When former Gov. Angus King began an effort to give every seventh- and eighth-grader a laptop in 2001, one of the goals was equity, a way to ensure students have access to the same kind of technology whether they live in Cumberland, Washington or Oxford county.
Fifteen years later, the program still gets computers to those students. However, geography and school funding have made using that technology a lot more difficult for many rural schools.
Joshua Willey was having a frustrating morning. Inside a classroom in Portland’s King Middle School, he glued together a few dowels and pieces of cardboard to build a miniature wind turbine. But when he tested it out, it snapped.
“Wait, I see what went wrong,” Willey said to his teacher. “I need to pull the blades more at an angle, because before it was really whooshing around.”
After a few attempts, Joshua fixed the prototype. But simply building this turbine was only one part of the lesson.
Teacher Gus Goodwin pointed to one student measuring an electric current. Others were designing turbine blades on a computer and producing podcasts about their projects with headphones and a mic. He said technology takes this learning to a different level.
“I think you kind of engage more with what you’re studying,” Goodwin said to one student. “For example, the wind turbines, seeing that graph on the computer. I think it helps you kind of understand. What’s going on in there? That’s voltage and that’s current, that’s the resistor. You can actually visibly see that. And I that think it definitely deepens your learning.”
When supporters talk about the power of technology in education, this is the kind of project they mean. Teachers at King said they’re able to provide it to their district, where more than half of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, because they’re constantly collaborating and sharing digital tools.
Research shows doing that in a rural, isolated school is a lot harder, though.
About 300 miles north, at Caribou High School, English teacher Shannon Sleeper stood at the front of her class and asked them questions. Her students answered aloud, but many are were busy typing responses in a fully online classroom she created.
“OK, so did anything stand out to you?” Sleeper asked the class. “Of how someone else sees their transformation, their perspective?”
The County is pleased to feature content from our sister company, Bangor Daily News. To read the rest of “Laptop program hasn’t closed technology skills gap for rural schools,” an article by Maine Public Broadcasting reporter Robbie Feinberg, please follow this link to the BDN online.
