Ubiquitous computing in education – really?

The January, 2010 edition of the Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment is dedicated to research on U.S. 1:1 (or one-to-one) laptop programs, i.e. school programs that supply a laptop to each and every student and teacher in the school. It’s an interesting series of articles with a lot of data and information on a costly and hotly debated intervention. The articles cover three case studies of 1:1 programs, a review and response to critics of 1:1 programs, and a summary of research on 1:1 programs.
The most interesting article for me is Weston & Bain’s “The end of techno-critique: The naked truth about 1:1 laptop initiatives and educational change”. In the article the authors respond to critics of technology use in the classroom, primarily Larry Cuban, who has been one of the more vocal critics over the years. Essentially, the authors’ criticism focuses on highlighting the difference between the success of an intervention, ex. 1:1 laptop programs, and organizational change within educational institutions. In this, the argument is a familiar one – educational institutions are generally conservative institutions and change, when it happens, is slow. The authors suggest that criticisms of 1:1 laptop programs are really criticisms of educational institutions unwillingness to change to accommodate innovative practices. I think the authors make a very valid point.
One of the articles focuses on a topic that I’ve been increasingly interested in recently, “ubiquitous computing” in schools (Drayton, Falk, Stroud, Hobbs & Hammerman, “After installation: Ubiquitous computing and high school schience in three experienced, high-technology schools”). To me, the use of the term “ubiquitous” in this sense suggests that technology is freely accessible throughout the school system to everyone involved. In a ubiquitous computing environment I would expect that students may make use of any technology that they choose whenever they see fit to do so. Ex. students taking an exam come across an unfamiliar term and whip out there smartphones and look it up on the Internet. That’s what “ubiquitous” means to me. What it means to the authors is not entirely clear other than that it does not mean the same as it does to me. The authors fail to define the term but the examples given suggest that “ubiquitous” means that technology is omnipresent but not necessarily being used or able to be used by everyone. Sort of reminds me of my math classroom in the 8th grade back in the early 1980s. We could say that there was ubiquitous computing in that classroom because there was an Apple IIe sitting in the corner. Nevermind that no one had any idea what to do with it, except for an occasional student (mostly me) who would do something astoundingly simple and get vast amounts of extra credit because the teacher had absolutely no clue what was involved.
In their summary of the articles, “Educational outcomes and research from 1:1 computing settings”, authors Bebell & O’Dwyer claim that “Recently, 1:1 computing has emerged as a technology-rich educational reform where access to technology is not shared–but where all teachers and students have ubiquitous access to laptop computers.” (pg. 5). I really do not see evidence of ubiquitous computing in any of the articles. It seems that what we do see is an example of what I think Weston & Bain are criticizing in their article – that interventions are introduced but do not necessarily produce significant change, rather that terminology (or something else) is altered to produce a semblance of change. What we need, and would hope to see, is real qualitative change.