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This coming week, some of Tim Arnold's Hagerstown Junior-Senior High School students will go into the advertising business.
The students will be using digital tools such as their individual Chromebooks and cameras to research and create political ads for candidates who ran for office during America's Imperialist period. Some will support Imperialism politicians, and others will support anti-Imperialism candidates.
"It could have been done on poster board but would have been not nearly as dynamic," Arnold said. "It's the same ideas we've been teaching for years, just in a new way."
Nettle Creek schools, which includes Hagerstown Junior-Senior High School, as well as Northeastern Wayne schools in Fountain City, Centerville schools and Western Wayne schools in Cambridge City have gone digital in their classrooms. At each of the four high schools, and in many other grades, students have a digital device, such as a laptop or iPad, to call their own during the school year.
The device is often a substitute for pencil, paper and textbooks. Students are responsible for the care of the device, keeping it powered up and taking it to and from school each day. The computers are owned by the school and rented, like textbooks, through book and technology fees.
Richmond Community Schools, the largest of the five public school districts in Wayne County, is considering its own plan for one-to-one, take-home computers for students in grades 5 to 12 and the topic likely will the be the subject of more discussion at Richmond's school board meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
In developing its plan, Richmond administrators have been talking with and observing how other one-to-one plans were implemented in Wayne County and throughout the state.
Northeastern was the first local district to make personal computers available to students. Those in grades 7 to 12 received iPads in October 2011. The program was expanded to grades 5 and 6 last year when the district's middle school was developed.
Students in grades 6 to 12 can take home their iPads as needed for homework. This year, students in grades 3 and 4 got their own iPads, but they, along with the fifth-graders, must leave them at school when the day concludes.
Higher student engagement and more innovative assignments that cannot be done via paper and pencil are two of the advantages of individual computer use in the classroom, said Northeastern Superintendent Laura Blessing. Other advantages include a decrease in paper costs (because work is submitted electronically) and additional individualized learning opportunities and activities.
Northeastern freshman Dannielle Savage, 14, began using an iPad in the sixth grade and likes using it most of the time.
"I think it helps. Like when we're doing research projects, it's difficult to use computers outside the classroom," Dannielle said. "For one of our projects in English class, we made a movie instead of doing a poster project."
Like Dannielle, Northeastern eighth-grader Robert Hofmann, 14, likes using the iPad for projects.
"I had this menu project that I had to do (for health class) .... and that was a lot easier because we could use the Internet to look up information," Robert said.
Robert likes having the computer available to look up words he doesn't know and to access homework and information directly from his teacher's website.
Robert has ADHD, and he admits he can get too focused on the computer and lose touch with the world around him. That's one of the things he and his mother, Beth Williams of Fountain City, learned when they moved into the Northeastern district and he had a personal computer to use at school for the first time.
He would become so engrossed in the iPad, Williams said, he would paying attention to it and be bumping into people in the hall as he went from class to class. Fortunately, by working with the school, efforts have been made to make sure Robert knows when to put down the iPad.
"We love technology and we hate it at the same time," Williams said. "It's a really good thing when they do things for English, presentations or projects. It's helpful to have all of that at their hands, and it helps them to be creative. It's really cool that they're going to be able to do that and know a whole lot more when they get into the business world."
Indiana University President Michael McRobbie, who visited the IU East campus Friday and spoke at the Wayne County Area Chamber of Commerce annual dinner Friday night, said information technology is being made available academically and socially throughout the world and it is important for American schools to follow suit.
"The traditional-age students who are coming to university are really the first generation that was born completely digitally," McRobbie said. "They grew up in an environment where much of their social interaction with their friends, family and others, but also more broadly education and so on, is mediated by pervasive Internet technology and information technology in everything that they do...
"Stuff that would've been taught 20 years ago is now something that kids are learning while in their cribs," McRobbie said. "It really requires an almost new approach to the teaching."
"We can no longer deny the resources of the world to our children," agreed Hagerstown's Arnold. "It's another tool for us to use, but it's a pretty dynamic tool. All of it is about delivering content in a new way or letting students discover on their own about content the teacher has selected."
Arnold is a part of Nettle Creek's technology committee and helps teachers and students learn more about computer use through a blog. He said computer use in the classroom and outside of it also teaches students about being independent.
Hagerstown Junior-Senior High provided Chromebooks for students in grades 6 to 9 in January 2015 and then provided them to grades 11 and 12 as well as the new sixth-graders in fall 2015.
"We've got to teach them to have the ability to assess if the resources they have are valid and what they need to analyze whether some sources are better than another," Arnold said. "For my students, it's essential to democracy."
