Schools win technology makeovers

• By Dibya Sarkar
• Apr 02, 2001

Coming out on top after a six-month statewide competition, three Pennsylvania

school districts have won up to $2 million each to integrate technology

into lessons.

Dubbed "Digital School Districts," the Carlisle Area School District in

Cumberland County, the Quaker Valley School District in Allegheny County

and the Spring Cove School District in Blair County won the competition,

Gov. Tom Ridge announced in February.

"What we hope to achieve is to build three models that the rest of Pennsylvania

can use [as] kind of living laboratories," said Al Bowman, a state Education

Department spokesman. "The big thing about technology, and the main challenge,

is that you really can't understand its possibilities until you see it in

action. They are going to be the R&D for the rest of the state maybe

the rest of the world.

Bowman said the winners have similar challenges

in implementing technology.

The Carlisle school district, which plans to create an education Web

portal for round-the-clock student tutoring, customized lessons and virtual

courses, encompasses urban, suburban and rural areas in one district. Bowman

said the challenge is figuring out how to connect and deliver education

to the different areas.

In the Quaker Valley district, students in third through 12th grades

will get wireless notebook computers and "eBooks" to download textbook chapters,

newspapers and books, along with 24-hour access to Internet learning resources.

Bowman said that district includes communities from extreme wealth to poverty.

He said Spring Cove, which will create a comprehensive educational resource

center with online courses and training for the community, is a rural school

district with great distances between schools and communities.

The districts — selected by a panel of international, national and state

education experts — will receive another $2 million next year. Seventy-seven

schools submitted applications last September. The list was whittled down

to 30 and then down to six finalists.