Newsclips

Taking the Wireless Initiative
Educators assess laptop program
Berkshire Eagle | July 6, 2006
Tony Dobrowolski, Berkshire Eagle Staff

PITTSFIELD—PowerPoint presentations, music, graphics — they normally aren't part of seventh-graders' school reports.

But these items became more prevalent in the work turned in by seventh-graders this year at four schools in Pittsfield and North Adams that are participating in the $5.3 million Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative.

Teachers and administrators at the schools said the students who received laptop computers six months ago have begun to master the technology with impressive results.

"I think there's been a great deal of progress in the learning styles, teaching styles, and the way students research, gather, and retain information and present information as well," said Matthew Joseph, the technology coordinator for Herberg and Reid middle schools in Pittsfield.

The students have used the technology on their laptops for variations of word documentation, several graphs, and up-to-date online research "to further their learning even beyond what they could do in January," Joseph said.

The novelty of having a laptop hasn't worn off, some students say.

"I love it even more now that I've gotten to know my computer better," Herberg seventh-grader Nicole Chaves said.

After three years in the planning stages, the initiative was launched in early January, when 711 seventh-graders at Herberg and Reid middle schools and St. Mark School in Pittsfield — and Conte Middle School in North Adams — received an Apple iBook G4 laptop computer to use as an educational tool. The rollout, initially scheduled for last September, was delayed for four months because the procedures involved with the implementation were not in place until then.

The second rollout of laptops, scheduled for incoming seventh-graders this September, may also be subject to a four-month delay, said the initiative's steering committee co-chairman, Michael Supranowicz, who also is vice president of the Berkshire Chamber of Commerce.

"We don't have a firm date," he said.

$500,000 on its way

However, State Rep. Daniel Bosley, D-North Adams, said that legislators approved a $500,000 allocation in the state budget that will help meet a deadline of having the laptops distributed by September. Legislators have approved an additional $200,000 for the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams to support the initiative.

State legislators have also considered an amendment to the fiscal 2007 budget that would change the initiative's funding formula. The state currently contributes $2 for every dollar raised by both the private sector and the participating school districts. However, the funding contributed by the schools is considered an "in-kind" contribution, meaning that it is based on the amount of time that school districts pay teachers to utilize the new technology, instead of actual funds.

The amendment requests that the initiative be placed under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and that the state organization devise a different plan to obtain the matching funds, according to Chris Stack, a spokesman for state Sen. Andrea F. Nuciforo Jr., D-Pittsfield. The amendment was discussed in committee in both the House and the Senate.

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, along with The Berkshire Eagle and the North Adams Transcript, is one of the initiative's sponsors. The Eagle's advertising director, Mark French, is a steering committee member.

Fundraising from the private sector hasn't gone as well as the steering committee had hoped, Supranowicz said.

"I would say it might be a little tougher than we all thought," he said. "I thought we'd be a little further along at this point. But we've been looking to our legislators ... that made us kind of hold off in asking from the business community."

This year's seventh-graders will receive their laptops again when they enter eighth grade in September. The laptops were turned in at the end of school this year so that they could be re-programmed.

The goal of the three-year initiative, which is being used as a pilot program for the state, is to help improve student achievement and transform the way education is delivered in both cities. The program is the result of a collaboration between the state Legislature, the three school districts — Pittsfield, North Adams, and the Catholic Schools of Pittsfield — and the private sector.

Results awaited

Although the results for the first six months have been generally positive, there is no hard data to back up the personal observations.

Members of Boston College's Lynch School of Education, the program's evaluator, conducted pre-surveys of students and teachers before the laptops were given out, and conducted post-surveys last month. Those results won't be available until midsummer, said Damian Bebell, who heads Boston College's evaluation team.

The evaluators recently collected data from the four participating middle schools, and two "comparison" middle schools where laptops are not in use.

"The data was just actually loaded into our servers," Bebell said in a telephone interview. "We have about 2,000 students and 115 teachers surveyed."

Bebell said the evaluators hope to use the surveys to gauge the influence that the computer technology provided by the laptops has on each student's academic performance. Grades are not included in the surveys, because grading is subjective and can vary between teachers and school districts, Bebell said. The evaluators will also consider the effect that laptop use has in relation to each students' MCAS test scores. Seventh-graders also took the MCAS tests last month, but the state Department of Education doesn't release those scores until the fall.

