High-tech Education: Is it Worth the Price?

I recently read an article about technology in schools that raises questions when it comes to the use of technology in curriculum today. "Maintaining High-tech Education Comes at a High Price for Schools" discusses the Farmington school district in New Mexico giving personal laptops to each student for both school and home use. Although this sounds like an advantage to both students and teachers, the idea is definitely having drawbacks. The program costed $4 million to start and $2 million annually to fund all 5,300 laptops. Although a program has been created to fund and maintain these laptops, student debt is already piling up. About $150,000 to be exact. All students are required to pay an insurance premium for their laptop. When a laptop is damaged, each case is assesed at the discretion of the school's principle as to whether the insurance company, student, or both pay for the laptop's repairs."Last year, the funds ranged from about $10 for a broken or lost adapter to about $100 for a hard drive, or around $900 for full repair or replacement."

However, through this financal burden, there are many steps that can be taken to make this high-tech education worth the price. First and foremost, in this district only 20% of laptops were damanged or had problems (and in specific schools even as low as 10%). Although this averages around 1,000 laptops, it still shows the majority of the students treat their laptop appropriately. Also, many of the problems occuring on the laptops can be prevented. It is believed if students are required to use these laptops more often in class, they will be encouraged to keep their laptop in better condition.

I believe high-tech education is the way to go in our future classrooms. Although it is obvious that these high-tech tools come at a high-tech price, they are definitely worth the trouble in the end. Students have endless resources and possibilites that could not be implemented in the classroom without laptops. As a future teacher, I am looking forward to where technology will take my classroom. It will enable me to create interactive projects in both the classroom and at home to broaden my student's learning beyond a typical textbook.

Resource 19. (nd). Retrieved from http://archive.laptopmag.com/Features/Laptops-in-Schools.ht.
Kane, J. (August 29, 2011). Maintaining High-tech Education Comes at a High Price for Schools. Ed Weekly. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/08/29/mct_nmhightechcost.html.