Laptops for All: Using Technology to Go Beyond Traditional Curriculum

Furger,  R. (2001). Laptops for All: Using Technology to Go Beyond Traditional Curriculum. Edutopia. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/laptops-all

In this article, Roberto Furger examines a middle school in New York that supplies laptops for each of their students. Mott Hall Middle School teaches students 425 students in the 4-8^th grades. The school has a majority of Hispanic students and is considered a math, science and technology academy. Before 1996 when the school supplied their first class with laptops, Mott Hall was a traditional institution. Parents and teachers saw the possibilities that laptops would provide for their students and agreed on a joint payment plan for the laptops. Over five years the school developed a pilot project and now Mott Hall is one of the leading examples of how technology can broaden horizons for children.

The laptops are used in many different ways, especially for projects. Examples given are attaching the laptops to a temperature probe for science class, creating scales or models for math or physics, finding pictures for social studies projects or reading poems for English. Multimedia presentations are created, play chess with other students that are out of state (or even out of country) and digital photo albums are created as graduating projects to show to the high schools they are applying to attend.

According to Furger, simply giving students laptops will not necessarily improve student learning. In the model that Mott Hall has given us, teachers are trained on how to use them in projects and collaborative planning is stressed in order to make the most out of the new technology. Clear goals and objectives help students better understand their tasks and allow teachers to easily asses their students’ work. Detailed rubrics show students how the project will be graded and how each component fits state standards.

Mott Hall continues to find new ways to use their technology. Teachers at the school are helping students create their own electronic portfolios. New grants are allowing staff to experiment with new ways to approach project-based learning. The program at Mott Hall has worked so well that more schools in the area are copying their methods and a new school named Mott Hall II opened in 2001.

This article brings up the important fact that technology alone will do little in a classroom. Not only do teachers need to be trained but well thought out student-centered plans must be created in order to keep everyone on track. The ideas for projects using laptops would be great for classrooms that have that kind of technology and tech support.