North Kansas City Schools serves more than 18,000 students in suburban Kansas City-North and prides itself as a place where “learners achieve excellence, embrace change and forge new traditions.” In pursuit of that ideal, the district has recently implemented an ambitious one-to-one laptop program for their 5,600 high school students.
“Our laptop initiative is not about the devices; it is about how we can change classroom instruction to improve student achievement,” said Janet Herdman, Executive Director, Information and Technology Services.
The district has also adopted other technology to both support the laptop program and also to generally promote student achievement. Inquiry, an instructional technology decision support tool from ClassLink, will allow North Kansas administrators to analyze real-time usage of all their software and hardware.
The program accumulates, organizes and analyzes data in an instructional context, and allows administrators to combine technology usage data with student grades and attendance, thereby correlating technology usage with instructional results.
“Inquiry is an integral resource that will help us analyze both the success of this initiative and identify any modifications that may be needed,” added Herdman. “It will allow us to analyze and determine the effectiveness of both the laptops and the software.”
