DOVER — As the sixth-grade students in John Augustus’ math class at William Henry Middle School waved their hands emphatically and pleaded to be picked next, it looked more like they were hoping to go first in a game than to demonstrate how to dissect a fraction to the rest of the class.
The catch is that the sixth-graders were using a notebook-sized Interwrite School Pad, which was connected through Bluetooth wireless technology to a ceiling-mounted projector and finally displayed for the whole class to see on a screen in front of the room. As the lucky students wrote out the math problems on the portable pad, the image was simultaneously scrawled across the screen at the front of the room.
These types of high-tech gadgets are capturing the attention of students and teachers alike — when districts can make room for them in already crowded budgets.
“They are more accustomed to that kind of thing when you think about the video games that are out,” Mr. Augustus said of the interactive pad. “It matches the teaching system with the things they are used to.”
He said he uses the pad several times a week in his math classes, because it keeps the students interested and generates a lot more participation than making them solve problems on the chalkboard.
“That for me is a big thing when a student is engaged in a lesson,” he said. “If you don’t have that engagement you don’t have the full benefit of the lesson.”
Dr. Wayne Hartschuh, Delaware Department of Education director of the Delaware Center for Education Technology, said the first big push for school technology began in the mid-1990s with desktop computers.
In the following five or six years, the state became one of the first in the nation to have a computer with Internet hookup in nearly every classroom, he said.
Today, approximately 46,000 computers are in the Delaware schools, Dr. Hartschuh said.
Aside from student computers, he said many districts are now interested in getting the technological extras, whether it be student laptops, video iPods for Pod casting or new Elmo machines, which digitally project and enlarge images.
Dr. Alexander Shalk, director of curriculum for the Smyrna School District, said aside from some of the interactive tools, technology has also changed teachers’ curriculum.
He said the district has begun adding United Streaming, a Web-based program that gives access to thousands of archived video clips. They have also begun using Accelerated Reader, a program which helps teachers manage a student’s independent reading by having comprehension questions for thousands of different books.
“This generation really benefits when we spend our time and resources adding technology and technology-based lessons,” Dr. Shalk said. “It really brings the curriculum to life.”
Kathleen Thomas has a host of gadgets for her students to use in her marketing classes at Caesar Rodney High School.
“The industrial or technological revolution has really impacted the way we deliver instruction here,” she said. “With technology, all of my kids might be behind a laptop and I might be leading them in front of the room, or I might just be walking around the room and sitting with them as they discover for themselves.”
Ms. Thomas has student laptops, personal responders which look like small remotes that allow students to answer multiple choice questions from their seats, a projector and a large interactive white board in her room. The white board, which is available through several different companies, is a large touch screen connected with wireless Internet to a laptop.
“Whenever you use something like an Interwrite Pad or a Smart Board or an electronic white board, it’s a good way to get the kids instantly engaged because we live in such a technologically based world,” she said. “This is basically what the kids are already used to, so why not use it for instruction?”
While Ms. Thomas received her new equipment through a grant when she was named state teacher of the year in 2005, she said many teachers and districts are not so fortunate. She added that vocational teachers like herself are also eligible for federal grants that other teachers aren’t eligible for.
The small interactive pads can cost around $500, about half as much as the larger white boards.
Susan Shelor, the district’s technology coordinator, said it’s a constant effort to keep schools equipped with modern and engaging tools.
Dr. Hartschuh said one of the hardest things for the districts is that there really isn’t a reliable funding strain the schools can rely on to replace aging equipment.
“Basically it’s whatever you can take within your budget against other priorities,” he said. “The districts are doing pretty good things with using the money they have available to them to get as much as they can.”
Source: http://www.newszap.com/articles/2007/11/15/dm/sussex_county/dsn03.txt
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