Back to the Books (and Laptops); Technology Plays Growing Role as Va. Schools Open

French teacher Normandie Lee stood in front of her classyesterday, face to face with the electronic whiteboard she had justlearned how to use, and confessed, "Okay, I'm scared."

"You'll be fine," Cathy Ba, instructional technology coordinatorfor Gunston Middle School in Arlington County, said. Lee couldcontrol the computer-synced modern-day version of the blackboardwith a touch of the screen, Ba reminded her.

"Push the X in the middle," one eighth-grade boy said.

"Slower," another encouraged.

"See, I knew you guys were smarter than me," Lee said, finallypulling up their homework assignments from the Internet. "This thingis so cool."

Across Northern Virginia, students and teachers returned toschool, punctuating what was a two-week rolling start for theacademic year in the Washington region. Like their peers who cameback to District and Maryland public schools last month, theseVirginia students are growing comfortable with classes wherepodcasting is routine, paper use is dwindling and whiteboards areincreasingly interactive.

In one sign of the growing momentum for technological advances ineducation, SMART Technologies announced last month that it hadproduced its 1 millionth interactive SMARTboard. Company officialssay they have sold 70,000 in the Washington region.

"I think what we've seen happening is there is a little lessargument about whether technology has a role to play in educationand more of a desire to know exactly what to do with it to optimizethe benefit for students," said Don Knezek, chief executive of theInternational Society for Technology in Education, which has anoffice in the District. "It's less of a whether and whole lot moreof how."

The society has joined with other groups to launch public serviceannouncements calling on the presidential candidates to make "accessto education technology and modern learning environments a topnational priority."

Studies, Knezek said, show that school systems that have yet toinvest in technology are hurting more than their students'employment potential.

"Before, we looked at a digital divide as an earning divide,"Knezek said. "Now we look at a digital divide as a learning divide."

Three years ago, Gunston had two SMARTboards. Now, it has 17. Astechnology coordinator, Ba has to make sure they all work. As of 9a.m. yesterday, only the one in Steven Brown's history and geographyclassroom showed a "no signal" stubbornly clinging to the screen.

If the end of the year is exam time for students, the first dayis test time for school technology staff members. All summer longthey plug in, boot up and log on, but yesterday, the keyboards wereno longer in just their hands.

At Rachel Carson Middle School near Herndon, with 1,200 studentsand more than 600 computers, the scramble for technology specialistsSteve Holmlund and Robert Maffett began when the doors opened.

When the first students arrived, Holmlund was there, digitalcamera in hand. Later, he would be standing behind the TelePrompTeras the principal declared, "Welcome back, Carson Panthers!" on themorning in-school TV show. And then it was off to address one callafter another: a printer jam in the physical education department,wireless network problems across the school, a newly married teacherneeding a user name change for a dozen different accounts.

Maffett, meanwhile, was checking the backup files on the school'sserver, replacing software on recently repaired laptops and helpinga half-dozen students in the library get set up for Algebra II, anadvanced offering available only online.

"In the course of the day, I get a good bit of exercise," Maffettsaid.

A decade ago, a single technology specialist would handle all thetraining and support for up to 10 schools in Fairfax County. Now,every school employs a full-time specialist tasked with bringingtechnology into classrooms, and each school has at least a part-time troubleshooter.

Christopher Dede, a Harvard University professor of learningtechnology, said the digital revolution in schools is not aboutteaching students to use technology, it's about "teaching studentshow to do everything using technology." It's not enough for them toknow how to collaborate across a table anymore; they have to knowhow to work virtually with someone who might be in another country,he said. They can't know only how to work a computer. They need tounderstand how to weed through a million possible sources ofinformation, he said, and figure out quickly which five are useful.

"In a sense, the last bastion of not using technology was theclassroom, and finally that is changing," said Dede, who has studiedthe subject for more than three decades. "People are recognizing toprepare students for life, it's important to have technology there."

At Fannie W. Fitzgerald Elementary School in Woodbridge, one of ahandful in Prince William County outfitted entirely for wirelessInternet access, the second-graders in Lilian Armstrong's classstarted with a seemingly simple task.

They had to turn on their laptops and find the appropriate Website. For at least some, it was a first experience in what willbecome a common task when they grow up.

First, Minelly Dinarte, 7, got a password prompt.

"I don't know how to spell 'student,' " Minelly said, looking atthe window to type in her user name and password.

She figured it out, then waited and waited.

"It's almost happening! Come on!" she said. A window on thescreen said "NovellZENworks 7 Desktop Management." Minelly said shedidn't know what Zen meant. "I know what 'seven' means," she said.

When Armstrong turned to the interactive whiteboard, flippingbetween computer windows with a touch of the screen, Minelly wasawestruck.

"Look! She just touched it!" she said.

Knowing that some teachers at Gunston were not quite ready tojump into the technology's interactive features, Ba encouraged themto at least use the board as a projector the first day. As a result,the word "welcome" hovered on screens throughout the school.

Lee tried to venture further.

"Now, who can help me close out of this?" she asked the classbefore uttering what would become a mantra of the day. "I'm notafraid, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid."

Staff writers Michael Alison Chandler and Ian Shapira contributedto this report.