District to buy more laptops

Several Costa Mesa schools are now plugged into a $428,400 federal grant to teach science writing and technology skills to local students.

The federal Enhancing Education Through Technology grant was given to the district through the state, after a highly competitive process.

The district’s grant application received full funding, district spokeswoman Laura Boss said, a rare achievement for any district.

“Our application was rated the No. 1-received submission in our region,” district Educational Technology Services Director Steven Glyer said.

The grant will help fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders at schools including Paularino Elementary, Sonora Elementary, Killybrooke Elementary, Davis Magnet and Costa Mesa Middle School, Boss said.

The district will use the funds to buy 550 netbooks with power cords, 477 of which will be used by fifth- and sixth-graders in class and at home after signing a “responsibility contract.”

Seventy of these laptop computers will be used on campus by seventh-graders at Costa Mesa Middle School, and the remaining 23 will be set aside for breakage and maintenance.

Along with the hardware, students will begin using a state-of-the-art science writing curriculum that’s produced strong results among English learners.

More than 300 seventh-graders and 450 fifth- and sixth-graders will benefit from Web 2.0 tools like Discovery Science and MY Access!

The focus of the program will be science writing using MY Access!, Web-based writing software that lets kids write compositions and other materials and receive instant, personalized writing feedback from the program.

The students also will use Discovery Science’s research-based interactive curricula, which align with state standards and tie in well with MY Access!

“So many jobs today are based on technology skills,” Glyer said. “We’re focusing on nonfiction writing in the science field.”

Studies in a district with similar English-learner demographics to Newport-Mesa found that the longer the English learners participate in such a program, the greater their science and writing achievements; by grade six, the English learners who had used the program for four years outperformed native English speakers on a writing test.