R u smart?
Schools work toward standardizing high-tech gadgetry
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Cathy O'Rorke's class uses technology ot keep track of class activities on Monday at the Northwest School in Rutland Vyto Starinskas / Rutland Herald |
Toolbox
By Cristina Kumka Staff Writer - Published: November 8, 2009
From the chalkboard to SMART Board. That's where education in Vermont schools is headed, according to local and state school technology experts.
From kindergarten through 12th grade, technology is exploding in schools and educators are trying to keep pace with a new culture, where kids are learning how to text message on cell phones and chat online at a faster pace than they learned how to read and write.
The days of teachers using chalk are coming to a close, and they're being replaced with remote-controlled white boards, with first-graders interactively are answering questions by punching them into a hand-held device.
They're checking in for class, writing, spelling and learning without even raising their hands.
But students today have been sold a bill of goods about how great they are at multi-tasking, according to professor Joyce Twing, the Vermont Technical College business department chairwoman.
"They can and do talk on their cell phone, listen to their iPod, watch television, and hang out on Facebook all at the same time," she said.
"They believe they can sit in class, text their friends, read their Facebook postings, check their e-mail and actually get their money's worth out of the class."
For today's students, the integration of computer programs and devices into classroom study is second-nature in a social world dominated by Facebook, high-speed search engines and cell phones used as mini mobile laptops.
For teachers, training to keep ahead of the kids is necessary.
For technology directors, finding what works to educate rather than distract is key.
To ensure Vermont schools have access to technology, and use it the right way, the Vermont Department of Education has joined forces with a dozen school technology directors statewide to develop standards for instruction and broad academic benchmarks so that technology can improve test scores among students.
Currently, there are no requirements that define what schools must have in the classroom as far as technology. There also is no standardized assessment to measure the quality of technology use, instruction or effectiveness.
But technology can't be ignored, according to Rutland District technology director Patricia Aigner.
"You can't do business in schools like that," she said.
"Part of being in school is learning from quality teachers," Aigner said. "Technology is a tool for delivering that learning in an interesting way."
What's happening?
At a recent Rutland School Board meeting, Rutland primary school principals gushed over the use of SMART boards in the classrooms of students only a few years out of kindergarten.
"It's exciting for new and veteran teachers alike," said Northwest Primary School Principal Kristin Hubert. "It really changed the face of Northwest school."
Via a grant from the federal government for anti-tobacco education, first-grade teacher Cathy O'Rourke was the beneficiary of one of the boards. The school has eight, Hubert said.
O'Rourke says she uses the board, which is a chalk-free white mounting that works much like a projection screen, but with assessment software that hooks up to her computer so she can see the student answers.
O'Rourke received the board in May of last year, trained to use it all summer, and now students are signing in for class, working with words, doing phonics, and viewing online geography resources every day.
And that's a typical day.
"We can capture it, put it on the SMART Board, label it, and see who's writing," she said. "I can look at how children are putting their writing together, and we use it all day long."
Across the city at Northeast School, Principal Robert Johnson said he doesn't have as many SMART boards, but over three years, the school has come a long way technologically, adding computers when before there were none.
That poses fiscal challenges, among others.
"It's a very expensive proposition," he said. "And a cultural change, it needs to be reasoned and thoughtful."
A high school Spanish class is using "wikis" — linked Web sites — to comment on articles online; and a science class is using a free online resource to extend their learning at home, Aigner said.
Milton High School students recently received dozens of "netbooks" or mini-laptops via a $30,000 federal grant.
"Around the state, people are asking how do we adapt to what kids want to be able to do … how do we use social networking," Aigner said.
But can schools adapt and use technology, including social networking sites and online learning tools, in the classroom to improve test scores of all students, not just computer-savvy ones?
Aigner believes they can.
"One of the things we know about kids is that some kids are really quick to raise their hands, and then there are other kids who took a little longer or sit in the back," she said. "This allows every kid to participate."
And teachers are using tools such as the SMART Board to monitor interaction — determining which student might need help understanding subject matter without the student ever asking for it.
"We assess them all the time," she said.
"Instead of having kids raising hands, you can see how they respond to something through their actions, faces and see if they're getting it," Aigner said.
As far as social networking and cell phone use being integrated into classrooms, many teachers have banned the use of phones; the benefits of social networking are debatable.
"We wouldn't want our child to be stranded on the interstate without a cell phone," said Twing of VTC. "Conversely, we wouldn't want him or her sitting in a classroom using a cell phone to cheat on an exam."
Two teachers from the Los Angeles Unified School District — one a sixth-grade English teacher and the other a drama and academic literacy teacher — have weighed in on the social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter and texting and their effects on student grades.
"Growth in vocabulary becomes stunted because of the social networking explosion, and teachers end up with student papers and conversations using the same 100 words over and over. … I use the term 'words' generously: We're talking about a medium where 'Il c u l8r' is coin of the realm," wrote Kate Conrath in an editorial published in the November 2009 issue of "American Teacher."
"Techno-speak" has affected education on all levels, according to Twing.
"Text messaging, instant messaging, and Twitter postings have made it difficult to get a student to write a sentence which includes capital letters and fully spelled words," the business professor said.
In contrast, Los Angeles drama teacher Joseph Zeccola said: "We not only need to get our kids to think, we also need to invest in who they are. Only when they feel that we truly value them will they work for us. Social networking Web sites can help us address this challenge."
In Vermont, the state education department doesn't track or collect data that indicates the use of technology and online tools in classroom and whether it will improve test scores.
Technology hasn't been determined to be detrimental or academically enriching.
Peter Drescher says he plans to change that.
What needs to happen
Drescher is the state's technology coordinator for schools.
He plans to take the work done by a committee of school technology directors statewide and put it to good use, understanding what tools are being used in schools statewide, how effective they are and how schools can have an easier time of buying more.
No Child Left Behind does not mandate technology, but it is driving schools to at least have Internet access — a challenge for some rural schools.
"One of the most important reasons why Vermont needs universal broadband is so the schools can use the technology and be confident that all the kids will have access to it," said Tom Evslin, chief technology officer for Vermont.
Drescher, Aigner, Ed Barry of Milton High School and others are working on developing a set of Vermont academic benchmarks that should come from the use of technology based on a set of existing national standards from 2007, called NETS, or National Educational Technology Standards.
"The new standards are more about collaboration and creativity" than teaching students how to do simple Powerpoint presentations, Drescher said.
The committee presented its initial findings at Vermont Fest 2009 for technology educators recently, Drescher said.
Federal Title 2D grant money is available for technology purchases, training and implementation if local schools apply for it.
Drescher said he hopes to hire a consulting company to do an inventory of what Vermont schools have and what they don't, and how schools are using the grants they received for technology in a meaningful way.
Technology directly relates to conversations the state is having now on the transformation of education, Drescher said.
"How do we meet the needs of all kids? The text learner, the visual learner and all learners," he said.
In Rutland, Aigner faces her own challenges — she's only one of three technology professionals working in a district of roughly 2,700 students with more than 1,000 computers.
But she remains hopeful.
One day, she sees every student having an Amazon Kindle, an electronic device the size of a small paperback book that stores uploaded chapters, notes students write about them and pages they bookmark.
"We can say this is our students' culture, this is a tool they use to look at the world, and how can we use those tools to teach them," she said.
For more information on technology services in the state's schools, see the Vermont Information Technology Association Web site at http://homepage.vita-learn.org/Pages/index.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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