Windsor 7th-graders iBooking it
Revolution in the classroom
Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
WINDSOR — After having opened her new Apple iBook laptop computer, one of many provided by the state for the 29 members of her seventh-grade class, Lauren Dancer was trying to figure her way through a maze of commands as teacher Jana Diket introduced the new computer functions.
Staff photo by JOE PHELAN
Finally frustrated, she looked up and asked for help from school technology coordinator Jenny Cray.
"Miss Cray, I need help," Dancer said, raising her hand. "I'm not good at this."
But after her 90-minute class Wednesday, she predicted she and her classmates would soon adapt to their new translucent-cased computers.
"It probably will take a few weeks," she said, hopefully. "They'll help out a lot. You don't have to get on another teacher's computer, you can just get on your own."
Diket is the Windsor Elementary School's lead teacher under the state's program to provide the portable computers to seventh-grade students statewide. An English and social studies teacher, Diket is looking forward to seeing the laptops on the desks of her students through the year.
English instruction, she said, can include many Internet-connected games and exercises that will help her students learn more quickly. And her social studies classes will have them available for virtually unlimited research from the rural elementary school.
"The kids are able to go places they may not be able to go in a car or an airplane," Diket said.
The computers arrived at the school in August but, their introduction to the students was delayed until the arrival of special cabinets, purchased along with software compatible with the PC-based school computer laboratory. The laptops are connected to the Internet over a wireless connection that allows the computers to be used without cables anywhere on school grounds.
But students were excited when the date was finally set for Wednesday, Diket said. Only one student was absent, and she said he was on a previously scheduled family vacation. Five laptops were also handed out to the school's seventh-grade teachers.
The school has adopted policies governing the use of the computers, Principal Donna Sawyer said. Students will not be allowed to take them home, at least until later in the year after school administrators have some experience with their use. But Diket said the youngsters will have time in class and during their study periods to play on the computers and acquaint themselves with their operations.
"Can you imagine the impact these will have when the teachers have 29 students with computers on their desks, and the teacher won't be lecturing for 45 minutes. It will be interactive," Sawyer said. Computers on all the students' desks, she said, will revolutionize instruction in her classrooms.
Diket said the school expects to receive another batch of computers next year to hand out to next year's seventh-grade class. After that the computers will revolve among future classes.
The laptops delivered to Windsor Elementary School are part of a four-year $37.2 million contract between Macintosh and the state. More than 17,000 iBooks have been delivered to schools around Maine for seventh-graders, with more than 2,200 teachers also receiving them as part of the state program, said Yellow Light Breen, Maine Department of Education director of special projects and external affairs.
"It's kind of a lease-purchase kind of deal so at the end of the four years we'll have an opportunity to buy them for $40 each," Breen explained. Either the state or the local schools will have the option of buying them. "If they're worth anything," he said.
Breen said all the computers delivered for this year have been handed out to the schools, but the decision for when to hand them out to students is up to local administrators. Maranacook Community Middle School was part of a round of demonstration schools to get an early wave of computers in March.
Brent Merrill, another Windsor seventh-grader, said he and his classmates will master their computers in a matter of days.
"I liked it. It's fun," Merrill said after he put his laptop away in the special shelved cabinet built with wires to charge the computers' batteries. "I think it's a good idea."
Gary Remal — 623-3811, Ext. 518 gremal@centralmaine.com