RFP Staff
♦ Millions of taxpayer dollars are about to be spent on Mac Air Laptops and iPads to hopefully help Rowan-Salisbury School Students become more literate, increase their academic achievement, and for the school system to raise its abysmal composite scores on the NC State Education’s READY Report. This is a noble effort, but is it consistent with available education research on the value of laptops and internet enabled devices in increasing academic achievement in reading and writing? Testimonials and “Juice-a-matic” hard sell style infomercial presentations are not credible replacements for multiple and conclusive studies on laptop-based reading and writing effects on literacy and academic achievement.
Buckle your seatbelts and get ready for Downtown Salisbury ONLY and the Salisbury Post’s blitz to promote the very expensive laptop and ipad initiative for Rowan-Salisbury School teachers and students. We’ve all seen these Salisbury generated big pushes previously. The Fibrant fiasco back in 2008 (A nightmare because of a lack of due diligence). The Central Office at 329 S. Main (it fizzled out thankfully). The bogus “Stop the Mall initiative now in progress.
I’m not convinced one way or the other yet that laptop learning will lift up youngster’s academic achievement or literacy any better than paper. I’m examining the available studies on this subject of which quite a few exist. Some of them are flawed due to conflicts of interests, poor controls, and sampling. I suspect most kids could get turned onto reading by being introduced to books and reading materials that interest them whether those books are read digitally or on paper. Digital reading in some cases will have to be delivered to children along with specialized literacy skills.
Here are some readings on the subject of using laptops to increase academic achievement in reading and writing as well as some other related topics:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html?_r=0
http://www.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/laptops.pdf
http://tablets-textbooks.procon.org/
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ826086.pdf
http://blog.amersol.edu.pe/g9-1to1/files/2011/10/LaptopTeacherPD.pdf
http://www.educationbusinessblog.com/2012/02/apples_ipad_textbooks_cost_5x.html
http://www.edweek.org/dd/?intc=thed
