CULLMAN — Cullman High School students accustomed to receiving a school-issued laptop could be in for a surprise when the upcoming fall semester begins.

City school officials are making some changes to the ongoing 1:1 laptop initiative, which has provided students with laptop computers since 2006.

The most notable course correction set to take effect this year is that high school students will no longer be issued a laptop to keep and take home.

Instead, laptops will be kept in classrooms for teachers and students to use on campus.

The changes to the plan were spurred by a sweeping shift in the local digital demographics, Cullman City Schools Superintendent Dr. Jan Harris said.

According to a recent poll, more than 85 percent of students use a personal computer — as opposed to their school-issued laptop — when they are at home. Exact statistics on how that average has changed are unavailable, though only 61 percent of students reported using the Internet to complete their assignments in 2006.

“When we started this initiative five years ago, it was a different landscape,” Harris said. “At the time, children didn’t have access to computers at home, and we wanted to provide that access ... The need that was there five years ago is no longer there.”

By keeping laptops on campus, city schools technology director Alan Pass said it should solve one of the chief concerns voiced by teachers: That not all students have a laptop in class, due to damaged units or other reasons.

With the laptops kept at the school, students are guaranteed to have an available unit when one is needed, Pass said.

“It puts an additional burden on the teacher if not all students have a laptop,” Pass said. “When a teacher plans a block of instruction that requires the use of laptop computers, it is essential that every student have an operational laptop ... We believe we can only improve this by placing laptops in classroom sets.”

Pass noted an issue in the early stages of the initiative where constant repairs were required to fix motherboard problems in a line of laptops sent home with students. Those same units are now used in a classroom-only setting in city elementary schools, and the repair issues have subsided.

“If you’re a person who understands risk analysis, you have to look at how much exposure those laptops could have been getting outside of the intended use,” he said. “Now, we haven’t had to replace, maybe, 10 motherboards in two years. Reducing exposure to potential damage has significantly improved.”



The digital divide

Harris said provisions are already being made to address the “digital divide” that could arise between students who do and do not have a computer and Internet at home.

One idea being considered is opening an afternoon and weekend study hall, where laptops will be available to students.

“We don’t want to lose our focus on that 15 percent of students who don’t have a computer, or Internet, at home,” Harris said. “So, we’re going to try to open things up in the afternoon and on Saturdays. We’ll also have a teacher there, available to help students as-needed.”

At a recent discussion on the topic, school board member Suzanne Harbin asked if students who still need a laptop could just be allowed to take one home.

Harris said that option remains a possibility.

“We will look at that on a case-by-case basis,” she said. “We think we could do better with a teacher there [via an on-campus study hall], but we could try letting students check them out, like books from the library.”

To ease the transition in 2010-2011, Cullman High School principal Sheila Phillips said an additional computer kiosk could be installed in the cafeteria to allow students easy access to turn in assignments digitally. There is already one access station in the library.

“We’re looking at that, so students could just turn in a project quickly that way,” Phillips said.

A pilot program to allow some students who already own a personal laptop to use it at school is also in the works.

“We had over 60 percent of students say they would want to bring their own laptops,” Pass said. “So, there is some interest in that.”

School board president Brenda Howell said she believes annual surveys of students and teachers — which is where the information used to make this decision was culled from — are the best indicators of how to adjust the plan.

“That’s the only way to keep up with the rapid pace things are changing,” she said. “That’s what is so great about the yearly evaluations, where you hear from everybody.”

Suzanne Harbin, board vice-president, said she is in favor of the proposed changes to the initiative.

“I think it’s a move in the right direction,” she said.

As the next few years progress, Harris said even more changes could be in store for the laptop initiative, as the project adapts to the changing needs of the community.

“When we started this, we were like Lewis and Clark in new territory, and five years later, we are still in new territory,” she said. “We just have to keep our eyes open and listen to the students and the parents. We do feel good about this moving forward.”



No major changes at middle school

Though changes are on the way at Cullman High School, a recent meeting about the future of the laptop initiative at Cullman Middle School had a different result.

“The teachers, parents and students all wanted to keep things essentially as they are,” Harris said.

Students will continue to be issued laptops to keep for the year, and the only change expected is a swap in the model of laptops used by the seventh and eighth grade students.

“We’re going to make a change from the smaller keyboard laptops to models with a larger keyboard,” Harris said. “We have existing computers already, and we’re just going to swap that around.”

Harris said the different approaches at the middle and high school levels are  a testament to the inherent shifts when dealing with a student-focused technology project.

“I think the important thing in any endeavor is to seek continual improvement, reflect the input of people involved and just try to do things better,” she said.



‰ Trent Moore can be reached by e-mail at trentm@cullmantimes.com, or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 225.