Learning Digitized: 500 Netbooks Coming to School District

To become better and broader learners, should students be completing their lessons with a click of the mouse or a turn of the page? 

Time will tell, but Mark Gleichauf, ' director of teaching and learning, is waging that a mixture of electronic tools and print materials will create the proper scholastic solution. 

That’s why he recently allotted nearly $160,000 in textbook funds to purchase 500 Hewlett Packard netbook computers for use in Lakewood’s elementary and middle schools and high school. 

Twenty-one teachers were chosen throughout the district and underwent weeks of professional development training in order to incorporate the electronic devices into their respective curriculums. 

From language arts and math to science and social studies courses, teachers will leverage netbooks not only to help students become better learners, but also to make them more proficient with some of the newest tools of the digital age. 

Additionally, the netbooks will try to address a new common core of teaching that will become the norm by the 2014-15 school year per the mandate of the Ohio Department of Education, he said. 

The state education department calls it the “Four C’s” which stand for communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity. 

The Four C’s, which will increase the complexity and rigor of the courses listed above, will be infused with the netbook curriculums to see what advantages they may present over one-dimensional print materials. 

In the years ahead, Gleichauf hinted at the possibility that digital materials will be preferred over print options in the district, but for now, it’s simply a matter of time, money and results that will emerge from the netbook program. 

“This is kind of like a research and development project too,” he said. “We’ll deploy the netbooks to teachers between Oct. 31 and Nov. 4 and we’ll see what kinds of learning opportunities they create with the devices in the months and years ahead.”