FARMINGTON – A $248,000 federal grant will allow the University of Maine at Farmington to integrate technology into a new education center, according Katherine Yardley, the school’s dean of the College of Education, Health and Rehabilitation.
“We’re extremely grateful” to Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, she said Wednesday. “It’s very exciting.”
Ten “smart” classrooms will be outfitted with wireless Internet access as well as computer-ready projectors and screens. It will enable faculty to model ways of integrating technology into the classroom, something critical to educators, particularly with the state’s public school laptop initiative.
Students will have another means by which to share and collect data and Yardley envisions projected computer screens to make white boards and blackboards nearly obsolete, though they will be available, she said.
Faculty will be able to type notes or student ideas directly into a computer that will project the information for the entire class to see.
They will also be able to utilize projections of Web sites, she added.
“With the laptop initiative in the state, it’s so timely,” Yardley said. “It’s really going to transform education at the university,” she added.
Construction on the $8 million building at High and Lincoln streets is slated to begin Sept. 17 with a groundbreaking ceremony.
It is expected “to be open for business” January 2007, according to Mary Sylvester, director of university advancement.
The grant to Maine from the U.S. Department of Education also included $2,857,893 awarded to SAD 55 over three years to support the district’s Safe Schools/Healthy Students program.
SAD 55 includes the towns of Baldwin, Cornish, Hiram, Parsonsfield and Porter.
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