Good Grief, Not The Laptops Again

Remember the story last year of Gov. Rounds proposing that every student have a laptop?  Now some schools are thinking about going to a four day week and using part of that extra day for teachers to figure out how to incorporate laptops into their lesson plans. 

Laptop learning: The laptop revolution supplies one reason for districts to at least think about it. Teachers would likely continue to work five days a week, using the fifth day for staff development, the leaders said.

Learning more about how to incorporate laptop computers into curricula would likely be one use of the fifth day for Groton Area teachers, Schuster said.

"A four-day week would definitely be an advantage to any school looking at participating in the laptop initiative," she said. "It is important to have staff development built into the calendar, and we would not have enough if we went with the laptop initiative. Staff development and a four-day week go hand in hand."

The state is promoting its program where schools buy laptops for secondary students, with the state sharing the cost. Warner and Groton are both looking at the possibility of participating in the laptop program beginning with the 2008-09 school year, their superintendents said.

I have posts on this matter from last year, here and here.  In the second link I summed up the findings on laptops in the classroom thusly: "The evidence is clear.  A pervasive use of laptops in education at best has no effect, and in fact there is some evidence that significant use of computers in the classroom actually leads to lower educational achievement." 

I urge those school districts looking to expand the use of laptops in schools to reconsider.  I beg the legislature to kill any state program funding such initiatives.  Let us devote more money to teacher pay rather than technological gimmicks, and more time on fundamentals. 

If we wish to produce "trousered apes" and "urban blockheads" (see this essay by C.S. Lewis) then by all means let us run to technology to solve our educational needs.  I will end on that note before I start pontificating on what a liberal education means to a citizen living in a free society.