Laptops open new world for students

HP grant to Belle Haven School gives computers to every child

by Jennifer Deitz Berry

As Palo Alto parents fight a highly publicized battle over whether or not a voluntary laptop program for sixth-graders is worthwhile, a school in the Ravenswood district has quietly succeeded in giving out portable computers to all of its students in grades four through eight.

This fall, about 400 students at Belle Haven Elementary School received wireless Hewlett Packard "Omnibooks," for use both at home and at school until they graduate middle school.

The $1 million school project is funded largely by Hewlett Packard Co., in partnership with the company NetSchools, which provided software for an Internet-based learning program aligned with California's content standards.

Last week, students showed off their new laptops after school on the playground. Sixth-grader Savannah Fesili is one of many students whose family didn't have a computer at home. She said in her they're using the classroom laptops to conduct research on the Internet, quiz themselves with math programs, and write and edit letters using Microsoft Word.

In a thank-you letter to laptop program donors, Savannah's classmate Chris Pese wrote, "Whenever I use my laptop I feel like a businessman."

Addressing the assembled crowd of students, sponsors and local officials, Belle Haven Principal Ellen Spencer said she expected the new computers to have "far-reaching effects on student achievement and family involvement."

Though the computers were given to students, their parents were also required to attend a special training session to learn basic computing skills, so they could also use their children's laptops. In similar programs, parents who had access to computers were more likely to further their own education and earn high school equivalency diplomas.

Spencer said having laptops has renewed students' excitement about school and been an incentive to act more maturely. "I keep telling them this is equipment only professionals use."

She said it's also changed teaching. Particularly in the wake of Sept 11, students are arriving to school with tough questions that aren't answered in their textbooks. For instance, she said, they'll ask "Why is Osama bin Laden mad at us?" or "Is America interested really interested in peace?"

Teachers used to turn to the classroom set of encyclopedias, but now they can point students to media Web sites and the Library of Congress.

The laptop giveaway is one piece of a $5 million community grant called the "Digital Village." Hewlett Packard's philanthropic project is aimed at strengthening technological and economic growth in a city that is home to many immigrant and low-income families.

East Palo Alto educators, community leaders and city officials worked with a team of HP staff and volunteers to decide what projects to fund.

In contrast to staffers at Palo Alto's Jordan Middle School who had called for a two-year "pilot program" to study whether laptops are valuable learning tools for students, the answer was clear to leaders in East Palo Alto. They approved spending $1 million for the laptops last year. By spring, teachers had received their laptops, and were learning to use the computers and related software over the summer.

The laptops are particularly valuable in this community where many students' families can't afford to purchase their own. Belle Haven's Spencer said part of the goal behind the program is to give the students' parents and siblings access to technology. Students at Belle Haven did not receive their laptops until their parents had attended the computer training sessions.

Superintendent Charlie Mae Knight said she does have concerns about equity. Students at other district schools are aware of the Belle Haven program, and when she's visited have asked if they can have laptops too.

"I just use that as a challenge," she said. "I've got to go find another donor for the others."

-- E-mail Jennifer Berry at jberry@paweekly.com