Story last updated at 9:53 a.m. Thursday, August 5, 2004

Hays High students excited about hitting the iBooks this year HAYS (AP) -- When teachers at Hays High School tell their students to open their books this school year, there's a chance they won't be referring to a textbook.

Students who showed up for enrollment this week at the western Kansas school -- about 1,000 of them in all -- walked away with a new Apple iBook laptop computer thanks to a school board initiative passed earlier this year.

The laptops were issued during enrollment to give students time before classes begin to familiarize themselves with the computers, Principal Mike Hester said.

Parents received a letter listing day and night time iBook training classes that run through Friday.

The district made the decision to purchase laptops for the high school when the computer technology lease agreement for the district was up for renewal, Hester said. Money saved by using less paper also helped fund the new portable computers.

[...] ...complete story at: http://www.dodgeglobe.com/stories/080504/sta_0805040028.shtml

======================================= HF-Lima rethinks use of middle-school laptops By Dolores Orman Staff Writer

(August 5, 2004) — HONEOYE FALLS — The Honeoye Falls-Lima school board is trying to figure out what to do about the middle school laptop computer project that was launched in February with a focus on use at school and at home.

That's because “there have been some people in the community who have been unhappy with the program,” Linda Hunt, school board president, said at the start of the board meeting Tuesday night.

School district officials have acknowledged, among other things, that there should have been greater effort to inform the community about the program and that the development and implementation of the program was probably too fast.

However, a school district committee charged with reviewing the middle school project, and various options, recommended Tuesday that the “most educationally sound” step for the 2004-05 school year is a “modified” one-to-one (one computer per student) plan.

[...]

The district is leasing for a four-year period 711 laptops from Apple Computer Inc. — 661 for students and 50 for teachers.

Other options before the board: Offer the program to high school students instead; redistribute all laptops throughout the district; redistribute all laptops on carts in the middle and high schools; do a one-to-one pilot of smaller middle school groups and redistribute the rest of the laptops; reduce student computer use and return the laptops; and maintain a one-to-one for seventh and eighth grades and use laptops on a cart for sixth grade, freeing up computers for other schools.

Hagerman suggested the last option as an alternative to the one the committee favors.

...complete story at: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/news/08056E551JI_news.shtml