Technology

Apple® Laptop Initiative

The laptop cart is our computer lab for students up through fifth grade. AirPort Extreme®-enabled Apple MacBook® computers and iPad2®, research-based curriculum software, and a variety of accessories, are available here all in one package.

Tuition for students in the 6th, 7th and 8th grade includes a Technology Fee which entitles them to use of a school-owned Apple MacBook® for the entire year, a printer, software selected by the school, and a three-year AppleCare insurance plan for repairs and servicing.

Their teachers have joined others around the country who are using wireless laptop computers with their students to expand curricular goals. The powerful technology of the laptop allows students easy access anywhere in school to the internet – the ultimate resource of our time – for research.

Students use the internet for research using faculty selected sites. Third graders are being introduced to PowerPoint®, and Apple Keynote® software programs which allows each to author his or her own multimedia presentation. Fourth graders keyboard in preparation for touch-typing with speed and accuracy, a requirement of 30 wpm for the Laptop Initiative in 6th grade.

Upper-School students use the laptops to create science experiments with computer linked probes to collect data which they then use laptops to graphically record, allowing them to formulate and test hypotheses about movement, inertia, pH and more. Music students develop and use their knowledge of music theory to see and hear their own compositions. Using Sibelius® (a MIDI composition program) the computer enables the students to hear as well as write theoretical concepts. They also participate in The Opus Composition Competition, run by the Vermont Midi Project, in which students compose works on their laptops, professional musicians critique their work and musicians are hired to perform the works chosen in the competition.

The Laptop Program has opened the doors to the wider world for our students. A variety of excellent websites are used for research in American and European history courses in 8th and 6th grades, and are essential resources for the 7th grade Global Geography course. Exploration of a topic is at the student’s fingertips. The use of selected software has enhanced skills of word processing and spreadsheet use, and added new skills such as organizing ideas and taking notes. The laptops have become a natural and essential learning tool for Maple Street School students.