Floydada, TX — On an October night in 2004, the Floydada police station was flooded with calls about mysterious, glowing lights in the town’s junior high school parking lot. But Floydada Independent School District Superintendent Jerry Vaughn confirmed that the apparition did not signal an alien landing. Instead, scores of students were eagerly accessing the school’s wireless network on the iBook laptops they’d received the day before. Now that 22 middle schools have implemented the Texas Technology Immersion Pilot (TxTIP), state legislators, researchers, and residents are hoping the students’ new laptops will spell out-of-this-world academic success.

TxTIP was the result of state legislation passed in 2003 to explore the impact of technology immersion on academic achievement. Terms of the legislation called for the distribution of “a wireless mobile computing device and integrating software, online resources, and other appropriate learning technologies” to students and teachers in Texas middle schools. While this was an exciting concept, a state budget shortfall initially stalled the initiative.

The inclusion of Apple Professional Development was a real significant turning-point. Some of those who were the most reluctant to embrace the project are now its most ardent supporters.

— Anita Givens, Director, Educational Technology, Texas Education Agency

Relief came in the form of a Title II-D federal grant awarded to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to provide competitive funds to high-needs, K-12 schools. Additional Title II monies from an Evaluating State Education Technology Programs (ESETP) grant enabled research that would provide evidence of the effectiveness of educational technology in the schools. Eventually, 25 middle schools, two high schools, and two elementary schools in Texas — primarily in rural areas with low socioeconomic populations — were selected as immersed sites for TxTIP participation. Twenty-two of those middle schools, as well as an additional 22 “control” middle schools, also were selected for evaluation. Soon after, the specifics of the initiative began to take shape.