Young experts ask for computer access > State task force hears persuasive testimony from ‘Kids for Laptops’

ORONO – A panel of adults considering ways to use a $50 million fund for technology in Maine’s schools heard from some expert witnesses Monday: four kids from Ellsworth and Old Town.

Each came down squarely on the side of greater access, and each downplayed fears by adults that young people and their teachers couldn’t handle the technology.

The adults are part of a task force set up earlier this year after Gov. Angus King proposed setting aside an endowment to cover the costs of furnishing Maine’s seventh- through 12th-graders with laptop computers.

In a task force hearing Monday, 10-year-old Tom McClellan of Ellsworth said he and his friends take care of expensive video game devices, portable audio equipment, and even a few cell phones and pagers.

And he appeared to take a tongue-in-cheek swipe at those who say the laptops would wind up smeared with gum and flooded with soda: “I’ve never spilled anything on my keyboard,” McClellan said, “but I know my mom has spilled coffee on hers.”

Monday’s testimony was made possible through a technological advancement that allowed the boys to give their testimony in an Orono conference room while the task force studying the proposed Learning Technology Endowment was seated in a lecture hall in Gardiner.

Three of the four grade-school boys are brothers. They donned T-shirts declaring themselves to be members of “The Mouse Brigade: Kids for Laptops.” The three boys advocated King’s laptop plan, saying each of them would be helped by the addition of laptop computers to their backpacks.

Andrew Chalila, 9, a fourth-grade pupil in the Old Town school system, spoke on behalf of the Old Town Public Library, where, the boy said, he did much of his research after school. Providing money from the endowment toward technological advancements in Maine’s public libraries, Chalila said, would benefit both children and adults in Maine’s communities.

“I think the library should be brought into these things because they need more money,” Chalila said as he stood before the camera. “If they had more money they could give me better services.”

While audio problems at times hampered the hearing, the boys appeared to make their positions known to the approximately 75 observers in Gorham, Presque Isle and Gardiner with both humor and compelling personal stories.

“If I had a laptop now, it would make my life a lot easier,” said Dan McClellan, 9, of Ellsworth, Tom McClellan’s brother.

Dan McClellan told the task force he is legally blind and depends on special machinery to make textbooks and homework assignments legible to him by magnifying the print.

The distribution of laptops to Maine’s middle and high school students, he said, would help students with physical disabilities overcome obstacles in the classroom. “Kids in wheelchairs,” Dan McClellan told the task force, “would have access to the world with their computers.”

Tom McClellan’s comments drew applause when he claimed that many kindergarten pupils make use of computers, so Maine’s teachers should be able to adapt to the new technology. “Therefore, it shouldn’t be too hard for an older teacher to use one,” he said.

John McClellan, Tom’s twin brother, also testified.

King’s laptop proposal earlier this year attracted national attention. But many in the Legislature balked at the idea, and both sides drafted a compromise that set aside $50 million for a learning technology fund. The task force was formed to study how such a program would be administered. Monday’s teleconferencing hearing was one of a series of public hearings held by the body as it tries to determine how the money should be allocated.

Rep. Michael Brennan, D-Portland, heads the task force and moderated the hearing. He said the panel was expected to make its final proposals for the endowment by late December and hopes to report those findings to the Legislature by mid-January.

Brennan said the panel hopes to develop proposals that are accessible and equitable to people in all corners of Maine, and also improve learning in Maine’s classrooms. “We don’t want technology just for technology’s sake,” Brennan said.

People may submit written comments on the proposal by visiting the task force’s Web site at www.state.me.us/legis/opla/mlte.htm.