Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes recently dropped by Rossville Middle School to check out its implementation of the Georgia Wireless Classroom Project. Rossville purchased 700 iBooks, equipping every student and teacher with one of the Apple laptops.
“Education has to change for us to be competitive,” Barnes told reporter Eric Beavers in a Walker County Messenger newspaper article. “Technology is a vital and integral” part of that change, he said. Barnes hopes students will be able to learn faster by using the laptops. What educators and legislators hope to see from this project is students being able to learn more in a year. “I want higher performance.”
The Georgia Wireless Classroom Project is supported by US$10 million over three years from lottery funds. NetSchools Corp. installed its Constellation one-to-one learning system at Rossville Middle. The system organizes the wireless technology and information access for the school.
The program “called for a seamless integration of the curriculum, the Internet, teacher professional development and instructional management software as well as an infrastructure including a wireless network, laptops for all students and teachers, and home to school connectivity,” NetSchools chairman and CEO Scott Redd told the Messenger.
Apple Computer’s representatives have been extremely helpful to this project, school officials said.
“Apple’s already been paid,” said Wayne Robinson, head of the Walker County Science and Technology Center. They could have just walked away, but they have stayed.”