Those curious about what cutting-edge education looks like should take a look at Nantucket Elementary School in Crofton.
The $24.6 million school, which opens Wednesday, is one of the most technologically advanced in Anne Arundel County.
Every teacher will have a wearable microphone that broadcasts his or her voice around the classroom. Students will be able to ask questions, talk-show style, with a portable microphone.
Each classroom is outfitted with an interactive whiteboard, a modern-day overhead projector that displays images from the teacher's computer on a large touch screen. Teachers can activate the board by touching it with an electronic pen and access websites, open up lesson plans and write over images. Mobile pads will let them control the screen from anywhere in the room.
The beyond-the-chalkboard approach already is in use in Europe, said Diana Strohecker, principal of Nantucket Elementary. Strohecker spent two months as a Fulbright scholar in southern England and visited 35 schools. All had whiteboards.
Although developing countries still do well with books and blackboards, students in the more affluent, high-tech West are easily bored in class, Strohecker said.
"We are at a time in history where if you don't have an iPod in your pocket, you have a cell phone," Strohecker said. "A 10-year-old textbook is not cutting it."
Anne Arundel County's public schools are trying to make sure every new building has the latest technology, said Bob Mosier, a system spokesman. So far, few are as advanced as Nantucket. Seven Oaks Elementary in Odenton, built three years ago, has only a few portable whiteboards.
The technology also seems to have attracted parents who had their children home-schooled or in private school, Strohecker said. At least 100 of the 690 students at Nantucket fit those two categories, she said. Parents are telling Strohecker that the cost of private school is beginning to pinch, she said.
"I think it's the economic times," Strohecker said. "Parents are looking at tuition."
Most of the students at the 80,000-square-foot Nantucket Elementary, however, are coming from overcrowded Crofton and Four Seasons elementary schools. It can accommodate up to 730 students.
Nantucket Elementary will open two days later than most of the county's other elementary schools, because of the extra training needed with the new technology, Strohecker said.
