Some Aussie High Schools Moving To Two Devices Per Child

sholto writes "One laptop per child is so last year. Private secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia are in discussions to upgrade their wireless networks so they can handle the strain of supporting a two-to-one ratio — a laptop and tablet for every student."

Re:How does this aid in education

[cappp]

Thing is, there's plenty of evidance that the wired-classroom really isn't all that great. Back in 2007 the NYTimes [nytimes.com] did a report on schools phasing computers back out of the classroom

After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none,” said Mark Lawson, the school board president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York State to experiment with putting technology directly into students’ hands. “The teachers were telling us when there’s a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a distraction to the educational process.”

A research paper [nber.org] noted that

we also demonstrate that the introduction of home computer technology is associated with modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student math and reading test scores. Further evidence suggests that providing universal access to home computers and high-speed internet access would broaden, rather than narrow, math and reading achievement gaps.

A further NYTimes article [nytimes.com] noted that

Ofer Malamud, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago, is the co-author of a study that investigated educational outcomes after low-income families received vouchers to help them buy computers. “We found a negative effect on academic achievement,” he said. “I was surprised, but as we presented our findings at various seminars, people in the audience said they weren’t surprised, given their own experiences with their school-age children.”

Professors are also banning laptops [washingtonpost.com] from their classes. All in all there doesn't seem to be any actual evidance that kids benefit from the use of laptops et al in class. That's not saying they don't benefit from the use of technology in the learning process, but the use of individual laptops and Ipads and all that has so far been shown to be somewhat counter-productive.