School opens computer lab

Culminates 18-month fund-raising effort

By:Emily Craighead
   The wait is over.
   Less than 18 months after the start of fund-raising for a computer lab at Woods Road Elementary School, over 100 students, teachers, parents, administrators and other community members gathered to celebrate the grand opening of the lab.
   By saving up pennies, holding a craft fair and appealing to local businesses for donations, the Woods Road technology committee came up with over $55,000 for a 26-station computer lab.
   "Now I won’t have to fight for a space and I’ll be able to learn faster," second-grader Wesley Goldstone told the audience gathered in the Woods Road cafeteria Feb. 3.
   Before the new lab opened, students either shared computers or came into the library in small groups to use the computers.
   "This is the first time we can actually sit an entire class down," Woods Road Principal Scott Rocco said Feb. 3, the day the school officially opened its new computer lab. "Even as late as this afternoon, we had at least two students to a computer."
   Woods Road technology teacher Margie Rothblatt said she has had to revise the curriculum because projects that used to take students weeks to complete might be done in a day because they will have their own computers. Technology instruction is part of the curriculum only in third and fourth grade, but younger students do use the school computers for projects in other subjects.
   The lab is set up in a partitioned section of the school library, with headphones and a paper stand at each station.
   "It’s the perfect lab," said Ms. Rothblatt, a leader of the project. "My job’s going to be so much easier."
   Edie Kelly’s third-grade students were the first to use the computer lab Friday morning after the official opening, and held their own ribbon-cutting ceremony before they sat down to a keyboarding lesson.
   Since then, Ms. Rothblatt said the sign-up sheet for the computer lab has been packed.
   "Just seeing their eager faces as they take peeks in the computer room is a joy to see," Ms. Rothblatt said, speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
   When Ms. Rothblatt gave the go-ahead at the end of her speech, students ran down the hall from the cafeteria to the lab.
   First-grader Dillon Zimmerman was one of the first to sit down at a computer once the ribbon had been cut, and he looked for a picture of his father in a screensaver slide show of the computer lab in various stages of construction.
   "I helped my dad a little bit with the wiring," Dillon said.
   During his speech at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Mr. Rocco thanked members of the technology committee who contributed time, expertise and money to making the lab a reality. They were parents Jenn Delphidio, Bill Blum, Meryl Bisberg, Michelle Tallman, Ellen Sanders and Govi Rao. Mr. Rao is vice president of business creation for Philips Lighting, the company that donated the flat-screen monitors to the school.
   Refreshments at the ceremony were donated by Shop Rite of Hillsborough, Stop ‘n Shop, Heavenly Sweets, and Catered Affair. Pathmark also made donations to the group throughout the fund-raising effort.