By MEREDYTH R. WATERMAN
Staff Writer

BLACKSTONE -- Schools in the Blackstone-Millville regional district have opened up new opportunities to students with a wide array of technological improvements, the technology and media directors told the district School Committee last night.

New computer labs, software, improved Internet access and resources, and better television technology have been brought into the schools in recent months, and the committee got a virtual tour of some of it last night.

As the school committee sat at new computers in the A.F. Maloney School lab, Technology Director Bradford Monroe gave them a computer-generated tour of some of the district's upgraded labs and administrative software.

He also provided some statistics that show the system is at the leading edge of classroom technology integration. Every classroom in the district now has a computer in it, and there are 320 computers in the district, or one for every 5.7 students, Monroe said.

The school has also joined the Virtual High School collaborative, a network of schools across the country that allows students to participate in "distance learning," or taking classes on-line from other schools. In exchange for providing an on-line course taught by one of its teachers, a school is allowed 20 spaces for its own students, who will be able to choose from 125 available courses.

The program will give students a chance to take specialized courses not available at Blackstone-Millville Regional High School.

"They could do an A.P. course at night if it doesn't fit into their schedules," Monroe said.

Teacher Fred Mitchell is now taking a course so he can be the department's first teacher in the program. This spring, five BMR students will test out the program, and next fall there will be spots for 20, Monroe said.

Among the other matters Monroe presented was the school department's extensive Web site, which was recently selected as an example at the Massachusetts Superintendents' Technology Leadership Conference.

The site is one of the most advanced school sites in the state, with more than 500 pages, sections for each school, calendars, school lunch menus and links to dozens of on-line resources selected especially for each age level.

The school department is also working on entering student information for a state database, Monroe said. The database requires each student be assigned a local school identification number that stays with the student as long as he's in that district and a state identification number that stays with him as long as he's in any school in the commonwealth.

Those numbers will be linked with the school's information systems, which will record all the student's information, like absences and grades, Monroe said.

Those numbers are already in place at the high school, and are being used to keep track of student's borrowing at the library, which is now fully automated, said Media Director John G. Carroll.

Bar codes have been put in every book in the library, and can be scanned to check out books, he said. That system will soon be in place at the elementary schools as well, Carroll said.

In his update, Carroll also told the committee that, thanks to new technology, the ten students in the television production program will soon be able to create programs with a two-camera studio setup.