The Stillwater Area Public Schools began their laptop initiative in November of 2003. At that time, each teacher at Stillwater Junior High School (SJHS) and Oak-Land Junior High School (OLJHS) received a laptop and began a program of professional development focused on increasing teachers’ knowledge and skills related to using the laptops and integrating technology into their curriculum. Students at both schools received laptops in the spring of 2004. High school students had their own laptop in a one-to-one program that allowed computers to be taken home. The junior high used mobile laptop carts, offering a 3:1 student-to-laptop ratio. Both schools made wireless Internet access available throughout their buildings and offered students and parents online access to course assignments and grades.

Gathering Data

In the summer of 2007, the district contracted with the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI) in the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development to evaluate the laptop initiative’s impact on teaching and learning.

The district’s initial goals for the program were:

* To enhance students’ interest in learning by increasing the use of technology in the curriculum;

* To develop students’ 21st century skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and technology literacy;

* To support teachers in meeting the needs of diverse learners.

CAREI set about measuring progress towards these goals using the following methods:

1) Online, anonymous surveys for all students, teachers, and parents.

2) Individual interviews with teachers identified as strong technology integrators.

3) Classroom observations of teachers identified as strong technology integrators.

4) Standardized achievement tests of all students.

5) Focus groups with random samples of sophomores at Stillwater Area High School who had been students at either SJHS or OLJHS during three years of the laptop initiative.

Evaluation questions were designed to study the following:

 Teaching

• Instructional behaviors (preparation and teaching);
• Content of the curriculum;
• Facilitation of students’ higher order thinking;
• Training and continuing professional development.

Student Outcomes

• Student-teacher and student-student communication;
• Opinions about the use of laptops;
• On-task classroom behavior and student engagement;
• Student achievement.

Parental Involvement

• How parents assist their children with technology-based schoolwork;
• Frequency and desirability of accessing students’ homework assignments and grades;
• Changes in parent-child conversations as a result of greater access to technology.

The Results

The “Stillwater Area Public Schools Laptop Initiative Evaluation Report” was published in November, 2008. As the following highlights reveal, the evaluation showed that the district was making good progress towards meeting its goals:

• Eighty-four percent of teachers said that access to a computer or laptop contributed to an increase in students’ higher-order thinking skills. This was confirmed in interviews with the teachers and classroom observations by the researchers.

• More than 90 percent of teachers agreed they were better able to access diverse teaching materials and resources for their students with help from the technology. Furthermore, 90% of the OLJHS teachers and 81% of the SJHS teachers said that the computers helped them to individualize learning.

• Eighty-four percent of the teachers agreed that they were better able to meet their curriculum goals when students were using computers or laptops. In observations of instruction with laptops at both schools, researchers found that a high proportion of the students were focused on the intended curriculum objectives when using the laptops and that they frequently were involved in learning activities that could not otherwise be easily done. These results provide evidence that the laptops are being used to enhance the curriculum rather than serving as an add-on to the standard curriculum.

• Information from several sources suggested that student engagement was higher when students had access to computers or laptops, with the vast majority of students at both schools indicating that using a computer at school or home makes schoolwork more enjoyable.

• More than half of the students surveyed said they are better able to understand their schoolwork when they have access to computers. A slight majority of students indicated they used the laptops to pursue a topic beyond the assignment and the vast majority reported that laptops encourage them to revise and organize work.

• Student access to a computer increased communications with teachers when students were at home. Laptops also created more communication with other students about school projects and assignments from home.

• Parents value online access to their child’s assignments/class calendar and grades. Over three-fourths of the parents at each school reported that they had worked on schoolwork with their child using a computer, indicating that the new technology did not intimidate parents. Conversations about assignments and grades have also increased.

• Statistical analyses of the growth in student achievement in reading and mathematics during junior high, as measured by standardized tests, revealed few significant differences between students at SJHS and students at OLJHS. The results suggest that neither the one-to-one model nor the cart model of laptop access detract from students’ performance on standardized assessment measures.

• All other benefits were more apparent with the high school’s one-to-one program than with the junior high school’s cart program.

CAREI’s report cautions that classrooms are not controlled environments, and factors other than the introduction of technology could have influenced results. This is an unavoidable limitation, and the methodology used provides a good model for laptop evalutions.

The 117-page report includes data and comments from teachers, students and parents. It can be found online at:  Stillwater Area Public Schools, Laptop Initiative Evaluation Report.