Interesting Article.
Massachusetts Is Set to Require Laptop Use at Its Colleges
Oct. 17 (The Boston Globe/KRTBN)--Staking the future of college education on
computer literacy, Massachusetts officials are expected today to approve a $123
million plan to require all students at the University of Massachusetts and
other public colleges to buy and use their own laptops.
The initial three-year plan, which would require state funding, includes a $54
million proposal to discount the price of the computers and provide full and
partial vouchers for low-income students to purchase them. Another $27 million
would be used for training more faculty to teach with technology. The other $42
million would pay for facilities, equipment, and academic programs.
Massachusetts would be among the first states to require that college students
own computers. About 30 private schools, such as Dartmouth, already do, a fact
that state officials say puts students at public colleges at a disadvantage in
competing for jobs. Only a handful of large public campuses, such as the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, require students to use laptops.
"This is where education is heading, as well as everything humanity is doing
right now, ... into a computer-oriented existence," said Aaron Spencer, a member
of the Board of Higher Education, which will vote on the plan today.
The plan is striking for its unconditional embrace of technology when some
educational specialists are still studying how much computer ownership actually
affects education.
Spencer, the plan's chief architect, said the proposal grew out of concerns that
too few graduates of state colleges have the technological skills to fill tens
of thousands of business and high-tech job openings in Massachusetts.
He estimated that the state could cut the price of a good laptop computer to
about $1,200, which students would pay directly to the vendor. State officials
have been in talks with computer makers IBM, Compaq, Gateway, and Dell. Other
state officials pegged the price at $2, 000 per unit.
Jack Warner, vice chancellor of the Board of Higher Education, said that about
70 percent of students at four-year colleges now have their own computers and
that the proportion is smaller at community colleges.
Students who qualify for financial aid would likely qualify for a laptop
voucher, Warner said.
After the first three years, the plan would cost $61.8 million a year to
underwrite the purchase of 25,000 computers and give laptop vouchers to about
18,000 students.
Each state college would have an expanded staff to deal with computer problems,
and the plan would fund 60 new professorships in technology fields, as well as
new computer courses statewide.
Interest in the computer sciences has surged at public campuses, with the number
of students majoring in the subject increasing since 1995 by 106 percent at
UMass, 70 percent at other four-year public colleges, and 135 percent at
community colleges, Warner said.
Until now, states and colleges have hesitated to require laptop computer use
because of the potential costs, said Richard Katz, vice president of Educause, a
nonprofit group that advocates the use of technology in education.
Cort Boulanger, a spokesman for Governor Paul Cellucci's budget office, said
yesterday that state leaders had not decided whether public funds should go
toward laptops for college students. Before any requests are funded, state
officials would want the state's computer industry to offer "consultation, time,
and money" for the plan, Boulanger said. "We'd like to see this leveraged with
the private sector."
Industry is already involved in the proposal: The panel that crafted the plan
included officials from the Massachusetts Software and Internet Council and the
Corporation for Business, Work, and Learning, and the Massachusetts Technology
Collaborative. No computer companies had representatives on the task force.
Asked whether industry officials had a conflict of interest in helping to draft
a plan that could benefit computer and software makers, Spencer said: "I doubt
they could benefit financially. No one here would have an opportunity to profit
from the purchase of a computer."
Yet the plan does reflect the view that computers are becoming as important to
education as textbooks and notepads, a point that some specialists dispute.
Casey Green, a specialist in campus computing and a visiting scholar at the
Claremont Graduate University, said colleges too often rush into new computer
endeavors without ensuring that academic programs are improved.
"If you're mandating every student have a computer and all that is going on is
e-mail and there's not a vision for how computers are deployed in the
curriculum, what's the point?" he said. "Just to say, `We require every student
to have a computer,' when it's not aligned with institutional missions doesn't
make sense."
Philip Mahler, professor of mathematics at Middlesex Community College, said
computers have become a basic tool in college. But a simpler way to give all
students access to computers might be to increase the number of computers in
campus labs, he said.
"It's not clear to me that laptops are necessarily the best way," said Mahler,
who is president of the Massachusetts Community College Council, a faculty and
staff union.
Yet Mahler and others also see advantages: The plan would narrow the gap between
students who can and can't afford computers, and it might reduce the pressure on
colleges to expand and improve computer labs.
Most of all, the plan is being pitched as a way for UMass and state colleges to
help their students compete with graduates from private schools.
"You'd have to have your head in the sand not to realize that all of the private
colleges are dramatically ahead of us in terms of the role computers play in
education," Spencer said.
By Patrick Healy
-0-
To see more of The Boston Globe, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go
to boston.com |
