Pen and paper are optional at Green Fields Country Day School.
Some 50 high school students received new Apple MacBook laptops as part of an initiative to upgrade the district's technology and enhance its curriculum.
"At first, I wasn't that excited. I am not a very technologically sound person, and a lot of my classmates are. I like my pen and paper. I like taking notes," Green Fields senior Sophie Ward said.
"But I've come to really, really enjoy having (a laptop). I'm much more organized with school."
Green Fields loaned laptops to its high school students for the school year and also purchased five iMac desktop computers, introduced Google Apps, which is free e-mail and other tools, and went wireless throughout its 22-acre campus on the northwest side.
The K-12 school also is ordering five to seven Smart boards, or interactive whiteboards, for classrooms and plans to install webcams in the gym and in a chicken coop on campus.
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A webcam in the gym will stream athletic contests online and a webcam in the chicken coop will let third-graders monitor their chicks and eggs.
"This is an exciting time for us. Green Fields is taking a big step on the technology front," Green Fields Head of School Matt Teller said.
Teller wants the technology to ready his students for life after high school.
"It's helping to prepare our kids for what they have to navigate at the university level," he said.
Improvements to the school's infrastructure in terms of increased bandwidth, improved servers and stronger security also occurred through the initiative.
Green Fields received private funding through donations to pay for the upgrades, Teller said.
Faculty, staff and students can access e-mail, calendars, documents and other sites through an education edition of Google Apps.
"It's allowing us to communicate internally much more effectively," Teller said.
With the customizable tools, students and staff can create, share and edit documents at any hour from any computer.
Faculty are able to start shared sites, where they can post assignments, lectures and student work.
Instructor Bob Haskett teaches English and creative writing at the high school and his courses depend on collaboration.
He created a Google site, which is like a web page, for his creative-writing students to post papers that they can edit, comment on and discuss in real time, he said.
"This is a writing workshop where we're all sharing information anyway, so this makes it much more interactive," he said.
Green Fields junior Alyssa Yoshino's laptop stays mostly closed in math class, but she has found much use for it in her English class.
"We use it a lot in English to look at things we wouldn't be able to find in our textbooks," she said.
Desktop computers have also enhanced curriculum in classrooms throughout the school, where five iMacs were installed.
Media arts programs at the high school will use the iMacs to produce the school's newspaper, literary magazine and yearbook.
One of the iMacs is in Judy Mott's fifth-grade classroom.
Mott, a first-year teacher at Green Fields, is a big believer in technology and 21st-century skills.
The iMac comes equipped with a microphone and camera and Mott plans to teach her students how to produce podcasts.
"I'm excited about where we are going with this," she said.
Contact reporter Andrea Rivera at arivera@azstarnet.com or 807-8430.
