It’s election time again, where our democracy takes center stage. In keeping with the season, at Boothbay Elementary School the Eighth Graders in teacher Eric Chamberlin’s Social Studies classes are studying the Bill of Rights. They are breathing life into those hallowed words by producing video vignettes of the different Articles, to be edited into a movie and posted on the school’s web site. Scripts are written, costumes and props gathered. The actors rehearse their lines one last time, and then it’s lights, camera…. Learning.

Scenes like this are taking place all over Maine’s seventh and eighth grade classes as part of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, or MLTI. Championed by Maine Governor Angus King, the MLTI is the largest educational technology project in Maine’s history, with the stated goal of making Maine’s students the most technologically savvy in the world. The centerpiece of this groundbreaking plan is… a book. Not a math book (although it can teach algebra), not a geography book (although it can take the student virtually all over the world) and not a spiral notebook (although the student can write volumes in it). It’s an iBook – a rugged five- pound laptop computer. In January 2002 Maine awarded Apple Computer a four-year, $37.2 million contract to supply technology, training, and support for the program. Today, just ten months later, it’s in full swing, and the response among students and teachers alike has been overwhelmingly positive.

At the beginning of the school day, each student takes their iBook from it’s charging and storage bay (the battery charge usually lasts all day) and it’s with them until they go home. The iBook runs OSX (OS “Ten”), Apple’s new, state-of-the-art, UNIX-based operating system. It’s loaded with an all-in-one word processing, drawing, painting, spreadsheet, and presentation suite, web browsers, the WorldBook Encyclopedia, and a custom version of First Class, a bulletin board and email client. Each iBook also comes with Airport, Apple’s wireless internet and networking card, which enables students and teachers to communicate with each other and have broadband internet access all over the school. It all comes wrapped in sturdy, impact-resistant polycarbonate plastic – ideal for surviving the rigorous school environment.

Back to the budding Spielbergs. Once each vignette is video-taped, the students change hats from directors and actors into what they call in the movie business “post production” people . With iMovie, Apple’s simple yet powerful video editing application, they create titles , add transitions between scenes, and add voice-over commentary . Pretty heady stuff for 13 and 14 year olds, but they take it all in stride.

It’s pretty heady stuff for the teachers as well. Social Studies teacher Chamberlain is also Boothbay Elementary’s Technical Lead, an on-site expert and liaison between Apple and the teachers. He notes that, as with all new learning tools, it’s taken some time for teachers to learn how to integrate the technology effectively into their teaching styles. One big difference in this “classroom of the future” - there’s less paper. Students complete writing assignments and send them wirelessly to the teacher’s computer for grading. No more “my dog ate my homework” excuses – unless the dog has an appetite for silicon. Students and teachers can also access a clearinghouse of curriculum resources on the MLTI web site. Teachers can monitor from afar what students are doing on their iBooks, and no student is allowed to stockpile “distracting” items, like MP3 music files or individual desktop wallpaper. When they need to, the teacher instructs the entire class to close their iBooks and focus on his/her instruction. When they get home, each student (and their parents) can check on homework assignments from their home computer.

Chamberlain says that parent interest and support has been excellent. A very high percentage of parents attended the MLTI orientation at the start of the year. He goes on to point out that attendance and behavior has improved, and the iBooks have even helped some struggling students gain confidence and improve their grades and participation.

Overall, the program appears to be an unqualified success, and this hasn’t gone unnoticed by educators around the U.S., and even officials from as far asFrance and Scotland. The long-range goal of the MLTI is to extend one-to-one technology access to all Maine high schools, which pleases one eighth grader, who lamented “I don’t know what I’ll do without my iBook next year”.

© 2002 Peter F. Zimowski