The crack team of computer demonstrators filed into the room, booted up their laptops and got right to work.

They were a casual lot, dressed in their Gap sweat shirts and sneakers and backward baseball caps. But they were all business, too, and unfazed by the TV cameras and microphones being aimed over their shoulders as they patiently fielded questions from reporters.

“We’re working on osteoporosis,” one said when asked about the day’s demonstration for faculty and students from the University of Maine College of Education and the local media.

Fingers tapped away on keyboards. Mouses clicked confidently. The demonstrators seemed at ease in their multimedia world, having been immersed in computer technology since they were old enough to sit in front of a monitor. One was making a video infomercial intended to keep youngsters from the bad dietary habits that could cause osteoporosis later in life. Another was creating a companion brochure about the bone-weakening disease. As the audience looked on curiously, two other demonstrators conferred with a university anthropologist by chat line, by streaming video and by scanning microscope about the composition of a pile of old bones beside them.

Their task was to provide educators with a glimpse into Maine’s middle school classroom of the very near future, and the young demonstrators appeared to relish their new instructional roles.

“It feels great when you can teach grown-ups things they might not know much about,” said Jeffrey Kleinschmidt, an 11-year-old in the sixth grade at Veazie Community School.

“I feel powerful,” said his 13-year-old sister, Stephanie, who stared intently at the screen of her colorful little iBook computer. “But it is kind of weird, too.”

No doubt there are middle school teachers across the state thinking the same thing about their futures right about now. If Maine’s pioneering laptop initiative goes according to plan, every seventh-grader in the state will have a portable computer with Internet capabilities by next September. Seymour Papert, an internationally recognized technology expert who has advised Maine legislators throughout the long and controversial process, has predicted that the laptops will make the state’s middle school curriculum virtually unrecognizable in five years.

“Everything will change,” said Papert, who lives in Blue Hill.

And while we can expect kids to embrace their new high-tech education, their teachers will face one of the biggest challenges of their careers: learning the technology alongside their pupils every day.

“For some people there is a discomfort in using technology,” said Jim Verrill, an instructional technology specialist who trains teachers in the skills they’ll need in a digital classroom. “But teachers really want this. Those who resist are afraid of giving up their control as teachers. Some are afraid that their students, who tend to learn new programs quickly, will surpass them. But there’s nothing wrong with kids teaching their teachers.”

Mike Zhang couldn’t agree more. At 12, the Orono Middle School pupil said he looks forward to sharing information freely with his teachers and classmates.

“A lot of teachers don’t know what we know about computers,” Zhang said as he plotted his weekly dietary intake with a nifty calcium calculator he found on the Web. “With computers, you can be more independent in school. Once you learn something, you can just go off and do it on your own.”

It’s precisely that kind of progressive thinking that teachers will be asked to nurture in their classrooms next year, said Sue McGarry, who teaches math and

statistics at the university.

“Teachers will need a real openness about new ways of learning,” said McGarry, a former high school teacher. “They’ll have to make themselves available for all the possibilities. Teachers have to be open to learning from the kids, too, just as kids will learn from other kids. Certainly this will be an adjustment for teachers, but it’s a benefit. It’s like anything else, you just have to be creative. Teachers will have to think in ways they never had to before.”

Lynne Walsh, who is studying for her master’s in instructional technology, said it’s only natural for some teachers to feel anxious about the changes that computer technology will bring to their classrooms.

“There’s trepidation anytime you start something different, but you can’t grow without change,” said Walsh, who has taught in Berwick and Hampden. “Teachers are going to find kids who know more than they do, so they’ll have to get used to learning, too. Becoming educated about technology is not just learning how to use the software, but also about how to manage the classroom. But good teachers are always learning anyway, so I know they’re excited about what’s coming.”

Jessica Swindlehurst, a seventh-grader from Orono, is also confident that Maine’s teachers will do just fine when the laptops arrive.

“I think teachers are pretty fast learners,” she said.

Tom Weber’s column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.