CNHI News Service

WINDHAM, N. H. — Every student at the new high school in this upscale town will be issued a laptop computer when the school opens next fall. And teachers will post lessons and give tests online.

"We need to start teaching the way kids learn," said Terry Bullard, the school system's technology director.

Young people, she said, are digital-age multitaskers who listen to music, text message, talk on cell phones and do homework on their personal computers simultaneously.

The laptops will promote collaborative efforts and prepare students for the competitive worldwide job market, said Bullard.

In addition, she said, it makes economic sense. Buying mobile laptops for each of the 357 incoming freshmen and sophomores will cost less than equipping classrooms and labs with stationary computers.

Windham is a community of 12,000 people in southern New Hampshire near the Massachusetts border. The median household income is more than $95,000 per year but the town has not had its own high school.

That will change next fall when the town's first high school opens for first and second-year students. Juniors and seniors will continue their education at neighboring Salem High School.

School Board Chairman Barbara Coish said she and other school officials have been getting an avalanche of concerned calls about the laptop program, mainly from older residents.

Board Vice Chairman Bruce Anderson said the people he's heard from either think it's a great idea or lunacy.

They ask, incredulously, "You are going to trust these kids to take them home?" Anderson said, noting that some adults worry the students will use the laptops to visit inappropriate Web sites or that the computers will be broken, lost or stolen.

Bullard said the laptops will be programmed to block objectionable material. And, she added, students will be responsibile for taking good care of the computers the same as they would the use of other school property.

Bullard said research shows students with laptops are motivated, improve their test scores, and act responsibly.

"Kids want to do better, and do better," she said.

Superintendent Frank Bass said laptops and digital technology are essential elements of the changing education landscape.

"It is on the cusp of transforming the way we do education," Bass said.

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