Re: [school-discuss] student:computer - studies to reference?

[Teprine Baldo <teprine76@xxxxxxxx>]

IF you need articles about ICT implementation and how
it affects teachers I have a heap of those.
Teprine
--- Matt Oquist <moquist@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> These are interesting responses which indicate that
> I need to clarify
> what/why I'm asking.
> 
> Of course we're not focusing only on hardware, or
> only on
> a computer:student ratio. The district has already
> conducted teacher
> surveys (concerning prof. dev., amount of usage,
> hardware, software,
> gadgets, etc.) at some schools and several more are
> currently
> following suit.
> 
> The planning committee has some idea of where we
> want to go, and since
> at the moment only labs have computers for students
> (no classrooms
> that I know of in the entire district have computers
> for students to
> use!), it's obvious that having more computers for
> kids to use is one
> thing that we need to change.
> 
> We can't change the entire district at once, and we
> don't want to take
> off at 100MPH in a direction that turns out to be
> wrong. So we're
> hoping to propose a pilot project to the school
> board, and we could
> really use data from other schools and studies that
> have been done to
> bolster our claims that such a pilot project has the
> potential to
> improve the lives of teachers and the educations of
> students. Instead
> of adding one computer to every classroom in the
> district and assuming
> we're headed in the right direction, we want to know
> how many *Linux
> thin clients* to add to a small handful of
> classrooms as a pilot to
> find out what kind of difference it makes in those
> classrooms. 1:1 is
> not an option on the table at this time, so we need
> to know where we
> should be aiming -- /if there is a specific place to
> aim/.
> 
> At this point in the meeting, I indicated that I
> believed other people
> had already studied this issue and that we could
> make use of those
> results. I was asked to find such data and report
> back.
> 
> Therefore, I sent a very specific question to three
> widely-dispersed
> lists without explaining *any* of my background
> assumptions and giving
> the impression that I was blindly sprinting into
> hardware-centric
> confusion in which obtaining a particular ratio will
> be expected to
> yield precisely-defined results. Hopefully this
> message rectifies that
> concern at least a little. :)
> 
> I should mention that I'm already planning to
> recommend that we do
> a survey (another one, unfortunately) to ask
> teachers how many
> computers they would need to make a difference. My
> wife (a teacher,
> also on this committee) and I, along with the other
> members of this
> committee, are very concerned to know what teachers
> think and we value
> their input highly. Unfortunately, we can't take it
> as a given that
> everyone has that same degree of respect for
> teachers' opinions, so we
> want/need more than just teachers' input, and I was
> hopeful that some
> more formal investigations had been conducted.
> 
> Thanks for your input, Yishay, and I will contact
> you separately for
> more information.
> 
> Thanks,
> Matt
> 
> Yishay Mor wrote:    [Sun Oct 08 2006, 06:06:36PM
> EDT]
> > Matt,
> > 
> > I want to strongly support Les here. In focusing
> on hardware you risk a
> > backlash. We've all heard of endless research that
> 'proves' that computers
> > don't contribute to performance. I reject it, and
> yet it's right: computers in
> > themselves are heaps of metal. They don't
> contribute to performance any more
> > that the tables they stand on. A study of the sort
> you imagine would most
> > probably be outrageous. Any result showing
> improvement in standard test in 
> > direct relationship to the ratio, and ignoring all
> other factors, would only be
> > obtainable by exotic manipulations.
> > 
> > I think its important to involve the teachers in
> the process, let them say how
> > many computers they want, and where. Perhaps
> present them with case studies,
> > and collaboratively design a solution which
> includes hardware, software and
> > practices. Here's an idea: if 1:1 is the golden
> grail, why not give each
> > student a wifi enabled PDA, and have one
> PC+projector for sharing? See: http://
> > www.simcalc.umassd.edu/projects/cc2/
> > 
> > All that said, you may find some useful resources
> here:
> > http://www.g1to1.org/inventory/bibliography.php
> > 
> > Also, I remember once seeing a serious article
> which used sophisticated
> > econometric methods to eliminate all other
> factors, and showed that generally
> > children with access to PCs perform better in
> school. I can try to look it up
> > if you want (contact me directly).
> > 
> > good luck!
> > 
> > - Yishay
> > 
> > On 08/10/06, Matt Oquist <moquist@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
> > 
> >     Note: I'm also posting to k12osn and
> k12opensource; sorry for any
> >     duplication.
> > 
> >     I'm on the newly-formed school tech planning
> committee in my
> >     community, and at the second committee meeting
> I discussed the idea
> >     that there's a tipping-point at which access
> to technology naturally
> >     snowballs into increasing technology
> integration. (There's a bit of
> >     the "if you build it they will come" thinking
> in here.) I asserted
> >     that I believed studies had been done on such
> data points as the range
> >     of student:computer ratios that define such a
> tipping-point.
> > 
> >     The committee chairman (a school board member)
> insightfully asked if
> >     I could find out about such studies and report
> back at our next
> >     meeting -- so now I'm asking all of you. I've
> done some googling and
> >     I'll do some more, but what studies (formal
> and informal, but I'm
> >     looking for more than just opinions) do you
> know of that communicate
> >     concrete results such as (NOTE: I'M MAKING
> THIS UP as an EXAMPLE!):
> >       "Moving from a 10:1 student:computer ratio
> to a 2:1 ratio is 75%
> >       more likely to result in a 20% increase in
> math standardized test
> >       scores than moving instead to a 5:1 ratio."
> > 
> >     A study with results like that would be
> outstanding, of course, but
> >     I'll be pleasantly shocked to find one. What
> has actually been done?
> >     What more do we have than anecdotal evidence
> of the sort of
> >     tipping-point that I described?
> > 
> >     I'm pretty sure I snagged the phrase "tipping
> point" from one of the
> >     slides in Daniel Howard's presentation to the
> CIO of Atlanta Public
> >     Schools on their case study at Morris Brandon
> Elementary School.
> >     Here's what he said:
> >       Tipping point: must have at least 5 PCs for
> teachers to fully
> >       integrate into instruction, more is better
> for most teachers
> > 
> 
=== message truncated ===


Teprine Baldo 
  Bleu Rouge Productions
  (514) 201-7801
  (514) 522-3168
   


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