’m in for its integration but having a laptop is not the only answer for students to do well in school. A Dedicated Teacher and Parents who would take time to be involved with their children’s schoolwork will also have favorable results as bringing out the potential of a student.