St. Pius Students Go High-Tech

BROOMALL–"It's more than second nature to them...it comes naturally to them," said Integrated Language Arts teacher Nick Chiavari about the new netbooks the students have been using in the classroom.

Since the beginning of the school year, the seventh- and eighth-grade students at St. Pius have been utilizing the netbooks during class time, creating easier work time for both the students and the teacher.

"I like them," said Chiavari. "Drafting has become easier for them and it's easier for me with revisions. It's become more convenient."

Students in Chiavari's class are able to go online and access the Internet for research on essays as they are assigned in class. From there, students are able to use the word processing program to start the process of drafting and writing their essays.

"It's so intuitive to them," said Chiavari. "They can organize much better and the idea of research–they can do it right then and there. There's more flexibility."

And the students agree.

Michelle Wise, 13, a student in Chiavari's eighth-grade Integrated Language Arts class believes the use of netbooks is "much easier" than writing with a pencil and paper.

"It's faster to take notes and it's portable," said Wise. "We can take our work home on an inch-long flash drive."

Matt Pickard, 14, also shared the sentiments and believes the netbooks are "much better" than the traditional learning tools.

"Instead of just using textbook activities, we can go online where there are more activities for us," said Pickard. "It's just so much easier than looking at just the textbook pages."

According to Chiavari, the school is currently looking into getting netbooks for the sixth-grade class as well. St. Pius X School is one of the first schools in the Archdiocese to use netbooks in a classroom as part of the curriculum.