District to Pilot Laptop Program in the Spring

A communications arts class in both Mehlville and Oakville High School will lead the district in its first electronic learning program.

The 56 students will start the second semester outfitted with one laptop each, taking the computers home and using the device instead of textbooks.

Superintendent Eric Knost said his goal with the program is to ultimately lower textbook costs while enhancing student learning. 

“I think there are examples where textbooks become way too important. They should be a resource and nothing more than a resource,” he said. “There's too much of a wealth of information out there. There are too many open sources. I think we spend a lot of money on textbooks that are only good for so many years.”

The technology

The laptops are Lenovo X120e ThinkPads with 11.6-inch screens. Information Technology Director Steven Lee said the district researched several models of laptops and tablets—such as Nooks, Android tablets and Kindles—before deciding on the Lenovo.

“We wanted students to be able to type a term paper, which led us to decide against a type of tablet,” he said. “We’ll hopefully see a savings in textbooks and lighten the backpacks of some of the kids.”

Lee also said the computers have a 7.5-hour battery life and more memory than other devices the district considered.

Each laptop costs $500 with a three-year warranty and security etching. Lee placed an initial order of 60 laptops, having four as spares. The district will also purchase protective cases for the laptops, ranging from $20 to $42.

Lee and his staff spoke with other schools on their one-to-one technology programs, including Wentzville, CBC and Whitfield.

“The other schools we talked to were adamant about the case,” he said. “We’ll probably test several types, but the one we’re looking at now keeps the computer in the case, so kids aren’t shoving it in and out for class.”

The approximately $30,000 used to buy the laptops came from the district’s existing technology budget, Lee said.

The computers will also be outfitted with Moodle, the district’s online education system, and students will be able to download books and have access to open source documents as well as textbooks.

Most textbook companies also gave schools access to electronic formats, Knost said.

“It could possibly be that some of these ninth-grade kids will trade in all of their textbooks for this one device,” he said.

The curriculum

English I teachers Tracy Krysl from Oakville and Allison Braun from Mehlville High School volunteered to spearhead the pilot.

“My main goal is to find ways to accomplish basically the same things I’m accomplishing now in the English I curriculum, but do it text-free,” Krysl said.

The students will be reading Romeo and Juliet on the laptop and will also have access to learning sites such as No Fear Shakespeare that will help them find parallel text versions, making comprehension easier, she said.

Krysl also hopes to change the way homework is traditionally completed. Students can talk to each other about classwork online at home through discussion boards. For assignments, they can post questions and answers analyzing the text.

Krysl said she would look at student engagement and measure homework completion against traditional writing assignments with the hope that participation increases.

“I’m also going to use podcast lecturing,” she said. “I can show them a grammar PowerPoint by loading it on the class website and have them learn it before class, so class time is spent on practicing that skill.”

Knost said students would also have access to online field trips—a type of webinar that would be interactive.

“I don’t think we know the half of it,” he said. “We need to turn our experts loose to give it a try.”

Students are thrilled with the program, but Krysl warned them about the changes that would come to the classroom.

“We’re going to have to re-arrange the classroom, move my desk to the back of the room so I can see their screens,” she said. “I’m up and moving all the time, but this is definitely going to move teachers away from that stage mentality for teaching.”

Lee said that the students understood their computers can be checked and monitored at any time to prevent against improper use during class time. The students and their parents will attend an informational meeting prior to next semester, where they will learn the parameters of the program.

“Kids have to power down to come to school these days,” Krysl said she learned when working on a technology grant with Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum Connie Hurst-Bayless. “School has become a distraction for them because they have to sit still and use a paper and pencil, and it's not the real world to them anymore.”

The future

If the program is a success, Knost said he would like all communication arts freshman to have one of the devices for the fall of 2012.

“Last year, before the board switched over, I asked to allocate about $500,000 in reserves for that technology. If this board will live up to it, we may be able to roll this out next fall for all ninth grade communication arts students,” he said.

Depending on funding, Knost said he would like to see every high school student with one of the ThinkPads.

“We would roll it out to ninth graders every fall and let it spread through the whole high school and then maybe in tandem pick up an elementary grade… but I'm not thinking that far in advance. To do that in our means would be pretty tough,” he said.

Knost is hopeful the program will be proven successful by March or April of 2012.

“I think we sell kids short. Kids' lives are wrapped around technology these days. I think kids are going to cherish these things,” he said. “There will be issues; we will lose some. If we determined that we didn't find benefit in it (the pilot), we would repurpose the computers to different things.”