Learning online

National Semiconductor’s announcement yesterday that it would provide support to the plan by Gov. Angus King to bring portable computers to all seventh-graders is not terrific news simply because it saves the state significant money in teacher training. And it’s not terrific news just as an example of a Maine business contributing to the well-being of residents.

It is terrific news because it confirms, through an international high-tech leader, that establishing a $65 million public-private trust fund to provide computers to all students above sixth grade is a solid investment in Maine’s children. From the experts at the cutting edge of computers, from people who know computers’ value and their potential value, the message is powerful: This is where Maine should be going.

National Semiconductor is a $2 billion-a-year analog and digital technology company based in Santa Clara, Calif., with more than 10,000 employees worldwide and a major facility in Portland. It has volunteered to work with Maine to provide teachers with the training, free of charge, that will let them fully integrate new technology in the classroom. The company currently trains some Maine teachers through its Global Connections Online, which offers Internet basics, Web background and ways to use the Internet in planning lessons. But that could be just the beginning; the company and the governor’s office already are looking for ways to work together to expand Global Connections and bring more in-depth computer knowledge to teachers.

Gov. King was campaigning for the idea yesterday, laying out dozens of studies the showed how computers can be used effectively in the classroom. Again and again the results were that, used properly and with properly trained teachers, the technology improves academic achievement and, according to one of the largest studies based on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the social environment of schools. Students with portable computers were found to spend more time in collaborative work and active learning, more time writing and more time learning out of school.

Just as important, the easy availability of all these studies suggests that the governor’s proposal is unique not because Maine schools would be in uncharted territory with large increases in technology — lots of states can claim to have done that. But how many have true equity, with no discussion of haves and have-nots because everybody is a have? It is here that Maine could be — should be — a leader.

In the week since Gov. King described his portable computer, hundreds of citizens have offered opinions on why this idea absolutely, positively will fail. It’s untested. The kids will break the computers. They’ll look at dirty pictures on the Internet. Critics have provided dozens of ways they believe the money could be better spent. What about the roofs that need fixing? Or those portable classrooms or all the other needs Maine has? One writer suggested the money would be better spent on winter boots for every seventh-grader. Another proposed chainsaws.

Certainly, there is a risk in the new and a comfort with the familiar. And it may turn out in three or four years that, for some unforeseen reason, technology has become less important, that the key to academic success is more pencils or renovated gymnasiums. If that’s the case, the $65 million in the computer trust fund can be put to other uses.

Much more likely, however, Maine will find that evolving technology demands that the state pay even more attention to it; that teachers will produce creative and effective lessons on their computers, and that they will reach kids they previously could not. Best of all, that Maine students will continue their educations beyond high school already able to learn by traditional methods or on-line. Maine students — all of them, not just those lucky enough to live in the right school district — will be ahead of their peers in other states and ready to take on the world.

It’s an enormous gain for Maine at a small risk. National Semiconductor apparently thinks so, too.