When school starts in August, every student at Kelly Walsh High School will have a new Apple MacBook laptop computer.

Roughly 1,400 computers are being distributed to KW students and staff members, as the school transitions into a 1-to-1, high access environment.

The computers are part of a $3.8 million lease purchase agreement Natrona County School District made with Apple Computers. The agreement was approved by the district's school board in June.

More than 3,000 computers were purchased through the agreement and will be distributed to elementary, junior high and high schools in Natrona County. Kelly Walsh, Centennial and Frontier students and staff members will receive the majority of the computers.

Dean Morgan Junior High, CY Middle School and Natrona County High School students and staff members will also receive computers at certain grade levels. The remaining computers will be used on computer carts at Park, Ft. Caspar Academy and Manor Heights Elementary.

One-to-one computer access began three years ago with the opening of Frontier, where computers and technology played a larger role in student learning.

Kelly Walsh held a week-long "technology camp" to prepare its teachers for the switch. The teachers learned to use GPS devices and Photoshop computer software and made their own robots.

Getting comfortable with technology is a key step in teachers feeling ready to use it in their classrooms, according to camp counselor Karen Sue McCutcheon, who is also an instructional facilitator at Kelly Walsh.

"Unless they have experiences, they don't know how to incorporate those things into the curriculum," she said.

Fellow counselor and teacher Duane Reimer agreed with McCutcheon.

Showing the teachers how to use the Internet in their classrooms will make them more relaxed about making the switch, according to fellow counselor and teacher Duane Reimer. Handing out a bunch of laptops isn't going to magically improve student achievement. It still takes a trained teacher to challenge and bring out the best in students.

"I guess the analogy I would use is, if you're a great English teacher before you had a computer, you're still going to be a great English teacher [now that you have one]," Reimer said. "The question is, how are you going to use that tool to motivate, to entice?"

Using computers as classroom tools can also hold students more accountable for doing and completing school assignments, he added.

"You can't leave it at school if it's on the Web," Reimer said. "You can't lose it if it's on the Web. You can't leave it at home if it's on the Web."

Reach education reporter Jasa Santos at (307) 266-0593 or at Jasa.Santos@trib.com