A computer for every kid

EDUCATION | Rachel Wells

When a lesson on loom use in Iran unexpectedly transcends into a dialogue about the global equality of humankind, a teacher has to wonder what went right. Layne Zimmers, who helped guide her sixth-grade students through that very lesson, says she knows exactly what it was – technology and the ability to access the world with the click of a mouse.

“We were looking at an image of a woman in Iran making a curtain on an oldfashioned loom,” Zimmers says, explaining that she then gave students a zoomed-in look at the country via the web-based satellite mapping program Google Earth.

“Immediately, they saw a soccer field. … This kid automatically goes ‘Oh my goodness.’ There are all these news stories and all of this information out there that sometimes puts a negative connotation on the Middle East. Although we may have conflicts with certain groups and certain people, they’re just like us when you look at the big scope of things,” Zimmers says. “For them to initiate that conversation and that thought – it evolved into something else that I wasn’t prepared for, and they started it.”

Zimmers teaches at Springfield District 186’s Lincoln Magnet Middle School, the only school in the district with a holistic emphasis on integrating technology into the classroom and the only school where all students tote their own laptop from class to class and on to their homes.

With just a textbook, Zimmers’ students would have had far less opportunity to dis cover

the one thing they could relate to in a country halfway across the globe. With computers and the Internet, however, those same students instantly found a connection, Zimmers says.

It’s that type of engagement some school board members referred to when last month they unanimously approved a three-year, $6.2 million lease for new Apple computers to be swapped out for old ones throughout District 186 – the same district that in June adopted a 2011 budget with a $6.2 million budget deficit. The agreement means Springfield schools will receive 5,610 new Apple laptops, all of which will replace computers that are at least three years old. Apple will also upgrade 19 district servers, add 55 more servers and provide at least 450 hours

of professional development training to district teachers.

In addition to an upfront payment of about $500,000, the new contract will require three annual payments of about $1.9 million. What costs aren’t absorbed by reduced maintenance costs, trade-in value or grant funding will be paid for with general state aid funds. The district didn’t include in its current budget about $2 million of additional state aid that it is now receiving, primarily due to an increase in its low-income student population. The district will tap into those dollars to pay for the upgrades, should other funding sources prove inadequate.

“I know that this is a great deal of money, and I know that technology tends to get a back seat. And I think that we have to stop

thinking that way if we’re really going to start serving our students,” board member Cheryl Wise said just before the board approved the expenditure. Wise justifies the purchase based on the technological skills the workplace requires and an immediate need for increased student engagement in order for those students to better absorb the standard curriculum. She says the district has a problem engaging students, in part because so many of them are accustomed to working on a computer, with which a worksheet just can’t compete.