This year, LT will be joining the increasing number of schools who are incorporating personal technology, such as laptops, into the classroom. LT has purchased 500 HP ProBook 11 laptops for English 1, Algebra 1 and Chemistry classes at SC so that teachers and students can experiment with having laptops readily available during class.

The school intends to use the classroom laptops to analyze how having access to technology will impact students in a the learning environment, as well as for testing purposes. Each Algebra I, English I and Chemistry classroom will receive a set of laptops to be used solely for that classroom.

“In purchasing these laptops, we can really explore how having a device in the hands of a student during the day in school can help change learning for the better,” Director of Technology Ed Tennant said. “The goal is to make a better decision of what we do next year based on the data we get this year.”

Given that Algebra I, English I, and Chemistry classrooms are often shared with other courses, students in those classrooms but enrolled in different courses will also be able to use the laptops, Tennant said. Thus, more students and teachers will be exposed to the new laptops.

Through the experiment, the school board will receive feedback on how laptops function in the classroom, possibly prompting a change in LT’s technology policy. Ultimately, LT is looking to analyze how the school would function in a one-to-one environment, in which every student would have access to his or her own laptop to work on throughout the day.

“There are some that will say ‘this is horrible and we can use the extra 500 computers for testing,’” Tennant said. “And there are some that will say we should buy 1,500 more so that the entirety of SC is a one-to-one environment or even we should buy 3,500 more so that the entire school is a one-to-o ne environment. It is like a science experiment.”

As for the computer, the HP ProBook is attractive both because of its price, and its functionality as far as Microsoft Word and other Windows programs are concerned, Tennant said. The school is also compiling data on what technology, if any, students already have available to use at home, or possibly bring to school, if LT decided to move towards a one-to-one system .

For now however, teachers and students agree that having laptops in their classrooms this year will be beneficial.

“It’s really difficult to get Discovery Center time,” English 1 teacher Katy Melcher said. “So just having the laptops in the classrooms will be really great and convenient.”