Lessons Learned from the Illinois 1:1 Laptop Technology Immersion Pilot Project


The State of Illinois, through the leadership of Lt. Governor Pat Quinn, has sponsored a 1:1 pilot program 1:1 laptop initiative with fifteen schools throughout the state. The first year of the pilot, called the Technology Immersion Pilot Project (TIPP) is winding down. The project involves every sixth grader in the fifteen schools receiving a laptop on loan to use. Plans are for them to use their laptops in 7th grade next school year and 8th grade the following year. Meanwhile, each of the students in the succeeding grades will receive a laptop, until all students in grades 6-8 have one to use.

A “TIPP Community Meeting” was held recently to gather information on the progress of the program from teachers, administrators and tech people from the fifteen schools, as well as with various state and district people involved in the pilot.

Some of the lessons learned that I heard during discussions involved the themes of leadership, tech infrastructure, professional development and tech support. All four are essential components!!

1) Leadership: The leaders provide the vision and the will to create, plan, develop and sustain the program. Leadership in this program comes from the state, district, and school (including principals and key members of staff) levels. Leadership involves everything from inspiring others to overcoming shortfalls in equipment, and much, much more.

2) Tech Infrastructure: Without having enough electricity, servers, routers, bandwidth, printers, projectors, laptops, carts (for both projectors and for recharging the laptops), etc. etc, the program would be dead in the water from the beginning.

3) Professional Development (PD): Enough lead-time (a minimum of 6 months) is necessary for teachers to receive laptops, other equipment (such as projectors) and software applications before the time students receive computers. PD not only should include how to physically use the new equipment and applications, but also should include ways to transform learning. PD should mainly revolve around the issue of student learning which is the reason why the program exists. PD should not be a rare or brief event, but should be developed into an ongoing and self-sustainable system and culture of learning for teachers.

4) Tech Support: Without adequate tech, things stop working and the program grinds to a dead stop. Another lesson is that tech support people should get the laptops before the teachers do so that they can make sure all the application, hardware, and network issues are resolved)

As far as assessing impact on learning by the pilot program, since most of the students have had the laptops for less than five months an evaluation of TIPP is too early yet. The vast majority of observations made by teachers and administrators indicate that students are more motivated, on task and do better work than before the laptops were given out. As one student told me, “Now learning is interesting.”