Redondo Class Gets High-Tech Homework

Redondo Beach freshmen can forget about those three-ring binders, messy handwritten reports or that old excuse that the dog ate their homework.

That’s because in November, all 463 of the ninth-graders at Redondo Union High School will be issued their very own laptop computers they can take home during the school year. The school is believed to be the first public high school in California to issue take-home laptops to an entire grade.

Freshmen will tote a sturdy 7-pound computer home each night to complete assignments, research papers, take tests and browse the Internet.

Parents, who also will have to attend a training workshop on the laptops, can send e-mail messages to teachers and vice versa. Mothers and fathers can check to see if their children have done their homework. Students working on a project together can confer at night via e-mail.

All this is rather extraordinary in a state that, according to a California Department of Education report, ranks 44th out of 50 in the number of computers per student.

“I never thought for a second that the school or the city would spend that much money for our education,” said Ian Young, 14, a freshman at the high school. “I am very excited to be getting it.”

“I almost hit the roof,” gushed Jasmine Arjasbi, 13, also a freshman. “I have brothers and sisters who do their homework on our computer at home, and it’s hard for me to get on. I never thought I’d have an opportunity like this.”

Already, upperclassmen are grousing that they should be the ones receiving the computers instead of their younger peers. “The juniors and seniors feel they know more, and they would be able to use it better,” Young said. “But the way I see it, we’re going to be here for four years and if they are going to effectively test this, they should do it with us.”

The Redondo Beach Unified School Board last month approved the four-year, $1-million deal with NetSchools Corp., an educational computer company based in Santa Clara. The district is applying for federal grants to cover the cost, but has committed money from its general fund budget if no grant materializes.

“This is absolutely unprecedented,” said Andy Dunau, the technology director for Los Angeles Educational Partnership, a nonprofit organization seeking to improve urban schools in Los Angeles. “Will it make a big difference or not [in education] is the big sociological question.”

NetSchools, founded last year, has sold its laptop program to 12 other schools in Florida, Texas, Georgia, Idaho and South Carolina.

The company has developed and sells a rough-and-tumble laptop called StudyPro made of hard-as-nails magnesium instead of plastic. It can be dropped 5 feet on concrete, stood upon, and left in the heat or rain, company officials say. If you spill a soft drink on the keyboard, just wipe it up. It has tamper-proof screws and an anti-theft device. A plastic cover that protects the color screen costs $1 to replace.

Also, the laptops do not have a conventional hard drive, but a durable solid-state disk that reduces the computer’s memory capacity but is meant to be used with the school’s local area network. Through the network, the school can control where students go on the Internet, and can set up roadblocks to pornographic material.

The machine costs $1,600 per student, which includes infrastructure, training and maintenance, and an eight-hour battery that can be recharged for six hours at night. That means that during class, students do not need to plug in computers, avoiding an electrical outlet nightmare.

The advantage of the system is that classrooms don’t have to be wired for computers to have access to the Internet or communicate with the teacher. Instead, the computers are networked through an infrared beam--the same technology used for television channel switchers--installed in the classroom ceiling. The beams connect to the school’s Internet server. When at home, students can dial into the system using the computer’s modem.

“We can have every student operating a computer and not all the expense of retrofitting our classrooms. That was a very big concern to us,” said Redondo Beach Supt. Beverly Rohrer, who noted that many of the high school’s buildings were constructed in the 1940s and 1950s.

The Redondo Beach school district has been a leader in computer technology. In 1994, it set up BeachNet, a computer network with Internet access that serves the Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach school districts as well as the city of Redondo Beach. BeachNet is run and maintained by the students.

Also in 1994, the school district established the Futures Academy, a 24-hour telecommunications learning center for 13 school districts in the South Bay.

Redondo Beach school officials heard about the NetSchools program last March while attending a school administrators conference in Anaheim. The laptop concept fit in nicely with the district’s educational and technological goals. It also encourages parents to get involved in their children’s schooling.

“It is a tool to keep learning on the cutting edge,” noted Sandra Clifton, assistant superintendent of educational services for Redondo Beach. “Anymore, the moment your textbooks roll off the press, they are obsolete.”

Redondo Beach is joining a handful of schools that are trying to quickly incorporate computer technology into the classroom. Last year, the New Technology High School opened in Napa. It has a computer at every desk for its 210 students. There are also 100 laptop computers that students can check out.

And this fall, Woodbury University, a private institution in Burbank, issued personal laptops to all freshmen, who each semester pay a $425 technology fee.