Pennsylvania setting e-learning standard

In its third year of existence, Pennsylvania's Classrooms for the Future program has succeeded in increasing the learning capabilities of hundreds of school districts.

The program provides laptops, high-speed Internet access and software for high school English, social studies, math and science classes. On top of the infrastructure, Classrooms for the Future provides professional development that helps both teachers and students get the most out of the technology.

An evaluation of the program done by a third-party group found:

• Teachers spent significantly less time lecturing and more time working with small groups of students, and interacting with individual students.
• Teachers increasingly engaged students in activities requiring higher-order thinking, and there were significant increases in the use of project- or problem-based learning.
• A significant shift in the nature of assignments given to students, moving away from worksheets and towards "real-world," hands-on products.
• Teachers' attitudes changed, reflecting increased value for technologies in the learning process, increases in effort and hours, and increased levels of preparation to teach their subjects well. Many noted a renewed enthusiasm for teaching.

As of this year, Classrooms for the Future will reach students 543 high schools and provide 140,000 laptops to be used by almost 500,000 students.

Classrooms for the Future works in coordination with the Educational Technology Fund  (E-Fund) -- an initiative to aid school districts in the state of Pennsylvania to obtain better quality broadband access and service.

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