Noah Carpenter, 5th grader at Fairfield Center School, is making the most out of the new Netbooks he and his classmates received from e-Vermont partner Digital Wish. Fairfield students not only have this tremendous asset to help with their school work, but also take their netbooks home where each is provided an accompanying Dell printer/scanner.
Recently, Noah was selected as Fairfield’s representative entrant into Digital Wish’s Digital Citizen poster contest. Asked about his inspiration behind the poster submission, he explained how he wanted to “make a visual chain of the Apple Computer products through the years,” to frame his points of being a good digital citizen. He wanted to make this poster to “show people what you should and shouldn’t do,” with approaching problems a child may encounter while browsing the internet. Using the cycle of older Apple computers seemed a fitting visual aid to highlight the influence and importance of safely using technology.
In the classroom he has enjoyed learning to use presentation programs like PowerPoint and Prezi, and learning how to search and access helpful online resources. Noah is also finding the classroom technology to be of great use at home. Through a multi-step process he makes digital versions of arts-and-crafts styled books which are easy to copy.
The students are not the only ones who have had their classroom experience changed by the technology provided by Digital Wish. The teachers participating in this component of the e-Vermont project, who can still recall when they only had a handful of old computers available with outdated 56k modem access to the internet, have been grateful both for the broadband infrastructure and the opportunity for their students to each have their own computer to work with in the classroom. It makes it easier for everyone to be more productive with classwork, share things with the class, and prepare themselves for the increasingly global 21st century.
Read more about Digital Wish and e-Vermont’s School Modernization Initiative at http://schoolmodernizationinitiative.wordpress.com/.