Hancock Middle School was one of seven recipients of a three-year Technology Immersion Pilot Project (TIPP) grant from the Illinois State Board of Education. Each year, incoming sixth graders are issued a laptop to use for three years. In the third year of the grant, all sixth, seventh and eight graders will have computers.

The grant includes money for infrastructure improvements and professional development. The district purchased a server large enough to have all students working on their computers at one time, and set up a wireless network that covers every classroom of the school. Professional development is also tied to the grant.

“An outside expert came to work with the teachers, not asking them to change their curriculum, just showing ways to supplement what they already do with technology. The teachers are the information experts,” explains Sue Henry, a teacher who helped write the grant. “They were just shown ways to use that knowledge with a much more hands-on learning environment through the computers.”

“In the end we will look to see if there is more enduring understanding as the students get more actively involved in the learning process than with just a lecturing format,” Henry said.

Results of the TIPP will be tracked on a long term basis. Each year the teachers will send information on the projects done by the students with their computers. In addition, the school will send information to the state for many years, tracking student attendance, ISAT and achievement scores and graduation rate of students who were in the project.

At the end of the three year grant period, as teachers track these specific students, the laptops will still belong to the school so they can continue the innovative projects the teachers have created to pique their students' interest and involvement in learning.

“The program lets teachers make an environment where students use high order thinking to create projects that go above and beyond what they might have done in the normal classroom setting,” Henry said. “Students learn to use problem-solving and collaboration, skills that will help them get along on the job later in life.”

Source: Hancock Journal Pilot, Grant brings laptops, creativity to classroom lessons