By Jodi Wolfe
Staff Writer

It’s been about a year since the seventh-grade students at the Armand R. Dupont School first received laptop computers as part of former Gov. Craig Benson’s pilot program. Now, teachers can’t imagine life without them.

KEEPING UP WITH TECHNOLOGY – Allenstown teacher Patti Sullivan talks to seventh-graders about how to use their laptop computers in the Dupont School’s computer technology class. She showed them how to use the Internet to do class research. (Jodi Wolfe Photo)

Before the laptops, seventh-grade students shared the two computers that are in each classroom as well as the computer lab. Then Benson introduced his Technology Promoting Student Excellence program and, voila, each student had a wireless laptop computer on his or her desk. The three seventh-grade teachers agree the laptops created work for them as they trained and spent time researching Web sites.

“We were kind of worried about changing, and now I’d be worried about losing them,” said Alan Paradis, a seventh-grade teacher.

Rose Galligan, who teaches science and math, agreed. “I can’t see teaching without a laptop now,” she said. “I love it. I think it’s great for the kids. They’ve got this information at their fingertips.”

The laptops allow the students to obtain information above and beyond what is being taught to them, Galligan said.

“In my case, with geography, it puts the whole world at their fingertips,” said Paradis, who teaches social studies and science.

When his students learned about the tsunami, they visited different Web sites to watch video clips of the international disaster.

Paradis has been teaching his students population density by researching different Web sites.

“They like to find things on their own, “ Paradis said about his students. “They come up with places I haven’t thought of and that’s great.”

Peter Letvinchuk, who teaches math and language arts, has seen the same thing. His students will say to him, “Hey, I found this great game on nouns.”

“It’s giving the kids a thousand new textbooks,” he said.

The laptops make students more accountable for their work, especially when doing group projects, Letvinchuk said.

Last year’s seventh-graders were worried they wouldn’t have laptops any more, but the school was able to secure enough for one class, Paradis said.

“It would be nice for everyone to have them, but, of course, you have that money problem,” he said.

He wishes other schools had laptop programs, he said.

“It’s very cool,” said Nicole Carter, 13, as she worked on creating a limerick in language arts class. “We can use them instead of writing everything down.”

While creating limericks, Carter is able to look up words in a dictionary on the computer, which she said is easier than looking them up in an actual dictionary.

“You do research on the Internet in class,” said Brianna Carmichael, 13.

Some kids struggle with basic math skills, so Letvinchuk instructs his students to play an Internet game called Math Baseball to review their math skills for the first five minutes of each class.

Letvinchuk equates playing Math Baseball to how students used to recite multiplication tables.

“They don’t realize it’s review,” he said. “They think it’s a game.”

He has turned Math Baseball into a contest and students with the best results can earn candy.

Similarly, Paradis gave his students an online quiz on parts of the microscope.

“I think it’s allowed the students to learn how to use a computer as a tool,” said Patti Sullivan, who teaches computer technology.

Each classroom has a projector for students to use to make presentations to the class from their computers. Teachers are able to teach three classes at once via a camera broadcasting from one class to another.

In addition, the three seventh-grade teachers have used the laptops for cross-curricula group projects. Now the students are working designing paper airplanes. By doing that, they are researching different areas of flight – from the Wright Brothers to the four forces of flight, said Letvinchuk.

“It shows them how to do research on the Internet because we don’t show them where to go,” he said.

Then each group will fly its plane five times and graph the results to determine why its plane might have flown better.

The laptops have really benefited the the students, said Letvinchuk. Students struggling in writing can now type up their assignments, and students who don’t understand concepts can look them up online.

“There’s less idle time and more productive time,” Letvinchuk said. “Not only that, but it’s a great tool to hold over their heads. It’s like the scarlet letter if they have to use the dinosaurs.”

Students who misuse their laptops are punished by using the two older computers in each classroom – known as dinosaurs. This can be hard for the student using the “dinosaur” when he or she is waiting for the computer to connect to a Web site that the rest of the class is already on, said Paradis.

Misusing the computers can mean a variety of things. When carrying the laptops from class to class, they must be in a case, said Letvinchuk.

If they are not in the case, they lose laptop privileges for two weeks, and if students leave their laptop in another classroom, they lose privileges for a few days, said Letvinchuk.

Students are also considered to be misusing their laptops if they are on Web sites that are deemed inappropriate for the class they are in, said Letvinchuk. That includes being on an educational site for a different class or being on a Web site that is not educational.

For continued assurance, the school has a good filtering system, all the students had to do an Internet safety course, and the teachers are able to check where the students have been.

Students are also good about letting the teachers know when something inappropriate has accidentally popped up on their laptops, said Paradis.

If students misuse their laptop during the school day, they are also not allowed to take them home at night.

Besides using the laptops properly, students need to purchase insurance, which costs about $40, to take the laptops home. They also have wireless Internet access at home, because that’s what the laptops at school have.

Only one student has ever left a computer at home, said Letvinchuk.