IN THE CLASSROOM:

When Newport Heights Elementary School sixth-grader TK McWhertor completes his essay in class, he walks it over to teacher Marc Africano for editing.

But instead of breaking out the red pen and scribbling all over the page, Africano simply clicks, drags and deletes TK’s mistakes. His essay is on his class-issued laptop.

Africano’s class is one of two on campus that has the laptops; the other is in fifth grade teacher Gabriel Del Real’s.

They are part of an Intel Corporation pilot program testing how Classmate student laptops could help learning in the classroom.

Newport Heights is one of only four schools nationwide in the program.

Nov. 20 was the students’ first day with their Classmates, and they were not disappointed.

“I used a laptop at home. It was very old and loaded very slow. Slower than a snail,” said fifth-grader Vincent Le, as he worked on a Power Point presentation. “This is pretty fun. If we have a writing project we can learn to type it.”

Newport Heights was issued about 70 student laptops, two higher-end teacher laptops, a server for each class’ system, carts, training and technical support for the pilot program, which ends in February.

It’s brought positive changes.

“This forces some creativity into the classroom. You’re integrating technology into one seamless entity,” Del Real said. “I now have to work in the technology with the standards I’m required to teach.”

Africano already has his sixth-grade students working with the pioneer technology as pretend corporate employees. His students check on the day’s top five news headlines off the Yahoo! News website and track stock prices through the laptop’s wireless technology.

“This is the doorway to the world,” Africano said.

His students will create movies, multimedia presentations and listen to audio recordings of items they’ve read.

“I’m so excited about this you don’t even know,” he said.

Last week, Del Real’s 30-plus students attentively followed his instructions, faces lit by the glow of the 12-inch-wide computer screens.

“With these, their motivation increases. That job is easier,” Del Real said.

“It’s much easier to type because the keyboard is smaller,” said fifth-grader Kappy Fuller. “I’m looking forward to doing my schoolwork and bringing it home. That sounds really cool to me.”

Newport Heights will become Newport-Mesa School District property after the pilot program is complete.

The laptops will stay at Newport Heights elementary, district officials said.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at joseph.serna@latimes.com.