VALPARAISO | This is not your older brother's laptop.

With swiveling screens you can lay flat and write on with a stylus, the new wireless equipment at John Simatovich Elementary School is at least School Computers 2.0.

The 20 new IBM ThinkPads and accompanying hardware and software, part of a $50,000 wireless lab won for the school by fifth-grade teacher Elissa Ellis, were put through their paces on Wednesday.

Representatives of the donors, information technology company CDW-G and Discovery Education, showed students the many uses for the notebook-sized computers.

Fifth-graders in Ellis' classroom gave two digits up for the digital wonders.

"It was pretty breathtaking," said Scott Adkins, who used the penmanship recognition software to write his lunch menu on the pad. The machine transcribed his list almost perfectly, changing his "cookies" into "booties."

But still Scott was impressed. "I thought that was pretty cool," he said.

"I like how we can draw on them and do math lessons on them," said Brittany Martin. "It makes it more exciting."

Asked if he would rather be on the playground on the brilliant spring morning or inside on the new computer, Zach Lipps said, "That depends on what we're playing -- and if we got to go onto the Internet."

"I'd rather stay here," said Brittany. "We can always play outside at home."

"Or we could take the computers outside," Zach said. Ellis quickly nixed that suggestion.

Simatovich was one of five schools from among 170,000 applicants nationwide selected to receive the largess, thanks to Ellis' efforts. The computers will be used in fourth- and fifth-grade classrooms and will free up time in the regular lab.

"It's definitely going to open new doors for them," said Ellis, who plans to use the computers as often as possible because of the built-in motivation they spark.

"Technology is the way of the future," she said. "Any experience we can give is to their advantage."