By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
Waterford Graded School District’s one-to-one laptop program has been touted as a cost-saving method and a way of reaching today’s tech-savvy students.
But when it comes to student achievement, how has the program been faring?
Administrators attempted to address the question – posed in recent months by a few School Board members – at the district’s Technology Committee meeting Jan. 13.
Discussions involving the integration of laptops into the upper-level WGSD classrooms began about five years ago, and the devices have been phased in over the past several years.
Darlene Markle and Rachel Harmeling, principal and library media specialist, respectively, at Fox River School, gave a presentation on the laptop integration and how the initiative has started transforming how classroom instruction is delivered.
“It’s another resource we have in the building to enhance our teaching and learning,” Markle said. “This is a tool. A tool doesn’t increase your test scores. But it helps.”
Markle and Harmeling shared standardized test score data from recent years and asserted laptop usage could at least have had a part in the positive momentum.
“We’re neck in neck, if not over, many of our neighbors,” Markle added. “We’re moving forward, and we’re moving in a positive direction. We have a lot of encouraging data points when it comes to student achievement.”
Twenty-first Century learning a common buzzword in education today, and Harmeling said one-to-one has been a positive in a number of areas.
“It’s turned out to be a good organizational tool,” Harmeling said. “Students don’t have as many worksheets and papers, and they’re not shuffling through them.”
Markle and Harmeling presented the committee with audio testimonials from several Fox River teachers. Among them was James Dembosky, an eighth-grade math teacher who creates tutorial videos for his students that are accessed through the laptops.
“I like to make my videos interactive,” Dembosky said, pointing out the method gives students another opportunity to understand various concepts.
Markle and Harmeling said several goals are at the core of the laptop initiative, including the fostering of greater communication skills, more collaboration between students and increasing ready access to a bounty of different up-to-date resources.
Harmeling said there are two goals – increasing students’ critical thinking skills and creating more original content – that need to be increased through the laptop program.
School Board member Paul Beyerl has expressed the most concern about laptop usage. After the presentation, Beyerl said he thought it was good students are growing in their technology skills, but implored administrators to continue emphasizing the mastery of basic skills.
Fellow board member Dan Jensen said he was pleased with the work that has taken place, commenting: “as a district, we are far ahead of many others in the areas of technology.”
With one-to-one now in place for several years, committee members discussed when equipment replacement will be necessary. The committee agreed a replacement cycle should be established to assist with future budget planning. “I like the idea of a cycle. That’s great thinking,” Superintendent Chris Joch said.
For the upcoming 2014-15 school year, Joch said the district anticipates using all existing laptops.
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