Portable computers for teachers

A government report, from a project where teachers were given a portable computer show teacher's confidence with IT improved remarkably (TES 1997).

 If you want teachers to make effective use of IT give them a laptop. This is the conclusion, succinctly put, of an independent and long-term study of over a thousand teachers who were given a free multimedia laptop computer last year.

The hand-out was part of the DfEE Multimedia Portables pilot project, now in its second year and managed by the National Council for Educational Technology. Two teachers in each of 575 schools were given one of four laptop systems, each different to enable them to be compared. The scheme is estimated to have cost around £5 million.

A team of evaluators, led by Professor Colin Harrison at the University of Nottingham, measured the teachers’ progress with interviews and detailed questionnaires. Their highly positive report, released this week, holds important messages about ways to improve teachers use of IT.

For example, they measured the teachers’ confidence and competence at the start of the project finding that 34% rated themselves low in confidence, with a third rating themselves as high and a third middling. Only two terms later, 77% were rating themselves as high.

Similarly, 45% initially rated their competence as low, but the figure soon dropped to 5% with only one teacher using the lowest score possible. As a result 63% felt highly competent, a substantial increase from an initial 20%.

The authors argue that these overall figures underestimate some aspects of the teachers’ gains. They add that one of the key reasons for teacher’s success was that they had ‘ownership’ and exclusive use of a machine over a long period. Interviews suggested that this encouraged them to invest time in learning the systems. Another key reason was the portability of the machines. Not only did this lead to many extra hours of use at home, but also when teachers needed support they could take the machine to a colleague.

Nearly all of the teachers made successful use of word processing, printers and the bundle of CD-Roms included with the machines - the figures here are all in the hot nineties. Overall the top three software packages were Microsoft Works, Microsoft Publisher and the World Book Encyclopaedia. After that, the teachers used more diverse applications according to their needs – different subject teachers had their CD-Rom favourites while spreadsheet work, desktop publishing, and drawing all scored still high figures of between 55-70% successful use.

As all the machines were Internet-ready they could plug into a telephone point and connect up. Some 76% of the teachers used the Web, 62% used email and intriguingly, one teacher reported forming a ‘close personal relationship’ through email. Uses for more meaningful school affairs included visiting education chat areas, finding work for lessons, and letting colleagues and pupils have a go too. Some 50% used the Internet to download software - a fairly high figure for what is arguably a high level activity.

While teachers’ use of the Internet increased throughout the project, some had problems in connecting, using passwords and getting technical support. The subscribers to AOL, a major Internet service provider, got up and running with less hitches. But some problems were less technical - like finding a phone point or getting one installed and some head teachers had promised to install a phone point but these never appeared.

Compared with the more established applications, it took longer for teachers become accustomed, or see the value of the new medium. Secondary school teachers mostly fared better than primary colleagues in using the Internet for teaching - hinting strongly that some schools and teachers are not themselves ‘Internet-ready’.

While support is often said to be THE factor in making progress, much of the support teachers received was informal and came from staff or project partners on site. Secondary school teachers seem to have more colleagues to turn to. In some cases, the support was negative with heads ‘reneging’ on initial offers to provide release, phone lines or the budget to run them. The report make a special point of the fact that it was teacher’s confidence that fed their activity while their attitude and motivation were greater factors in them achieving highly.

Of the four different machines, leading brand Toshiba and the ‘C1/Leo’, a budget brand, scored more use than the Akhter and Macintosh portables. While these differences are clouded by each machine being given to different subject areas, Andre Wagstaff manager of the project at NCET, explains that the machines were quite differently specced. In particular, the Mac’s requested by some teachers had no CD-Rom drive as no suitable drive was available at the time. The Akhter had swappable floppy and CD-Rom drives, the Toshiba had plug in drives while the ‘C1/Leo’ had all its drives conveniently built-in.

Any reading of the Nottingham report shows the project as very successful – leading many to wonder when the DfEE is going to give away some more. Some would say that the National lottery odds are better, as both pilot project were funded by end of financial year money. However NCET’s Andre Wagstaff says that there now good grounds for local action, "We now have a measured and sober report that gives heads, governors and IT co-ordinators advice on the sorts of machines they might provide to achieve tangible benefits".

A summary of the report will be available soon. This, and a project by-product - the evaluation reports of 450 current CD-Rom titles, appears at the government's web site.

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