The Dell Mini-note laptop project is an extension of the TAC  1-1 learning project team during the 2007-2008 school year. Last April, the 1-1 learning project studied the effects of having one laptop per child in two out of three science 8th grade classrooms at Brown Middle School.  Two vendors (Apple and HP) graciously loaned enough laptops for each child to use during science class for 7 weeks. One classroom used MacBooks and the other used HP tablets.  The student outcomes of this pilot were very positive.  Students benefited in the following ways:

• Improved student performance
• Differentiated instruction 
• Improved student focus
• Higher level of student understanding and motivation
• Enhanced student-teacher communication
• Improving technology skills

(See attachment for full report to NPS? School Committee)

The third 8th grade science classroom had hoped to try out one of the ultraportables, but the TAC? project team could not find a vendor to land the laptops.   However, this fall NPS got a commitment from Dell Computer to loan us 33 Dell Mini-Notes to finish our pilot from last spring. These "net ware" computers will be used to support the same astonomy unit as last spring. We plan to do another assessment of the efficacy of using these "net ware" computers.  We will be working with Dell and a company called Stoneware that will help us set up a Web OS environment called cloud computing.  

Stay tuned for further updates.