Impact of the Laptop program on Students’ Achievement, Attitude and Writings Skills

1. Impact of the Laptop program on Students’ Achievement, Attitude and Writings Skills A program evaluation proposal submitted to the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent, Department of Education Brooklyn Height-6th Region (PS192) Brooklyn, New York By Patrick Okafor

2. Introduction • The full-time access to computer will enable the students reap the full rewards or fruits of information technologies in education. This includes: • Increased access to knowledge • Ability to manipulate large amounts of data • Refocusing of the writing process on content, and research • instruction, among many others

3. Statement of the problem • Questions confronting us in this proposal: • Is the target population being served or should there be any modification? • Is the program producing the desired results? • Is the program cost-effective? • What of the huge amount of money that had already been spent, is it justifiable by the progress and benefits of the program both to the students and faculty members?

4. The objectives of the evaluation: • To provide information about the implementation of the program including dissemination of materials • To document the extent and effectiveness of the training program for teachers, students, and parents • To show the extent to which the program has been put to use in instruction • To measure the attitudes of teachers, parents, students, and the community about the use of laptops • To show elements of program strength • To identify problem areas that detract from program efficacy

5. Research Questions • Is teaching different in a Laptop classroom? • Do students behave differently in a Laptop Classroom? • Do students achieve differently in a Laptop Classroom?

6. Review of the Related Literature • Mann (1997): Mann’s report concludes that increased access to technology supports students’ achievement. • Gardner et al. (1994) :The individual access to the portable computers resulted in higher levels of pupil motivation, and accelerated information technology literacy among the pupils and teachers. • Zakaluk & Haydey 1998): Each student having access to a computer was considered a major contributor to superior writing.

7. Procedures and Materials Subjects/Participants: I. One eighty students being the population of the Laptop classrooms II. Another One eighty representing the non-laptop classrooms III. Teachers representing the two different classrooms, and three hundred parents, (indiscriminately chosen irrespective of their academic background, race and age) Instrumentation: Two separate observation measures: I. The School Observation Measure (SOM) II. The Survey of Computer Use (SCU)

8. Procedures: • Classroom Observation • Writing performance • Interviews • Surveys

9. Data Analysis Procedures: (SPSS) for Window for analysis of the quantitative survey The mean performance of the essay scores for Laptop students and control students will be analyzed via one-way multivariate analysis of variance MANOVA. ANCOVA- to determine where there is a difference between two sample classes: Laptop and non-laptop classrooms.

10. Conclusion This evaluation in the long run would have provided the stakeholders with a reliable information that would motivate either the progress, improvement upon of the Laptop program or the extension of the initiative to other schools in the region, or even its total cancellation/abandonment where neither effectiveness is verified nor costs justified by productivity.