Fri Feb 10 2012
by Jeff Saunders
Reporter
Nordonia Hills -- In today's classrooms, the blackboard can be the Internet, the teachers' gradebook is a laptop and parents can watch online videos of their children in class.
District Curriculum Director Irene Beville said the goal of all this new technology is to improve the quality of education.
"Technology for technology's sake is not enough. If it can help student achievement, that's key for us," she said.
District Technology Director Mike Daugherty said the effort began in earnest two years ago, when each of the district's 228 teachers was issued a laptop computer.
But the real cutting-edge technology was introduced as the district began purchasing "Smartboards" and "Mimios," devices that use a projector to operate an interactive computerized blackboard.
Daugherty said most classrooms in the district now have one or the other of the 175 devices, which cost from $1,300 to $2,000 each.
Teachers and students can go up to the boards and manipulate cursors and click buttons like a user of a conventional computer.
Beville said the devices can be used with a wide variety of educational software.
For example, she said, students in biology class can do "virtual dissections."
Teachers can also create and share their own programs and the district plans to extend this collaboration.
"We're hoping to contact other districts and share lessons," Daugherty said. "That's a big goal for next year."
Beville said the kids enjoy using the new tools.
"It's very natural for them because it's the world they're growing up in," she said. "When you go into a classroom, the kids are very engaged."
Northfield Elementary School teacher Pat Kacskermety said her fourth-grade class really enjoyed using her class's Smartboard to study fractions in the school's computer lab.
"They could do this in class with cards, but it's much more fun on the computer," she said.
Nichole Notarian, whose third-grade class has also been using a Smartboard for arithmetic lessons, said the technology effectively uses both visuals and sound in teaching.
"I see students much more engaged, much more interested in coming up to the board," she said.
Barbara McMichael, a physics teacher at Nordonia High School and the school's technology advocate, said the devices give teachers the chance to present information, including videos, that is limited only by the boundaries of the Internet.
"I think the technology today allows us to bring more of the real world into the classroom than ever before," said McMichael.
Besides the Smartboards, Mimeos and laptops, Daugherty and Beville said other technology the district has acquired includes at least 50 handheld "flip cams" for shooting videos and about 50 portable tablets to manipulate the Smartboard and Mimeo graphics without having to be at the board or laptop.
Beville said some parents have been able to watch online videos of their children in class during reading lessons.
Beville said that using technology in the classroom is becoming more and more important because technology use is becoming more prevalent in society.
"The way kids do research today is different from the way I did it when I was in college," she said. "They have to be able to carefully evaluate the information they find."
But Beville also said that even with all the technology now becoming available, it is only one component in the education of children.
"The technology does not replace the teachers. It is a tool," she said.
E-mail: jsaunders@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3169
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