One of the great things about Henrico County School is that they give laptops to all of their middle and high school students. It is such a great program, and I hope that it continues to get the funding it needs to continue.

Recently the Times-Dispatch covered a  report on how the laptops are affecting learning in the county.

At any moment during the school year, 40 percent of Henrico County high school students are using their county-issued laptop computers.

Students say they are learning more. And the results back them up.

Data released last month from the second of a three-year study of Henrico’s laptop initiative show noticeable improvement from the previous year. Students engaged in more problem solving, research, communication, teamwork and community-based assignments, said Dale Mann, managing director of Interactive Inc., which evaluates the gains of electronic learning.

About 14,550 high school students in Henrico are issued Dell computers each year. Students, parents and teachers were questioned about their perceptions in the mixed-method study.

Students who made more use of laptops had higher scores in world history, biology, reading and chemistry than students who did not, but they scored lower in algebra and writing. Mann said that is because students are used to using calculator functions on the laptop instead of the graphing calculator, and they are used to typing on the computer instead of writing on paper, which is what they had to do to take the Standards of Learning writing tests.