By Edwin Acevedo

Liverpool High School students and teachers pioneering the use of portable laptop computers in Central New York classrooms fired up their machines Tuesday and went to work.

It was the first day students participating in the voluntary laptop pilot project were required to bring their computers to school. The laptops, or portable computers, will be integrated into the curriculum as a tool for learning, district officials said.

Only a few teachers actually had their students using the machines in the classroom Tuesday, said Bonnie Ladd, director of the project. Most teachers were near the end of a section and wanted to finish it before starting something new with the laptops, Ladd said.

The laptop experiment was greeted with skepticism and reservation from hundreds of parents in February, when it was proposed as a mandatory program for all 650 incoming 10th-graders. The school board backed off that plan, instead approving a scaled-down, voluntary program. There are 350 students participating, with more on a waiting list, Ladd said.

Teachers reported no major glitches on Tuesday. Wiring for the wireless radio cards, which provide Internet access from anywhere in the building, passed its tests by Monday, Ladd said.

The Internet wasn't tested in Joe Green's 10th-grade global history and geography class. Green's class had just finished a section on ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Indian and Sumerian civilizations. He asked them to write a fact about each civilization, using a word-processing program on the laptops.

For 10th-grader Kelly Salada, 15, it was the first time she really used the computer. She said she liked how easy it was to revise her writing.

Others, like classmate Nick Humez, 15, said he couldn't wait to begin using the computer. He's constantly finding new ways to customize his screens, pointers and sounds.

Devan Naughton, 14, said he has brought the computer to school a few times and taken notes with it. After finishing Green's in-class assignment, he and Humez began checking out backgrounds and sounds available on the IBM Thinkpads the students are using.

"Basically, you get it and learn about it yourself," said Humez. "You've just got to mess around with it."

For those who want professional instruction, however, the district is offering free training beginning at 6:30 tonight in Room 110 at the high school. Other training dates have been scheduled in September and October.

To participate in the program, parents sign up to pay $25 a month for 36 months. Some parents are having nearly all of their fee subsidized by an independent foundation connected with the school district.

Liverpool's program is modeled after Microsoft Corp.'s "Anytime Anywhere Learning," which incorporates the portable computers into the curriculum.

The content of what children learn doesn't change because of the computers, said Green, 23, a second-year teacher. It takes more work to present the information, but he believes it will be worthwhile because it will motivate students, he said.

So far, student response has been positive.

"I didn't want to do it at first," Humez said. "I thought it would be a major problem. But once I got it, I didn't really have many problems."

Wednesday, September 20, 2000