The initiative is based on a similar initiative in Maine, the first of its kind in the nation, which began in 2002. Mike Muir, a professor at the University of Maine at Farmington, who heads Maine's Center for Meaningful and Engaged Learning, said it will probably take between three and five years to notice any significant change in the achievement data the evaluators compile. Muir said changes in any academic program normally take between three and five years before they are noticeable.

"I think he's right," said Bebell, who is familiar with Muir's work in Maine. "I think you'll see some changes in the first two years. ... Two or three years is a very short time to change (a student's way of learning) that hasn't been changed in 50 years. Taking a myopic, short-sighted view isn't very smart."

In the Maine initiative, Muir noted students' test scores actually went down before they went up.

"It's the implementation dip," he said. "We've seen a temporary lowering of scores because people are getting used to the new technology. ... They start to go up once people realize what they're doing."

During the first five months of the Maine initiative, Muir said, evaluators noticed an increase in student attendance that corresponded with a decrease in behavior referrals.

Principal observations

The principals of the four participating schools in Pittsfield and North Adams said they had no data to support an attendance increase, but said discipline problems among seventh-graders declined between January and June.

"I have not had a seventh-grader in my office since they (the laptops) arrived," said St. Mark Principal Margaret "Meg" Skowron.

Conte Principal Diane Ryczek said her seventh-graders have treated each other with more respect.

"I've definitely seen it in their attitude," she said.

Some teachers have been slower than others to embrace the new technology, while at least one teacher failed to utilize the laptops at all. When the computers were first given out, teachers expressed concern that the distributing and collecting of laptops at the beginning and end of class took away from instructional time. At St. Mark, history teacher Matt Collins said those problems began to be resolved when students were allowed to take their laptops home.

Students at St. Mark, which has only 70 students involved in the program, have been taking their laptops home since February, while the Pittsfield public schools didn't implement a take-home policy for the 510 students at Reid and Herberg until early May. Conte's take-home policy also didn't go into effect until last month, but Ryczek said only 20 of the school's 129 participating students opted to take advantage of the opportunity.

"We gave them an option that they would have to put in for insurance," Ryczek said. "But we also gave them the option of paying this year or next year."

The numbers were reversed at St. Mark, where only six students declined the take-home policy. At Reid and Herberg, the student take-home rate was around 50 percent, according to both schools' principals.

Students and their parents were also required to attend computer training sessions before the laptops could be removed from school. Administrators have set up programs to prevent students from accessing inappropriate Web sites.

"In school I'm using a pretty high-blocking software," Collins said, "so we don't see it here. We've also had students create their own histories. If they've been erased we know something's going on."

What the kids say

In written comments provided to The Eagle, several seventh-graders at Reid said they have noticed laptops being used for non-academic pursuits.

"People are using and downloading games," one student wrote. "Kids are finding ways to hack into blacked-out sites."

"Children are now more focused on their computers instead of their school work, which causes frustration for me as well as the teacher trying to do her job," added another student.

But that same student also wrote: "This laptop initiative has helped me much with learning. Before, I could hardly understand or figure out a problem given the lack of individual attention. But now, I can just search the Web, or use the online math books for tips and examples on problems."

"Laptops have literally changed my life," a third student wrote. "They help with learning and they also help with typing. They are extremely helpful, but also they are fun and make kids want to learn."

Reid Middle School math teacher Frederica Scheeder said there have been issues with students using their laptops to send messages to each other during class through a software program that they are able to access. But Scheeder said that teachers have been able to stop text messaging because they can access that same program on their laptops.

Following some initial difficulties in implementation, teachers also say the laptops have helped them bridge the gap between the fast, middle and slow learners.

"It was initially difficult working up different lesson plans," Herberg science teacher Matt Goggins said. "But then when I got into it and decided to have the kids go into it, it really allows me to have a multi-leveled course where you can hit all of the students where they're at.

"In terms of that, it's been great, because one of the things that I really struggle with is how do you hit the 15 or 20 percent who really excel, and how do you address the 20 percent that are lagging behind," he added. "Then there's that bulk, the 30 percent in the middle that you still want to keep interested. The laptop allows me to do that."

Parents say the laptops have enhanced their children's learning ability.

"It has a huge effect," said Virginia Smith, the mother of Herberg student. "It has made school more fun."