By Cathy Higgins
BAY MINETTE, Ala. — Baldwin County High kicked off the school year by interfacing with a new learning concept. Monday, some 1,200 students began receiving MacBook laptop computers, which will be their main tool in classes this year.
According to Baldwin County Public Schools spokesman Terry Wilhite, it’s the first step in Digital Renaissance, a $4.1 million county-wide program.
“This is a model program (at Baldwin County High School),” he said in an interview at the school Wednesday.
That means BCHS will spend this school year implementing a completely computer-driven program before it is spread to other schools in the system.
“We will replicate this in schools across the district,” Wilhite said.
According to BCHS Curriculum and Instructional Coach Janice Simon, the new program should prepare students for an already computer-driven environment, whether in college or the workforce.
She also explained that students will use the Internet to access their curriculum.
“It’s a consortium,” Simon said, pointing out that students can access specially-designed curriculum from Duke University, among others.
According to Simon, this will fill an overdue need.
“The state hasn’t funded textbooks in several years,” she said.
In addition, BCHS’s instructional staff, who also received computers, can use their multimedia software to supplement lessons.
“Teachers can make videos of themselves giving lectures of the lessons and upload them to the Internet,” Simon said. “So students will always have an online tutorial.”
The computers also cut down on the amount of paper needed, as students no longer need notebooks and teachers can upload lesson information onto the computers instead of printing hand-outs.
The assignments will be non-traditional, Simon explained. Giving the example of a reading assignment, she explained that students will have a traditional book report, discuss the book on online blogs and have an additional project.
“It might be creating a pamphlet, a Facebook page or a movie,” Simon said. “But it has to be something about that book.”
Simon said the new program is expected to lower the drop-out rate at BCHS, just as it was shown to have done in the North Carolina school system it’s modeled after.
“I’ve already seen the maturity level in the students rise,” she said.
According to Simon, the computers won’t have a negative impact on students’ writing skills.
“Half of them never learned to write in cursive,” she said.
Instead, Simon believes Digital Renaissance allows the school to adapt to the students.
“A kid said yesterday, ‘Finally, it’s catching up to be like us,’” she said.
According to Wilhite, plans are under way to equip the rest of county schools with wireless capability for the Digital Renaissance program.
“We’re halfway there,” he said.
