Maine’s Laptops Found to Aid Writing Scores

By The Associated Press

Maine’s program to give every 7th and 8th grade student a laptop computer is leading to better writing. 4real!

Despite creating a language all their own using e-mail and text messages, students are still learning standard English, and their writing scores improved on the state’s standardized writing test in 2005 compared with 2000, before laptop computers were distributed, according to a new study.

Students’ writing skills were higher whether they took the online or pen-and-paper version of the state test. Yet students who said they use laptops in more phases of the writing process scored significantly higher than students who use them in fewer phases or not at all, the study found.

“If you concentrate on whether laptops are helping kids achieve 21st-century skills, this demonstrates that it’s happening in writing,” said David L. Silvernail, the director of the Maine Education Policy Research Institute at the University of Southern Maine in Gorham.

The study by Mr. Silvernail and Aaron K. Gritter is the first in a series that aims to evaluate the impact on student achievement and learning of Maine’s first-in-the-nation laptop program. Next year, the researchers plan to release a study on the laptops’ impact in math instruction.

The laptop program, which seeks to eliminate the “digital divide” between poor and wealthy students, kicked off with distribution of more than 30,000 computers to 7th and 8th graders in public schools in 2002 and 2003. Their teachers also received laptops, as well as training in how to use them in instruction.

The study focused on 8th graders’ scores on the Maine Educational Assessment to see if the standardized-test results backed up perceptions among students and teachers that laptops have led to better writing skills.

State Commissioner of Education Sue Gendron said it represents the first concrete evidence backing up what most educators already feel: The laptop program, known as the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, is working.

“It’s about enhancing learning opportunities, and the evidence and the data we’ve received in this report substantiates that this is the right approach,” she said.

Honing Language Skills

Maine Education Assessment scores show that 49 percent of 8th graders were proficient in writing in 2005, compared with 29 percent in 2000.

The gain wasn’t just a function of taking the writing portion of the test using a computer and keyboard. Students who used pen and paper and students who used a computer keyboard showed similar improvement on the test, Mr. Silvernail said.

For the same period, math scores were unchanged, and science scores grew by 2 points, while reading scores actually dropped by 3 points, Mr. Silvernail said. Writing showed the biggest improvement—7 points, from 530 to 537, he said.

Mr. Silvernail said it is unrealistic to expect big increases on standardized tests tied to laptops, but writing is the exception.

Laptops make it easier for students to edit their copy and make changes, he said. And it was important, he said, that those skills translated when the test was taken with pen and paper.
Students who, in a survey that accompanied the 2005 test, reported using their laptops in all phases of the writing process were twice as likely to have met proficiency than students who said they did not use their laptops in writing, the study found.

Virginia Rebar, the principal of Piscataquis Community Middle School, was not surprised by the results, because language skills are being developed every time the computers are used, in social studies and other subjects beyond language arts.

“It’s just a lot easier to edit, to self-critique. Our teachers engage students in a lot of peer-editing. Not only are they helping themselves, but they’re helping each other as they get to their final projects,” she said.