GUILFORD – They scoured the Internet for schools in the United States that were noted for being on the cutting edge of technology, especially in the use of laptops, and four school systems surfaced.

This week, nine representatives of the government and schools of Singapore made the long flight from Asia to visit those four locations – Piscataquis Community Middle and High schools in Guilford, two schools in Florida and another in Cincinnati, Ohio.

“We come to see how we can learn from what has been done here,” Hock Yun Khoong, assistant chief executive of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, said Thursday.

He later said: “My delegation found PCMS and PCHS to be soul mates in the creative journey to maximize the effectiveness of the education process through the use of infocommunications technology.”

Khoong said the IDA is similar to the Federal Communications Commission but also serves as the government’s chief information office and it regulates telecommunications.

The members of the group also represented the ministry of education, an all-boys school and an all-girls school. They listened intently to the information provided by SAD 4 Superintendent Paul Stearns, Technology Coordinator Crystal Priest, PCMS Principal Greg Bellemare and PCHS Principal Kevin Jordan.

The fingers of many in the group continually tapped the keys of their personal laptops, recording the information for later study. Later, they watched the laptops being used in the classroom.

In his introduction, Stearns credited Priest for much of the district’s technological advances. “She’s been able to take our very rural, high-poverty area and take it to a higher level,” he told the officials.

The district’s advances have been widely publicized and that is what drew the attention of the Singapore officials, according to Steven Tong of the IDA. As a result of the trip to Guilford, the group hoped to learn more about the impact computers have had in the district. Tong said he was eager to find out why the district and the state supported the project and why Apple was used instead of Microsoft, among other questions.

“We hope to take the information back and see if we can apply it; we already have a pretty comprehensive [tablet PC] program back home,” Tong said.

Khoong said he hoped to open a channel of communications between his country and the selected schools to share information. He said new ideas could be generated between teachers and students.

Singapore has two schools that are considered incubator schools because of the extended use of laptops, known as tablets, according to Tong.

He noted that all teachers have laptops in the country. They eventually hope to shift it to a level where all students have their own tablet for use in and out of school to continue the learning process.

Priest called the meeting with the group “fascinating.”

“It was amazing how similar the guiding principles of the two programs are,” he said. “In many ways their concerns are the same as ours: to provide students with the best education possible today and to help them acquire the skills to compete successfully in the job market of the future.”