Students and teachers at St. Mary's School in Raleigh, North Carolina are discovering new ways to work, learn and interact in the classroom and on campus. The secret for this an independent all-girls' college preparatory school is the Lenovo ThinkPad X41 Tablet PCs that were given to teachers and students.

Their plan for integrating technology into the school's curriculum is called its ATLAS program - Applying Tablets for Learning and Academic Success. Lenovo is working with the school to integrate tablets into the classroom and expects the technology will motivate greater collaboration and more efficient and engaging lessons.

"Our teachers and students are raving about the ThinkPad Tablets from Lenovo in their classrooms," said Theo Wilkes Coonrod, Head of Saint Mary's School. "Classroom instruction and student learning have been revolutionized with this one cool machine. I am impressed with the increased level of interaction and enthusiasm this technology has created. Security and self-service features of the ThinkPad Tablets also help protect the investment we have made in this new technology and in our ATLAS program."

Tablet PCs enable the faculty to innovate. For example, instead of sketching a costume design for dance class using a pen and paper, students use graphical software and the tablet's stylus to create, review and modify images, such as changing scene and costume colors with the click of a button. Music teachers e-mail handwritten lessons in musical notation to student tablets for tailored homework assignments. In biology class, a student's well-executed molecular diagram can be instantly distributed electronically, instead of made into a transparency or drawn on the chalkboard.

"With my ThinkPad Tablet in writing mode, I can have geometry notes on a projection screen, highlight and color code items of importance and work out examples while facing the students. I can even refer back to previous examples, which I couldn't do when I had to frequently erase the board," said Katie Bradbury, Saint Mary's School mathematics teacher. "I envision my notes one day being completely tablet generated. I will send my students a document and we'll work on the lesson together. Students will then save the notes on their tablet and have their own electronic binder."

The school selected the ThinkPad X41 Tablet for its weight, handwriting recognition capability and keyboard-to-writing slate convertibility for liberal arts and science classes. Teachers and students create and share images, diagrams, documents and research as they are developed and get immediate feedback.

Since both images and words can be captured, saved and shared during classroom lessons, students and teachers can access a wider variety of activities. These electronic documents can also be manipulated in real-time through image, text, sound and color, then shared across the room or across the city through the Internet to a classmate home sick from school that day.

Using tablet PCs, teachers can engage every student, including auditory and visual learners. In addition, the portability of the tablet expands lesson options. "When I am away from a classroom I can still use the functions of my computer as if I was in my office," said Kathy Burke, Saint Mary's School tennis coach. "The drawing function is great for athletics because I can use the tablet for diagrams and explaining drills. After I draw a drill I can then share it with students."

Saint Mary's School has maintained a mobile computing program since 2002, providing ThinkPad notebooks to faculty. This fall, 95 ThinkPad X41 Tablets were deployed to teachers and classrooms. The school of 268 students expects to have a complete one-to-one tablet environment by fall 2007.

About Saint Mary's School
Founded in 1842, Saint Mary's School in Raleigh, North Carolina is an independent, Episcopal, college-preparatory and boarding and day school, dedicated to academic excellence and personal achievement for young women in grades 9-12. Saint Mary's School is located on a scenic and historic 23-acre campus in the heart of the state capitol in North Carolina's Research Triangle, home to state government, high-tech industry and higher education. Visit www.saint-marys.edu.