Schools look to WiFi to boost learning
Source: CNN.com
Sarah Wille didn't get sick when she dissected a fetal pig in science class, because she'd seen its innards before.
The 12-year-old had studied the diagrams ahead of time on the Internet over a wireless laptop computer.
"Lots of kids were nervous about what the pigs were going to look like and pretty confused because we'd never looked at the inside of anything. It was much easier when we knew what to expect," Sarah said. On Mondays, she uses the same laptop to work on math quizzes structured for her ability level on a Web site.
Sarah is a student at Winston Campus in the Chicago suburb of Palatine, which is part of a growing number of schools that are incorporating laptop computers and wireless Internet technology into their buildings and classrooms.
Most U.S. public schools are equipped with desktop computers and computer labs, but the relatively new wireless Internet technology called WiFi gives pupils instant access to the Internet to help with any subject in any classroom.
WiFi is already available in many universities, which generally have more resources, but now the technology is trickling down into lower-level schools. It is one of the fastest-growing budget items for technology.
