Laptops for students may not be a good thing

Esther J. Cepeda, a schoolteacher and writer, believes laptops for students may be keeping them from learning to think on their own. Her column ran in today's Chicago Sun-Times.


BY ESTHER J. CEPEDA
People today are accustomed to using computers for nearly every task in life. For most of us, it was a gradual transition. We learned how to balance our checkbooks using our bank statements before we had Quicken to do it for us. We learned how to search through the encyclopedia to find who invented the light bulb. We had to actually read Shakespeare's ''Othello'' to learn the intricacies of the relationships between Othello, Desdemona and Iago before Google was invented.

Will those skills be lost if the I-Connect Initiative (House Bill 5244) is passed by the Senate? The initiative, proposed by Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, would provide about 13,000 public school seventh-graders and their teachers with laptop computers -- the "textbooks of the 21st century." The estimated cost would be $5 million including hardware, software, technical support and teacher training.

The laptops would come loaded with science and math tutorials, and a full suite of word processing and spreadsheet software. The premise is that students need to learn from an early age how to use these tools to be better prepared to compete for the high-tech jobs that will surely dominate the economy as they enter the work force.

In Maine, where seventh-graders were given this same technology in 2000, the Maine Education Policy Research Institute found that students, parents and teachers reported an increase in enthusiasm for school and homework. The Maine eighth-grade test scores, however, showed no change in reading, writing, math and science compared with the previous two years. And the funding issues associated with keeping the gadgetry and training up to date is threatening the future of the program.

Walk into any high school math class and you will find students adept at using calculators. Every kind from the cheap colorful ones you find at the Dollar Store all the way up to expensive TI-83s which can convert fractions and percentages for you with the touch of a button and will also solve and graph equations -- a skill essential to any student pursuing higher education.

But behind those calculators, oftentimes, sit students who can't pull from their memory banks the basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts necessary to solve real-world math problems. Sure, many students can figure out advanced logarithms because of the endless skill and drill which takes place to get kids to pass state standardized exams. But take the calculator away and many fall flat on their faces when asked to calculate the total price for a $65 pair of shoes with an 8.35 percent tax using just a pencil and paper.

Will the same happen in all curricular areas if the endless stream of information known as the Internet is constantly a key stroke away? Is there any reason to learn how to spell correctly when all word processing software comes with instant, automatic spell and grammar check? Do you need to remember the order of the presidents, how many ounces there are in a gallon, the capitals of all 50 states, or who wrote The Lottery?

If information is out there for us to use and manipulate at a moment's notice, the skills we need to impart to students who will navigate the 21st century must be in the areas of critical thinking and problem solving. That task will lie at the feet of well-trained, dedicated teachers with a strong grasp of how the world has changed since they got their teaching certificates.

It has been proved in study after study: The major factor in the success of students is a low student-to-teacher ratio. Knowing that, any money Illinois can scrape together to fund student achievement should be spent on getting more well-trained teachers into classrooms so students don't have to be packed together like sardines. It shouldn't be spent on silver bullets.

(Students in Mr. Turner's Communication Arts classes should go to the following link and answer questions 1-4 on the MAP Practice Test.)