"We're all about teaching the kids critical-thinking skills so they don't believe everything they read online," Nettle Creek Superintendent Bill Doering said.
Western Wayne Assistant Superintendent George Philhower said the amount of information available to students today is tremendous.
"One of the most important things we need to be teaching kids is how to learn. It's not just the rote memorization things," Philhower said. "They pretty much have the sum of all human knowledge in their pockets. We need to teach them how to use that the right way."
Since Western Wayne provided laptops to students in grades 6 to 12 in fall 2014, Philhower has seen students take advantage of engagement opportunities in ways they were not able to do before.
"It isn't necessarily what you can do with the technology but what it allows the teacher to do with his or her time because of the technology ... (maximizing) the time that students have with their teacher," Philhower said.
Area administrators have said teachers have embraced the opportunity to integrate computers in their classroom.
Centerville Superintendent Phil Stevenson said one of the best things the district did when it implemented one-to-one student computers for grades 7 to 12 during the 2013-14 school year was to have a person on staff who focused on teacher development.
"We hired, for two years, a full-time person to get the teachers prepared. He worked with them the first and second years on professional development, ideas on utilizing computers in the classroom," Stevenson said.
Centeville High School Principal Mike McCoy said the teachers he was most concerned about making the shift are now his leading experts.
"It's exceeded my expectations," McCoy said. "(Teachers) send projects up to me all the time that just blow my mind. My art teacher does an outstanding job. Every day they are on their computers, researching artists.... We're at the point I'd hoped we'd be at in four years. We're there already."
Centerville introduced its one-to-one program to parents through informational meetings, and the other local districts did the same.
Stevenson said parents' biggest questions were about damage to the computers and fees, something that also has been the same in the other districts.
Stevenson said Centerville implemented a tech fee that helps cover damages. Other districts have offered insurance and scales for payment of damage based upon the number of times it's occurred.
"It's going to happen, you might as well get ready for it," Stevenson said.
Area schools report the most common damage is a broken screen from dropped computers. Administrators said the amount of breakage is greatest in the first year as students become accustomed to carrying them.
"You just begin to get in the routine every day," Northeastern's Dannille Savage said. "There are some people who are completely irresponsible ... I'm more careful with that kind of stuff."
Kevin Munchel, director of technology for Nettle Creek schools, said the district had 12 percent breakage the first year. "That's not too astounding," he said. "It keeps us busy."
The most extreme case of damage occurred when a student from Economy put the laptop on top of the car before heading for school. The computer stayed on the roof almost all the way, falling off along Indiana 1 in front of Hartley Hills Golf Course. A Hagerstown marshal found it and delivered what was left of it to the school.
"It's a life lesson, I guess," Munchel said.
Parents Savage and Williams said having a take-home computer does come with added expenses such as tech fees, accessories, cords, cases and even a wireless printer. For Savage, who lives near the Randolph County line, having WiFi available at home can be a challenge since she has spotty service.
Sometimes, Savage must pack up the kids and bring them into Richmond to use WiFi at a public location such as a McDonald's.
Still, most of the county administrators say accessing the Internet at home isn't a problem for most students and some software programs time-stamp homework so that even if it's not delivered to a teacher digitally until the next day when the student arrives at school, it's clear that the work was completed on time.
Savage and Williams also worry about the talents students are developing for getting around safety filters.
"They're a lot more savvy than I was coming out of high school," Savage said.
Munchel said the first few weeks computers were in students hands at Hagerstown High School, they caught one student trying to access a site he shouldn't. He and the principal met with the student within minutes and word quickly got around not to test the school's defenses.
"It's new for everybody," Munchel said. "You've just got to roll with the punches, come out with a solution and carry on. Overall, it's worked out pretty well."
Going one-to-one
Four Wayne County public school districts have provided portable computers to their students for use in the classroom and at home.
Most of the schools have their technology plans, agreements and documents posted on the district or high school website.
Here's more history and information about their programs:
• Northeastern: Students in grades 7 to 12 received iPads in October 2011. The program was expanded to grades 5 and 6 last year when the district's middle school was developed. Students in grades 6 to 12 can take home their iPads as needed for homework. This year, students in grades 3 and 4 got their own iPads. Students in grades 3 to 5 leave their iPads at school all of the time. Classroom sets of computers are available in kindergarten through grade 2.
• Centerville: Students in grades 7 to 12 received laptops during the 2013-14 school year.
• Western Wayne: Lincoln high school and middle school provided personal tablets to students in grades 6 to 12 in August 2014.
• Nettle Creek:  Hagerstown Junior-Senior High School provided Chromebooks for students in grades 6 to 9 in January 2015 and then provided them to grades 11 and 12 as well as the new sixth-graders in fall 2015.