Since 2004, Mt. Abram High School students and teachers have participated in a one-to-one laptop program. While Maine stands out for its laptop use in the seventh and eighth grades, this high school program came about when students saw their younger siblings get laptops. The students wrote a letter to the school board and invited them on a trip to the only high school in the state that had a laptop program: Piscataquis High School in Guilford. The students, school board chairman Mike Pond, technology director Angel Allen, and principal Jeanne Tucker visited the school and were impressed enough with the Piscataquis program to pursue one-to-one at Mt. Abram.

They securedthe necessary $100,000 for the lease through Apple Title IIA (teacher improvement), Title IID (educational technology), Title V (innovation in education), Title VI (special program for rural schools), and e-rate, a program that reimburses districts for telecommunications services. Additional funds were provided by the district technology budget and money collected from students who elected to purchase their laptop at the end of the lease.

For this nearly 500-square-mile district in Western Maine, these changes have helped to level the playing field for a student population that is 50 to 55 percent Title I. "We're in the middle of nowhere," PrincipalTucker says. "We have parents who don't have a phone line, let alone Internet access." Some students near the Canadian border travel 60 miles to get to school. Once there, they all have access to the Internet and other valuable resources that allow them to participate in “place-based” projects that are central to their school’s curriculum.

For example, a local business, Poland Spring Bottling, has partnered with teachers and students in freshman science and algebra classes to gather data using specialized probes, upload it to the laptops, and analyze the effect water extraction has had on the environment. Other co-curricular, place-based projects include oral histories collected using iPods and Apple's iMovie program by social studies and English classes. These are presented in the form of documentaries or Web sites and presented to the community at large. In another project, the applied technology and biology classes are working together to create a non-motorized trail that documents flora and animal life.

All of Mt. Abram's teachers are adept at grant writing, Tucker says, which provides them with opportunities to supplement the laptop program with additional equipment and professional development.

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