'The whole world is watching you'

By ANN S. KIM, Associated Press

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	Associated Press Photo Janet Reynolds helps Colby Millett enter information into his laptop computer on Thursday at Shapleigh Middle School. National Semiconductor has given the state a grant of $500,000 for teacher training as part of the state's laptop program.
	Associated Press Photo Gov. Angus King speaks to the faculty and students at Shapleigh Middle School in Kittery, one of more than 200 middle schools where seventh-graders are getting laptops as schools reopen.
	IN DEPTH: LAPTOPS To top of story

KITTERY - Gov. Angus King's initiative to put a laptop computer in the hands of every middle school student got under way this week despite budget problems that once threatened to derail the program before it started.

On Thursday, King heralded the arrival of 17,000 laptops for seventh-graders at 239 schools while warning the students to take care of the new computers and not to misuse them.

At Shapleigh Middle School, he told students they will be under scrutiny as the project unfolds.

"The whole world is watching you. They're watching. They're watching Maine, they're watching Shapleigh Middle School," said King, who sported a tie with a computer motif at a school assembly.

Distribution of the laptops to seventh-graders marks the first phase of the project. Next fall, all seventh- and eighth-graders in public schools will have laptops.

The ambitious program was conceived in December 1999, when the state was enjoying a budget surplus.

The state now faces a revenue shortfall pegged at about $240 million, and the program has faced criticism from lawmakers and citizens alike who would prefer that the money be put to other uses.

The governor referred to skeptics while talking to students: "There are a lot of people who think this is not a hot idea. They think I'm nuts," he said.

He urged the youngsters to prove the naysayers wrong by being careful with the Apple iBook computers and staying out of trouble, which could be just a "couple of clicks" away on the Internet.

The students in Janet Reynolds' classroom received their computers the day before King's visit.

On Thursday, Reynolds gave them instructions on keeping a computer journal. Some students were already at ease with the laptops, while others pecked away one finger at a time and had more questions.

King, who will leave office in January because of term limits, said he hopes the program will eventually be extended to other grade levels. He said he believes the program will prove its worth, but it's not a sure thing.

"This is a risk for me, you know. If this doesn't work, it's going to be known in 25 years as King's Folly," he said.

The state will eventually supply 36,000 laptops to students and teachers under a $37.2 million contract with Apple. Apple is providing the computers, the wireless networking, training and warranties.

Under the initiative, Maine is the first in the nation to equip students statewide with laptops.

Maine is learning from the mistakes made in Virginia's Henrico County, where a few students downloaded porn and tried to hack into school networks to change grades when laptops debuted there last year.

Henrico is paying $18.5 million over four years to lease laptops from Apple. Computers were issued to 11,000 high school students last year. About 23,000 iBooks are being deployed this academic year.

In Maine, King said the laptop money could have gone to other purposes, like school construction projects, but he believed that the technology initiative would have the most impact on education.

The aim of the program, he said, was to give Maine students "the keys to the 21st century."

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