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HILLSBOROUGH: Schools fully wired up for 2014-15

One by one, Chromebooks are given out to K-12 pupils

By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Siblings Evan and Emily Obenauer came to the high school auditorium Aug. 15 with their mother, Paula, to pick up their assigned school computers — two of the 4,500 or so that will be given to Hillsborough students before school starts in September.
The computers will be an essential part of the learning process as Hillsborough becomes one of the most wired school districts in the state. Every student in grades five through 12 will have a computer given to them, and younger students will have enough for each to have one to use in school buildings.
Evan had the scoop from the street; he liked the touch screen on the Acer Chromebook and heard they were sturdier than the tablet he had used in sixth grade last school year.
Emily, preparing to go into ninth grade, was getting a laptop computer for the first time.
"My friends had them, and they said they were good," she said. "I’m looking forward to using it," noting it wouldn’t deter her from purchasing binders and folders to organize papers as she had in previous years.
To some extent, parents seemed to be more excited to be swirled up in the technological revolution in learning.
Parent Deborah Ng praised the initiative, although her son, Timothy, who was enrolled in one of the pilot programs last year, held his enthusiasm in check.
"I think it is so exciting," Ms. Ng said. "Last year was his best year yet for grades. I don’t know if it is because of this or not," but "I definitely think it helped keep him more organized. It kept him more interested in what he was doing."
She said she and her husband believe they are fortunate because the Hillsborough school district gives so many opportunities. When she and her husband looked for a place to move from Queens 12 years ago, the school system was at the forefront of their considerations, she said.
"In this day and age, kids have to be plugged in," said Ms. Ng, who uses the Web as a freelance writer covering social media.
Ms. Ng said the computer helped her son become more organized since assignments, calendar and teacher guidance are all there once a student logs in.
The school district is handing out 4,500 Acer Chromebooks — weighing 3 pounds with a touch screen less than a foot wide — so every fifth- through 12th-grader will have one to keep, take home and use in class this school year.
They are being bought in a lease-purchase program costing $1.9 million over four years, said Joel Handler, technology director for the school system.
Computer use on such a wide scale is cutting edge in New Jersey. Mr. Handler said Hillsborough will be one of the very few to have a computer available to all 7,500 K-12 students.
Maybe 20 or 30 schools in the state are embracing technology on such a wide scale, but most are concentrating in a single school building, he said.
Teachers have been taught how to use the computer "to expand learning and sharing beyond the work of the traditional classroom," Mr. Handler said.
At the least, computers give teachers and students instant access to current information. At the most, they have changed the "learning dynamic," he said, making education more collaborative and going away from top-down, teacher-directed learning.
Videos will be widely used this school year, he predicted. They have the advantage of letting the students pause, rewind and repeat the lesson.
Teachers have found computers encourage students to collaborate on projects even if they are in different locales and to suggest ideas and questions to teachers, he said.
It’s the culmination of a four-year tech program that will almost completely change the way the school system teaches. Through pilot programs, Hillsborough brought 960 computers into selected classes in 2012-13 and 2013-14.
All staff has been given laptop computers and taught to use them over the last two years.
The approximately 4,500 students who hadn’t been using a laptop in previous years were encouraged to take their new tool home, link it to their home network, get comfortable with how it operates and bring it back to school on the first day.
Mr. Handler said he saw "excitement, lots of excitement" in the first days of the distribution. School board member Lorraine Soisson said she had made the very first appointment for her children to pick up their Chromebook "and the excitement in the parking lot was palpable" when others began arriving, too.
Mr. Handler said surveys told the school district that less than 99 percent of students have a computer with access to the Internet at home.
All students have had access to computers in the classroom through computers that stayed in the building and were rolled around on carts from room to room.
Students are responsible for damage. A$45 per year insurance protection plan will be offered in September to cover repairs on the device, which cost about $300. Last year, 80 percent of parents in the pilot program opted to buy, Mr. Handler said.
There is a filter on school networks on what the student can access through the Internet, but none at home. (Parents have been given directions and websites to control.)