Putting the Carts Before the Labs...

You've read the research, (Dawson, Cavanaugh, & Ritzhaupt, 2008) understand the value, and now you'd like to get laptops in the hands of as many of your students as possible. Unfortunately, the cost of one computer for every student is prohibitive.

Try sharing the wealth with wireless laptop carts.

Wireless laptop carts allow schools to ensure that computers are available to the students that will use them in the place that they should be used, the classroom. They save the cost of having to have a dedicated “computer lab” and have been shown to increase teacher technology competence and encourage student-centered pedagogical practices such as project-based and collaborative learning. (Grant, et al., 2004) Additionally, laptops can be purchased as they can be afforded. If a school wanted to buy a cart with two laptops, that would be a good start. Just fill the cart as you can and buy another cart.

What are you waiting for? Go ahead and put a (laptop) cart before that lab.


Dawson, K., Cavanaugh, C., & Ritzhaupt, A. D. (2008). Florida's EETT Leveraging Laptops Initiative and Its Impact on Teaching Practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(2), 143-159.

Grant, M., Ross, S., Wan, W., Potter, A., Wilson, Y., & Center, E. R. I. (2004). A Modified Laptop Program Putting the Carts in the Classrooms: ERIC Clearinghouse.

Students say, "Expand Access"

Project Tomorrow, authors of the annual “Speak Up” (formally know as NetDay) survey, which this year polled over a quarter of a million students, just released to Congress their 2008 findings. The results can be easily summarized.

Students make frequent and proficient use of digital technologies to increase the reach of their own curiosity, just not in the classroom.

Project Tomorrow, guided by their 250K respondents, had five major recommendations for the nation.

• increase the use of mobile devices for learning purposes
• create interactive, participatory learning spaces
• incorporate Web 2.0 tools into daily instruction for collaborative learning
• expand access to digital resources in the classroom
• get beyond the classroom walls to make learning truly experimental

It is the fourth recommendation that is the topic of this blog and key to the other five. Without actual physical access to these technologies, students can’t use mobile devices, create interactive spaces, incorporate Web 2.0 tools, or experiment in a way that professional scientists and researchers experiment.

My research will attempt to uncover impediments to technology access in schools because...

Access is the key.

At-home Access

So often, when we talk about educational technology, we assume we're talking about school-based technology. But, as Michael Christensen (Christensen, 2008) suggests in "Disrupting Class," revolutionary educational technologies will take hold first at the fringes of the school system, not in the regular education classroom.

Gwinnett County Public Schools, the largest district in Georgia, is beginning implementation of home-school data communications program to better serve 600-700 of it's home-bound students. This latest technology will be an upgrade from simply voice communications to include video and interactive graphics. This experiment in distance learning will surely borrow from and lead to advanced insights into computer mediated teaching & learning.

Aronowitz, Scott. (2009). "Georgia's Largest District Expands External Education Capabilities," T.H.E. Journal, 3/23/2009, http://www.thejournal.com/articles/24169

Christensen, C., Johnson, C., & Horn, M. (2008). Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns: McGraw-Hill.

More than a Maine-frame

Considering that the press release was posted already twelve days ago, it's probably old news for the H.S. students of Maine whose governor just expanded their 1-1 laptop initiative to include all middle and high schools students in the entire state. That's approximately 100,000 computers in all.

The more I research, the more I'm convinced that only 1-1 laptops will satisfy the ever-growing technology needs of a 21st century student. Clickers are cool and interactive whiteboards can be fun but only a fully functional, massively multi-purpose device like a laptop computer can keep up with these kids' innovative ideas of how and when THEY want to learn. Why deny them the education that they want to give themselves?

Donate your old computer

Let's face it, most of us are computer snobs and we're done with our computers long before they're done themselves. Computers for Schools is a national computer reseller of refurbished computers to schools and non-profit organizations. So, instead of filling our landfills with your old, unwanted tech, let's fill our nation's classrooms.

Google's View

I’m curious just how much “academic” interest there has been over the years for technology access in K-12 schools and finally Google Scholar gives me, as imperfect as it may be, one way to measure it. I searched for… computer technology access "k-12" classroom school by year starting in 2009 and working my way backwards to 1991 charting my results as I went.

Here they are…




There is one really clear trend here… interest is on the rise, dramatically. (I’m not sure how to account for the drop in published articles over the past two years other than that it might be something to do with the way articles are indexed by Google Scholar. Maybe it takes some time to get “found.”)

Which would you choose?

Ok, let's say for a moment that your administration comes to you for advice about the school's technology allocation. (Hey, this is simply a mental exercise, don't get TOO excited. It's not gonna actually happen.)
Anyway, they come to you and ask...

