Laptops for High-Risk Students: Empowerment and Personalization in a Standards-Based Learning Environment

Abstract Cooltown@Roosevelt , an instructional technology program implemented in 2002-04 based on a five-year collaboration involving Vancouver School District in Washington state, Hewlett-Packard Corporation, and Comcast, provided high-risk students in six elementary classrooms with laptops and wireless internet access at school and at home. A two-year mixed-method study of the effects of the infusion of technology on student achievement and attitude toward education found positive impact on classroom opportunities for individual inquiry, student responsibility, spontaneous collaboration, and technological skill acquisition. Cooltown students’ opportunities to engage in inquiry-oriented learning were greater than those of students at demographically matched control sites. Personalization of learning, a transformation desired by project developers, was obstructed by the homogenizing effects of efforts to monitor individual student progress toward state content standards.