Are laptops enough?
I just read South Dakota gives laptops to all and it is compelling to consider providing, as the title suggests, a laptop computer to every child in the state. Reading the article though, one learns that this is a pilot project covering 5,000 economically-disadvantaged students out of the state's 121,800 public school students. Of course, one must start somewhere but I have to wonder if this pilot really provides the best 'bang for the buck' for the state's $4,000,000.
The main thrust of the article is the growing evidence of the benefit to the student of having access to a computer and to the Internet. The source of their data is a program offered in one particular school in South Dakota (Waterton High School) which has, for three years, leased laptops for all of their students -- with quite positive results. It is important to note that 92% of the students at Waterton have access to the Internet at home. Eighty-four percent use these laptops for school-related chores at home and ninety-six percent use them at school. All this is quite impressive -- and when tied to improved student performance, clearly demonstrates the value to the student of this kind of access to information technology. But what about those 5,000 students targeted for the upcoming pilot?
It seems unlikely that nearly as many of these students will have access to the Internet at home, and, unless their schools also have access to the Internet (and the curriculum to utilize it), the value of this technology may be limited at school as well.
Before the state of South Dakota invests $4,000,000 to pass out laptops to only a few of its students, it needs to make sure that each of its public schools has adequate high-speed access to the Internet and that it provides its other students with sufficient access to reasonably-capable computers (and not just semi-functional hand-me-downs).
Let's hope that South Dakota is prepared to make the best use it its pilot program so that soon all of its students will have the benefit offered by a robust IT infrastructure and easy access to a computer.