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5th-graders eager to learn as they unpack
laptops
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| Natalie Missakian,
Register Staff |
September
16, 2000 |
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| NEW HAVEN -
Fifth-grader Jerry Greene may not have known it Friday when he
ripped into a cardboard box and pulled out a sleek new laptop, but
he’s being watched. |
Jerry and more than 150 of his fifth-grade peers at Roberto
Clemente and Troup middle schools are part of the latest experiment
in the city schools.
It is one being tried in other urban
schools and brought to New Haven this year under a partnership
between a neighborhood improvement organization and the Board of
Education.
Neighborhood activists and school officials
wanted to know what would happen if every child had a portable
computer to bring to school and take home every night.
Would
their writing improve? Would their test scores go up? Would their
parents become more involved in the classroom?
Depending on
the answers, the pilot program being launched this year could be
expanded to every fifth-grade class in every middle school in New
Haven, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. promised this week.
Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo, during a
presentation before a school library full of fifth-graders who
gathered to receive the first batch of Toshiba Satellites, said he
plans to take the mayor at his word.
"We’re going to hold
the mayor responsible," Mayo said. "We’re going to hold him to his
commitment." Many of the anxious youngsters seemed much more focused
on the large brown packages placed in front of them, each with their
names printed on the side, than the line-up of speakers kicking off
the pilot program.
They had been waiting for the laptops to
arrive since the first day of school.
"Stop hugging it!"
teased Karissa Jordon, watching as Jerry, who sat next to her, threw
both of his arms around the box.
"I never had my own
computer," he shot back.
"I can’t wait to get home with it,"
Karissa whispered. "I’m just going to be typing, typing, typing.
I’m not going to stop." Karissa and her classmates won’t be
taking the computers home just yet.
School officials want to
give the children a few weeks to learn how to use the computers in
their classrooms, and they will be bringing parents in for training
before sending the computers home in October.
At $1,600 per
laptop, teachers and administrators are making it clear to the
children that the experiment also brings a lesson in responsibility.
Although other school systems have reported few cases of
lost or mistreated laptops, the children received numerous warnings
about taking care of their machines when they bring them home.
"Textbooks cost a lot of money, but these computers cost a
lot more money. I’m going to have to ask you to be responsible
citizens," Mayo told the children.
"They know," said Roberto
Clemente fifth-grade teacher Angela Conte. "We’ve been talking about
it since the beginning of September." The students will keep the
laptops until they graduate from middle school in the eighth grade.
The school project is rooted in the assumption that inner
city children, many of whom come from families that can’t afford
computers at home, need regular exposure to computers to
successfully compete at higher academic levels and in the work
force.
"We know that giving them these computers today is
not going to change their CMT (Connecticut Mastery Test) scores.
It’s the teachers who’ll do that," said Sherri Killins, president
and chief executive officer of Empower New Haven, which contributed
$200,000 to the project. "We wanted to bridge that digital divide."
Group leaders pitched the idea after observing a similar
program at Carmen Arace Middle School in Bloomfied last May.
Empower New Haven administers a 10-year, $100 million
federal Empowerment Zone grant designed to fuel job training, social
support services and economic development in the city.
A
selection committee chose the schools from those in neighborhoods
targeted by the initiative that answered a request for proposals.
In Bloomfield, parents pay a $60 insurance fee a year, but
Empower New Haven officials are soliciting donations so the school
system can waive the fee here, saying they did not want the fee to
become a barrier for some families.
The jury is still out on
whether using the laptops improves academic achievement.
A
Microsoft-funded study by independent researcher Saul Rockman, which
was released in June, found the laptops changed children’s attitudes
and writing skills but didn’t have much effect on standardized test
scores.
The study also found teachers in
one-laptop-per-student programs spent more time doing group
activities and independent study work than before they had the
computers.
Teachers at Carmen Arace said they noticed
children writing better, completing more homework assignments and
getting into less trouble in class after starting their program,
which is now schoolwide.
"With the Microsoft Office, they’ll
be able to write something, edit it, revise it and it’s not a big
chore like it would be with pencil and paper," said Patricia
Harkins, a fifth-grade teacher who will be using the laptops in her
lessons at Troup Magnet Academy.
Roberto Clemente
fifth-grade teacher Nikilia Mitchell said she wants the children to
start giving their own public presentations using Power Point
software.
"We want them to be able to do their research on
the computer, too," she said.
But fifth-grader Marquis Downy
has his own plans.
"I think I’ll go out to the Internet and
talk with my friends on e-mail," he said.
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| ©New Haven
Register 2000 |
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