BC classrooms, students get high tech
For some educators, it’s a dream worldpaperless classrooms driven by students’ personal laptops, electronic blackboards and wireless Internet that connects schools around the world.
While this vision might not come tomorrow, or even the next day, in the Bethlehem Central School District teachers and administrators alike are cognizant of the implications of an increasingly digital world, are seeking to outfit students with the skills to work in it, and are closer to the classroom of the future than one might think.
The district’s 21 Century Committee has been examining where the district is and where it can go and according to administrators, the need for students to develop skills for the world of tomorrow is abundantly clear.
It’s a large initiative by the district, and trying to promote not only technology integration but the concept of a global world,` said Assistant Superintendent Jody Monroe. `This is the world our kids live in, and it’s not secluded anymore and they are out there in many ways.`
To that end, many classrooms use EPals to communicate with students and schools in different parts of the country and world. Some teachers employ Web sites like Twitter to keep parents posted on the happenings in the classrooms and use social networking devices like Wikis and blogs to encourage students to collaborate with one another in and out of the classroom.
Some classrooms make use of video conferencing. In Clarksville and Slingerlands elementary schools, for example, the fourth grade classrooms of Laurel Jones and Kelly Ward have been using the Internet to collaborate all year, and in October they used Web cams to play a game of Jeopardy against each other.
The novelty of playing the game against a remote opponent kept Jones’s students anchored in the lesson.
`They’re engaged,` said Jones. `They had no idea they were doing things that were learning.`
Students in Jones’s class have been using computers and a Flip camcorder in conjunction with their writing workshop activities. The fourth graders are drafting instructions for their favorite activities, like baking cookies, starting a dirt bike or making a drawing, which are edited by Jones before being performed by the students. The videos were compiled into a movie and shown to parents.
They’re also using their own Wiki pages to submit reports on the books they’re reading, and their classmates read and comment on these reports.
Clarksville’s supply of laptops is carted from one class to another, and setup is made simpler by wireless Internet, which is now broadcast throughout the school.
Fourth grader Kara Doyle said that she likes putting comments on her classmates’ Wikis. Her mother, Jane Doyle, who was visiting her daughter’s classroom as part of American Education Week, said that the younger generations take to digital learning like ducks to water.
`I’m trying to keep up with them,` she joked.
Clarksville Principal Dorothy McDonald agreed and said that having high-tech learning available is an excellent way to engage students, and noted that the skills they are developing by using social networking and other tools will be required of tomorrow’s work force.
`We have been so energized by the new opportunities technology has provided,` she said. `It’s a means to an end, but it’s rich, it’s engaging.`
McDonald said she would love to have more resources available, especially projectors, but acknowledged that budgetary concerns make it tough to deck out the schools with the latest technologies. She said the students at Clarksville are getting plenty of high-tech experiences with the resources available.
Despite constant budget concerns, the declining price of computers and other technologies mean their use has become more widespread in recent years. All BC elementary schools have laptops that can be carted from class to class. At the middle and high schools, students have access to computer labs and at the middle school an `academic technology management` course is offered. Also at the middle school, the morning announcements are broadcast in video.
But the district’s technological initiatives are not confined to the classroom. With an overhaul of the district Web site, parents can now check report cards online and sign up to receive alerts from the district or individual schools via email or text message.
Additionally, the district is now making video of Board of Education meetings available online. The meetings are already taped to for broadcast on community access television TV-18 at 6 p.m. on Sundays, so it was simply a matter of getting the tape onto the district’s Web site, said Communication Director Matt Leon.
The plan is to get the Wednesday meetings online by the following Monday, and to make the last three meetings available.
As for where the district will go as the 21st century marches on, Monroe said that it will likely be as it has been, in small, measured steps. It has long been a vision for every student to come to school armed with a laptop instead of hauling books and binders.
`The technology almost has to be looked at as more of a tool,` said Monroe.
Still, in a time when the harbinger of deep programming cuts and even layoffs is ever present, it’s hard to say what the next step might be.
`I guess it comes down to, what are the district’s priorities? Where do we want to be in two years and five years?` she continued.
In related news, BC parents will have the opportunity to hear from an expert in the field of technology in education on Monday, Dec. 14, when Will Richardson, the author of `Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms,` will give a presentation in the high school auditorium at 7:30 p.m. There will be an opportunity for the public to ask questions of Richardson after his presentation.“
