In spite of lack of funding and issues of security, some schools are forging ahead with attempts to bring information technology right into students' laps. Anne Byrne looks at the efforts of those schools, across all areas of the curriculum, from special needs to the Leaving Cert Applied.
A laptop for every second-level student is a desirable necessity, a wonderful educational aid, an unnecessary distraction, a luxury or even a nightmare, depending on which side of the technological divide you stand.
On the plus side, laptops can help students overcome reading and writing difficulties, connect to the internet, improve research and presentation skills, facilitate project work and eliminate the need for a dedicated computer lab. On the minus side, they are expensive, targets for thieves, heavy to lug in and out of school in addition to a bag-load of books and liable to damage or malfunction;textbooks for the Junior and Leaving Cert are not available in electronic format and specific curricular supports are only in development.
Paddy Bates, chairman of the Computer Education Society of Ireland, says there's a perception that lots of money has been pumped into IT in schools, but some announcements, such as the £81 million announced by Minister Martin in 1999, have been made twice or three times. Somewhat dryly, he notes that schools are still collecting Tesco tokens.
The National Centre for Technology in Education, through its Schools Integration Project (SIP) programme, is supporting a laptop experiment with Apple iBooks for Leaving Cert Applied students in a school in Nenagh, Co Tipperary.
Other laptop pioneers include Coláiste Chiaráin, Co Limerick, which has struck a partnership with Dell, and Pobalscoil Neasan in Bal-doyle, Dublin, one of 31 schools to provided with laptops by the Department of Education in a pilot scheme aimed at students with dyslexia.
We are far from the situation in the US, where initiatives such as Anywhere Anytime Learning, a partnership sponsored by Toshiba and Microsoft, has put laptops into substantial numbers of schools. This tardiness may be a good thing, however, as it allows us to learn from the US experience, which has been somewhat mixed (see panel).
Coláiste Chiaráin, Croom, is a small co-educational community college about 18 kilometres from Limerick city. It's an unlikely place to find that all first- and second-year students have their own laptops. Enthusiastic principal Noel Malone says the experience has been "incredibly positive".
Officially launched in February this year, the three-year project actually got under way last year. "I modelled the project on Anywhere Anytime in the US. No school in Ireland has gone down this road before. This is a pioneering flagship project. We got 100 per cent support from parents, who contribute up to €1,000. The computers cost about €2,500."
There is a full warranty for the three years of the project, during which time the laptops remain the property of the school. Afterwards, they revert to the ownership of the parents.
The school has a wireless hub and students can use their laptops in any room, from labs to woodwork rooms to study halls. Students store their work in personal files. "If you look at evening study, half the students are using laptops for projects and research. We will evaluate at the end of the academic year," says Malone.
Students can be monitored and, so far, there have been no problems with inappropriate internet sites, theft or damage to laptops.
Parents have been given special training so that when students take the laptops home in the evenings, the whole family can benefit. While there is very little material available, in electronic format, to support the curriculum, Malone hopes to put together a DVD or CD in each subject area: "the 'greatest hits' of the school in terms of what we have done".
"So far, we have had no direct support from the Department of Education. It is critical that we get one whole-time equivalent teacher to co-ordinate this project. At the moment, we're doing it very much against the odds," he says. However, he says he believes "laptops hold the keys to a brilliant future" so he is determined to battle on.
In St Joseph's CBS, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, another laptop enthusiast, acting principal Tim Brophy, has used Apple iBooks successfully with Leaving Cert Applied students. Attrition is a major problem with LCA classes, but last year all 15 students completed the LCA, and Brophy puts this down to the laptops.
AGAIN, a wireless connection allows students to access the internet and the school server from anywhere in the building. Again, none of the computers were lost and damaged. Night classes were held for parents and, out of a potential 28, 20 attended every night of the course.
The LCA is predominantly task-oriented, with seven tasks to be completed over two years. The iBooks were ideally suited to help with this work. The computers were purchased through the SIP and have been handed on to the next LCA class.
Brophy began to expand the experiment with first-years in 2000, encouraging them to purchase laptops. This has yet to be evaluated, but last year's intake were not asked to participate in any similar project.
In Dublin's Pobal Scoil Neasaín, principal Pat Seivers had hoped to use laptops for students with reading and writing difficulties. They would have helped students remain in class rather than be ghettoised in special rooms, he says.
The school is one of the 31 schools selected to engage in a Department of Education pilot, which Seivers says has a rather unhappy history. Never officially launched, with no guidance, many schools were simply afraid to spend the money. Seivers took the plunge but, unfortunately, the laptops were stolen two months ago. The school has reviewed its security and hopes the machines will be replaced soon by the Department of Education, which underwrites the school for insurance purposes.
This experience underlines the fears expressed by National Parents Council (Post-Primary) chairwoman Marie Danaswami. Like most parents, she would be concerned about security for students going to and from school carrying laptops.
She also mentions the expense for parents, many of whom could not afford the outlay. How many times would it have to be repaired, she asks. She notes the weight of school bags are already a problem.
In an ideal world, every child should have a laptop, but in this world, it would place a huge burden on many parents, she says.
