Staff Writer

Roll out the red carpet and be sure to shine your shoes, the Imovie awards are quickly approaching at Middle School of the Kennebunks.

The awards are one of the school’s big spring events, which will take place April 14. Jason Saltmarsh, technology director for RSU 21 said the school hands out awards to student-made movies in several categories including science, “foreign film” and “independent film.”

Foreign language classes like Spanish and French can submit movies into the foreign film category and students who work on Imovies outside of class work submit independent films.

The five-minute films are mostly based around projects inside the classroom.

Saltmarsh said notable winners from the past include a foreign film about a French moose that goes clothes shopping, but said every student who enters an Imovie wins an award.

The awards are not the only new way teachers are using technology inside the school. Even at the awards ceremony, students will present other ways technology is used.  Advances in technology at Middle School of the Kennebunks have led teachers to regard computers as another important tool to help them teach students.

“We’re building the scaffolding by giving them the skills to build on. With integration it’s how far can we take it,” said Nick Shuman, technology integrator for the middle school.

Seventh- and eighth-grade students throughout the state are given Apple laptops as part of the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, first launched at Middle School of the Kennebunks in 2003.

During the past seven years, teachers have become more accustomed to using the laptops in everyday classes, but that hasn’t always been the case.

Shuman said having laptops used to be an “event;” teachers would try something new and it may not have always worked.

Now teachers have integrated laptops into almost daily use, with homework available online, document sharing and access to more information than ever before.

Many refer to the computer program as “one-to-one,” one laptop for every student. Saltmarsh said the district’s goal for the future is a laptop for every student from sixth grade through high school.

“That’s the vision for where the district wants to go, but for financial reasons I don’t see that happening now,” Saltmarsh said.

Many of the school’s science classes rely heavily on the laptops and computer software, right now the focus is on the Imovie projects within the science class.

“Paper is one-dimensional. The movies show what the subject looks like and sounds like. It’s impressive what the students can do,” Shuman said.

In science teacher Mike Denniston’s seventh grade class, students are talking about alternative energy and climate change with problems such as petro-dictatorship and solutions that include using wind and solar power as new energy alternatives.

Besides making Imovies, Denniston uses technology to connect with scientists. Earlier this year, students video-chatted with former Gov. Angus King about field research and data input they did online while working with a scientist from Portland’s Gulf of Maine Research Institute. In the next few months they will input more data for the scientist.

The sixth-grade students are not part of the computer program, but the school did purchase some old computers through the Computer Initiative and have 24 old Apple Ibooks teachers can check out and use during class time.

“The teachers are fighting over them now,” Shuman said. “They all want them.”

Sixth-graders have computer classes with Shuman, where he prepares them on basic skills so teachers can spend “more time on content and less time on computer skills,” when students receive their own computers, Shuman said.

A checklist with expectations for students from Saltmarsh and other technology administrators allows teachers to assess students’ computer skills before they move to the next level.

The middle school has 50 staff laptops and 350 student laptops which students often take home after school.

The school offers students $50 insurance each year. If parents can’t afford the insurance, the school tries to help. This year only 11 computers have been damaged from dropping or spilled liquids, compared to 43 last year.

“Every year we try to revamp the message about care and ethics,” Shuman said. He noted the high number of computer repairs last year might have been because the computers were three years old; this year, they are new.

Middle school parents are encouraged to not only use the leased laptops, but to check their child’s browser history to make sure they are not doing anything inappropriate online.

“It’s a very real issue for middle school and high school, even elementary school students,” Saltmarsh said.

The district has Web filters in place so students cannot visit sites such as Facebook and MySpace, but some students reportedly have found ways around the filter.

 Shuman teaches students computer safety skills in his class, including how to avoid cyber bullying and identity theft. He also teaches other computer skills and programs tied to students’ curriculum.

In Leona Blatt’s sixth grade science room students are teaming up with astrologists to study light pollution. Students log in data online from research they do in their own front yards watching the Orion constellation. The astrologists are studying light pollution through the constellation.

“It’s (technology) very driven by the curriculum. The teachers are coming to us and saying, ‘can we do this?’” Shuman said.

Note sharing is one idea teachers created to better use computer technology. They’re now able to upload class notes and other pertinent information online so students can access from them from home, add information, attach documents and pictures and edit information.

Shuman said in many ways the school is striving to be more paper free with the online notebooks and online homework.

Tom Battles, a special education teacher, uses a computer in his classroom so students can access online programs that conform to their needs. The Alek’s math program allows students to work on specific areas in which they need help. While one student works on multiplication in class, another can work on fractions. Students also can access the program at home and for more practice in trouble areas. Each student is assessed several times a year to make sure the program is working. A reading program offers similar options.

Mary McCarthy’s seventh- and eighth-grade combination technology and art class is working on a podcast for another class’s Nonatum Project.

The group has come up with topics including dining, what to do on a rainy day and downtown Kennebunk. Students will research and write a script before recording their voices and imbedding the file on the Nonatum Web site for people to hear as they plan their vacation.

The Ipods used for the project were purchased last year through the Education Foundation of the Kennebunks and Arundel, said McCarthy.

“It’s nice the foundation had a vision to see what these guys could do, even if they couldn’t (understand the project),” McCarthy said.

Besides Podcasts, students got Google logo outlines to participate in the “Doodle 4 Google” contest. This year’s theme is “If I could do anything I would…” where students will draw their dreams into the Google logo

“I looked at the one that won last year and I thought ‘our kids could do better,’” McCarthy said.

This wouldn’t be the first technology art contest won by one of McCarthy’s art students. Marie Jarcowicz recently had a photograph picked to appear on the new Maine Technology Computer Initiative computer backgrounds.

Band and chorus also use the software, whether it’s using a document reader to show sheet music on a Smartboard and have students outline the melody, or recording different vocal pitches so students can practice their singing part among an ensemble.

“Technology is more than just sitting at a computer and just typing, it’s a skill,” McCarthy said.

Staff Writer Suzanne Hodgson can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.