San Jose, CA — In the past, nearly 40 percent of those who enrolled at Gunderson High School as freshmen did not remain to graduate. This high level of mobility, coupled with low parental involvement, did not bode well for Gunderson’s student body. But now, students from all across the city are vying to be admitted to the school, and parents and families are eager to participate in their children’s education. The reason? At the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year, each of Gunderson’s 1100 students received an iBook laptop computer as part of the school’s new 1 to 1 learning program.
Gunderson’s student body is made up of a diverse socioeconomic mix, with approximately 80 percent minorities and nearly 25 percent English Language Learners. Yet the school has been at the forefront of technology integration for many years. A telecommunication magnet school since 1996, Gunderson has maintained seven computer labs in which students have learned the skills needed to succeed in a high-tech world.
Now, Gunderson has joined with San Jose’s Steinbeck Middle School and Allen Elementary School in a unique program that eventually will see the distribution of wireless iBook laptops to all students in the three schools. Thus, these Silicon Valley residents will have the advantage of technology-based learning from the first moment they set foot in a classroom.
”With our 1 to 1 learning program and the iBook laptops, we no longer have the scheduling conflicts we had encountered with our computer labs,” says Gunderson Principal Demerris Brooks. “The laptops are always ready to go, and there are no limits on learning. And, because we’re wireless throughout the school, students can access the Internet anytime, anywhere they happen to be.”
1 to 1 Learning Addresses Multiple Challenges
Gunderson received the funding for its laptop program through a Quality Zone Academy Bond (QZAB) grant. The QZAB awards are taxable federal bonds that are awarded to local governments to improve public schools that qualify due to the diversity and socioeconomic level of their student population.
With our 1 to 1 learning program and the iBook laptops, we no longer have the scheduling conflicts we had encountered with our computer labs.
— Demerris Brooks, Principal, Gunderson High School
Brooks says Gunderson’s administration felt that distribution of the laptops needed to be pervasive. They believed that giving all students their own computers simultaneously would be more effective than a phased rollout, and would help with several of the school’s biggest challenges.
Says Brooks, “Motivation, student performance, and student discipline have been issues here in the past. We have been in the IIUSP [Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program] process for the past four years, so part of the reason to implement the 1 to 1 learning program at Gunderson was to combat this. Our IT person, Cliff Herlth, was really an advocate for 1 to 1 learning. He said, “If we’re going to do this, we have to get the iBook laptops into all of the kids’ hands at the same time, and see what they can do.”
”He was absolutely right,” adds Brooks. “Our students now have such pride of ownership. We provided special ‘sleeves’ that could be put into students’ backpacks to carry the laptops. But most of them prefer to carry the laptop sleeves by themselves, so people can see their computers. You can tell the iBooks are a real badge of honor.”
Developing Critical Thinking Skills
Collette Kirker, chair of Gunderson’s English department, says she noticed an immediate boost in student engagement once students received their iBook laptops. In her classes, students are now eager to do Internet research to support their literature studies, then make presentations on their findings.