Where should scarce computer resources be deployed for elementary and middle schools?
Mini classroom labs are really useful to the teachers, especially for elementary schools, and receive plenty of use

Full, 25-30 seat computer labs allow for full utilization of the few computers we have to go around; idle computers are a waste of money

How would you answer?

Well, this is exactly the question Christopher Dawson of ZDNET asked of his readers, and the answer surprises and disappoints me. Before you read on, please take a moment to go answer for yourselves even if you're not an elementary or middle school teacher. Go ahead, pretend... I won't tell.

Now, if you read Chris' article first, you may not be surprised to learn that 78% of the 130 voters chose the full lab instead of the mini-lab in the back of the room. Not surprising given that Chris strongly biases his results by giving his opinion of the issue before asking his readers. That's ok really, because while Chris is a great commentator whose work I thoroughly enjoy, he's not, nor does he claim to be, a researcher.

Researchers see it differently
Nobel Laureate, AI researcher, and educator, Herb Simon in “The Steam Engine and the Computer: What Makes Technology Revolutionary” says of computers...

I realized that the best advise was, in fact, just to have one around, for that's the only way a company or a university, or anybody else, is going to learn what to do with it.

I agree Dr. Simon. I completely agree.

NY schools score low on computer access

Yesterday, we discussed how the customary metrics of measuring computer access in schools fail when trying to understand computer usage in schools. Simply put, access doesn't ensure usage.

Today, we see a New York Post article lamenting NYC's lower than average access numbers.
Imagine how they'd feel if they had the actual usage numbers? :(

On the other hand, we should note that if access doesn't predict usage then it's possible that even with a lower than average number of computers per student, NYC school teachers might be doing a better than average job at employing those computers for educational purposes.

See, there's always hope!

My mission...

In 2006, the National Center for Education Statistics released "Internet Access in US Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2005" proclaiming that the percentage of instructional rooms with Internet access had increased from 51% in 1998 to 93% just seven years later in 2005. Furthermore, there had been a corresponding decrease in the ratio of students to instructional computers of 13:1 to 4:1. To the casual reader, this sounds like amazing progress that demonstrates the commitment of the U.S. educational system to infuse our country’s schools with the same technology that has bolstered its businesses to ever growing levels of production and efficiency. The report does neither, however, detail where within those schools the computers are deployed nor does it detail how much access the average student has to those computers.

Deployment Matters
Imagine a 1,000-student school divided into 40 instructional rooms with 250 instructional computers (4:1 ratio), two very different scenarios could emerge.

Scenario 1:
The school may have 1 instructional computer per classroom room and six 35-computer labs.

or…

Scenario 2:
The school could choose to deploy 6 computers per classroom, leaving enough for one 40-computer lab.

One would assume enormous pedagogical and usage differences between the lab-based vs. in-class models given here. (This is something I hope to explore in later posts.)

Access Matters
In “No Access, No Use, No Impact” Cathleen Norris, et al., begins with the most strongly worded assertion of the reason why the enormous infusion of technology into K-12 schools has not made more of an impact. Simply put, the author cites a lack of real access to the technology. She also states something important to our discussion, which is, “having one computer in a classroom is not access nor will it lead to any significant student use.” She claims that “almost without exception” the strongest predictor of technology use is technology access.

Using an online survey tool, 3,665 respondents from four states (both rural and urban) responded to the survey which is much more granular than the NCES survey. This study asked individual teachers how frequently their students use computers for both online and offline activities.

The author discovered that up to 45% of students used computers offline for less than 15 minutes/week and a full 67% used them less than 15 minutes/week online.

Such low numbers caused the author to look at students’ access to computers with Internet access both in the classroom and in computer labs. These numbers were equally alarming. 63% of classrooms have one or fewer computers while 94% have five or fewer. So they must be going to a shared lab, right? Unfortunately, 67% who went, went only two times/week or less, 39% of which went “seldom” or “never.” When cross-tabulated, 26% of students go to a classroom daily that has only one computer and seldom visit a lab. Finally, only 21% have either more than 10 computers in the classroom or visit a lab more than 2x/week.

That’s a lot to statistics, so let me summarize. Almost 100% of students in today’s schools have access to arguably the most revolutionary technology since the printing press, but only about 10% are given access to it on a regular basis.

How is that going to produce the change we expect?



Norris, C., Sullivan, T., Poirot, J., & Soloway, E. (2003). No Access, No Use, No Impact: Snapshot Surveys of Educational Technology in K-12. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 36(1), 15-28.

Wells, J., & Lewis, L. (2006). Internet Access in US Public Schools and Classrooms: 1994-2005. Highlights. NCES 2007-020. National Center for Education Statistics, 83.