by Christopher Dean, Will Hochman, Carra Hood, and Robert McEachern

Why Wireless Laptops? Node III
By Will Hochman

Is more learning power really "buyable"?

While driving home one day in May of 2003, NPR had a story on how all seventh graders in Pemberton, Maine were given wireless laptops in school during the academic year. The story went on to report how students had, in one short year, become better writers and readers because of 24/7 access to their laptops. Since the students could take their laptops home, every student was gauranteed constant access to computers and the World Wide Web. Of course the story is all about positively linking technology to improved learning results. Stories like this and ours at SCSU are being told all over the world. Do your own google search--the evidence is abundant for the widespread use of laptops in teaching situations. If you use what Fred Kemp called "look-around rationale," you will simply observe the shrinking of size and the freeing of the "magic box" from our walls--seeing more clearly how technology increasingly links educators and students like us in more human ways.

Will shrinking the visible image of technology in the class and freeing it from fixed positions enable increased collaboration and creativity? I'm guessing that before and after this hypertext, we can pretty much see some important pedagogical advantages to using wireless laptops in our classes. At Southern Connecticut State University, it will now be easier to add carts of wireless laptops and airports to add wireless classrooms to the teaching and learning mix here. The cost and ease of implementation make this system more competitive with fixed labs, particularly when you add in factors of decreasing laptop cost, cheaper networking costs, and limited class space. We have piloted using this new computing system, and we know without doubt that it has increased computers and writing interest in our department and across the curriculum. The learning reality of our wireless laptop classroom at my school is really about better teaching, but the institutional reality is probably what really made it possible for us to initiate our new classroom. The laptop image, as well as the feasibility of using a better networking system, makes it clear to most people here at SCSU that this under-funded state school is not falling behind when it comes to teaching with technology. The practicality of buying carts of wireless laptops for modular distribution will increase their use without the need to renovate and build fixed computing classes. Our Academic Computing people love the carts because computer support is much easier when they can simply pluck the problem from the cart and fix it in their own time and space. I'll add to Negroponte's hype and state the future of wireless computing has never seemed brighter and closer.

"The Wonder Years" are the past, so now I'm asking: is new technology creating more literacy challenges for students and teachers, or is new technology simply synthesizing multi-layered literacy in new and more effective ways?

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