Tag: maine

Thirty-six Maine high schools that opted to use local money to pay for iBooks for ninth graders have received the laptops. “Thirty-one schools went through with a state plan to lease the machines for $300 each from Apple,” reports the Associated Press. “Five other schools brokered their own deals with the computer giant. The laptops were delivered in October.

Maine’s education commissioner says she has assurances from at least 47 superintendents that they are ready to move forward with iBooks in high schools this fall, giving her confidence that a deal can be struck with Apple. “Susan Gendron said the commitments bring her closer to the minimum level of 8,400 students and teachers necessary for Apple to rent laptops for US$300 apiece per year, with training and other perks included,” reports AP.

Following the news that Maine’s iBook program would not be expanded into high schools this fall, the administration of John Baldacci quickly came up with a new plan to get the laptops to some ninth-graders. “Under the proposal, Apple is considering renting laptops to school districts that want them for high schools this fall, and payments would be deferred for a year, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron said,” reports AP.

Leaders of the Maine Legislature’s education committee said Monday that the state’s iBook program will not be expanded into high schools this fall, but Governor John Baldacci refused to concede defeat before reviewing his options, according to a Maine Today article. Apple representatives and the state Department of Education met for most of the day to review their options after the Legislature ended its special session with no action on laptops. Baldacci said he planned to review those options on Tuesday.

As expected, Apple has begun negotiations with Maine’s Education Department to expand the state’s middle school iBook program into high schools. “Against a backdrop of budget turmoil, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron is seeking to sell state lawmakers on her proposal for tapping into a renovation fund to jump-start an expansion of the state’s laptop program into the state’s 160 high schools and vocational schools,” reports AP.

According to a new report released this week that gives high grades to Maine’s iBook program, students who use the Apple laptops are more engaged in learning and produce better quality work.

In his first State of the State address Tuesday, Maine Governor John Baldacci told lawmakers the he plans to expand the state’s middle school iBook program into high schools. Calling the original US$37 million laptop program a success, Baldacci proposed expanding it from all public middle schools to all Maine high schools, starting next year with high school freshmen.

“Thirteen-year-old Jeremy Harmon says that learning on a laptop computer is more fun than just reading a book,” writes Tess Nacelewicz for the Portland Press Herald. “‘You can be more involved with the work and we can do a lot more stuff, like spreadsheets,’ the seventh-grader at Portland’s Lyman Moore Middle School said Thursday. His comments echo those of other seventh-graders who participated in a state study of the impact that Maine’s unique laptop computer initiative is having, halfway through its first year.

The New York Times (free registration required) reports on the success of Governor Angus King’s initiative to bring iBooks to every seventh and eighth grader in Maine. “Attendance is up. Detentions are down. Just six months after Maine began a controversial program to provide laptop computers to every seventh grader in the state, educators are impressed by how quickly students and teachers have adapted to laptop technology.” Read More

Maine Governor Angus King announced last week that thousands more students in the state will get home Internet access for iBooks assigned to them by their schools, thanks to millions of dollars worth of cash and donations, reports AP. About half of the 239 Maine schools that received iBooks let students take them home for research, but those without Internet access are at a disadvantage, said King.