Technology in LI classrooms: Worth the cost?

ESL students at a Copiague elementary school use iPod Touch devices to learn the alphabet.

Second-graders write math answers with their fingers on interactive whiteboards and 6-year-olds in gym class wave Wii remotes in a simulated baseball game as software tracks their physical progress.

Every classroom in the district's Great Neck Road Elementary has high-speed wireless Internet and network connectivity.

Copiague, a midsized district in a working-class community on Suffolk County's South Shore, reflects a transformation in the way education is being delivered on Long Island, a movement many educators say is gaining momentum.

Educators predict that electronic textbooks, cellphones in classrooms, podcasts, handheld remotes and distance learning - some already being used - will become routine. Many Long Island districts now offer homework online and worldwide video conferencing, and a handful have placed iPads in the hands of grade-school students.

"If you don't have technology, you are not connected, and if you are not connected, you are at a disadvantage in this day and age," said Todd Harris, director of technology for the Copiague district, which has more than 4,600 students.

A common sight at schools

The integration of technology is happening at schools all over the Island at every grade level - despite concerns about costs during a period of diminished financial resources, tight budgets, and questions about whether new technology leads to sustained academic improvement. Some educators say that not knowing which technologies will be relevant in the future adds to the uncertainty.

"Technology is changing so rapidly that when you make investments in very difficult times such as these we are in, it is a very, very difficult choice because you just don't know what is around the corner," said Peter Daly, assistant superintendent for business in the Babylon school district.

But many local districts are plunging ahead.

In Westhampton Beach, students in grades 4-12 and all instructional staff receive a MacBook laptop computer. Great Neck students use iPods and Flip cameras, post blogs, and broadcast to the community from their own television studio. Rockville Centre offers online International Baccalaureate courses to high-schoolers. West Babylon, Deer Park, Amityville, Roslyn, Garden City and Mineola are among districts where students - some starting in first grade - are using iPads. Even tiny Fishers Island, which has less than 70 students overall, issued laptops to its high school students and has plans to expand the program to the middle school.

Virtually all of the more than 50 districts responding to a Newsday survey said they have interactive whiteboards to teach everything from multiplication tables to American history.

An expensive investment

Long Island districts spent more than $67 million over the past three years on purchases or leases of computer hardware that were eligible for state reimbursement, according to the State Education Department. Districts also can acquire hardware and software at a discount by entering into purchase or lease agreements through BOCES, obtaining grants or buying technology with their own funds. Districts also receive state aid for hardware and software purchases based on a complex per-student formula; Copiague, for example, received about $112,000 in 2009-10.

Long Island school districts spent more than $35 million on technology through the three BOCES agencies in 2009-10 and schools have committed to spending more than $29 million so far this year. But experts say technology can become outdated in as little as three years, and Copiague's Harris estimated the average district would need to spend about $165,000 per school per year for hardware to keep up on that cycle.

Some districts facing further declines in state aid might have to cut back.

Sayville's director of technology, William Seus, said funding has been trimmed three years in a row, to $100,000 from $600,000, impeding the upgrade and replacement of older classroom equipment.

"We are trying not to impact instruction," Seus said. "We don't want to lose teachers. We don't want to increase class sizes, and so we have to take it from non-mandated items and, unfortunately, technology is one of those things."

Technology purchases in general often represent a fraction of a district's multimillion-dollar budget - less than one-half of 1 percent, Harris said.

Still, he said, "While it is politically hard to say a district is cutting jobs but still buying hardware, those districts that cut hardware purchases will be unable to maintain a working infrastructure and have to pay much more in subsequent years to catch up."

Are the tools truly helpful?

Some educators say there is a different kind of cost associated with falling behind. When that happens, "we are disabling our children who are used to constant and continuous access to information, speed and opportunities to think, explore and inquire," said Glen Cove assistant superintendent Shari L. Camhi.

"The reality is students are much more into the media than we are," said William Johnson, Rockville Centre superintendent. "It is a matter of catching up to what our kids are already familiar with - the social networks, phones, iPads, Skyping. All of this stuff is so much a part of their life, it is for us to make it meaningful."

Britanni Gordon, 14, of Copiague Middle School, said an interactive whiteboard "adds more interest to whatever you are learning." She was examining a cell in biology class projected from the microscope to the classroom whiteboard.

"When we were in elementary school, they used it only sometimes," she said. "They're now using it a lot more."

However, the case for investing in classroom technology lacks one critical element, detractors say: measurable proof that it improves academic performance.

In Uniondale, ESL students in third grade are using iPods to improve language skills. Teacher Samantha Lacey says practice assessment scores rose 56 percent two months after the class began using the devices in October.

The students, she said, "are so excited to come to school."

The effects might not last, said Hofstra University education professor Alan Singer.

"You introduce a new technology and you get an immediate bump because students and teachers will be interested in the new technology," Singer said. "But very quickly the technology will become old hat and there will be a return to normal performance. Kids do like the iPads and the Smart Boards, and teachers become engaged, but very quickly it becomes what we do and we lose the effect."

Singer also cited the rapid pace of technological change in urging districts to be cautious instead of rushing into purchases.

"What happens is everyone wants to run out and become the first one so they can advertise it," he said. "Instead, you want to be the last one. You want to be able to say this technology provides a genuine improvement."

Singer's Hofstra colleague, Associate Professor of Educational Technology Roberto Joseph, said the value of new technology lies in how it is employed.

"In certain places, it is being used for higher-order thinking skills," he said. But he said he has seen technology used merely for drills and practice tasks in some underperforming districts.

Growing trend unlikely a fad

Despite those reservations, Gary Bixhorn, chief operating officer of Eastern Suffolk BOCES, said he expects more change, adding that districts can save money by investing in technology.

For example, Eastern Suffolk BOCES is testing a Mandarin Chinese pilot program with a handful of districts, where students learn from a teacher who instructs from China through an interactive online connection in which students can ask questions verbally or by e-mail in real time.

"It is a matter of feeling comfortable that the potential can be realized and that there aren't any hidden or unknown problems," Bixhorn said. "The districts that are out front on this are providing a real benefit to some of the districts that are just proceeding a little more cautiously . . . to see if the educational benefit is there as some believe it is."

Leah Buchman, a junior at South Side High School in Rockville Centre taking the International Baccalaureate course online, said she appreciates that her district is forward-thinking when it comes to technology but understands there is a divide.

"You can't make somebody completely adapt to the ways of a 13-year-old constantly on a cell phone or using an iPod," she said. "I think the school has done a good job and they know that it is in our future."

With TC McCarthy