USD 410 teachers become students of latest technology

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN DON RATZLAFF
Teachers energized by the sight of their students catching on to new techniques and concepts in the classroom were on the other side of that equation on Friday.

In show-and-tell fashion, 11 teachers in the Unified School District 410 system presented their final projects from a two-week class called “Intel Teach to the Future With Support from Microsoft.”

The two-fold intent of the class, according to master teacher Maura Wiebe, was to educate teachers about Microsoft computer programs for the purpose of (1) enhancing their classroom teaching and (2) showing students how to use those programs themselves.

“We want to make sure that students know how to use technology to enhance their learning,” said Wiebe, who is a fifth-grade teacher in the USD 410 system.

“To do that, we need to train teachers to be relaxed and familiar with all different facets of technology so that they can allow kids to do that exploration and research through technology.”

This is the second summer the class has been offered. The program first came to the attention of Superintendent Gordon Mohn through the Educational Services and Staff Development Association of Central Kansas.

Learning spreads by training one teacher within a school district to be the “master teacher” who then teaches other teachers within the district.

Wiebe said she accepted Mohn’s invitation to take the free 40-hour training class last May offered at the ESSDACK headquarters in Hutchinson.

Wiebe then taught her first a class of 10 USD 410 teachers last summer in the inaugural session.

Members of this month’s 12-member class were Bob Woelk, Lenna Knoll, Julie Linnens, Eleanor Jost, Rita Peachey, Creigh Bell, Ellynne Wiebe, Sandy Arnold, Bruce Winkler, Sherry Fields and Gregg Walker.

Donna Bagley, who teaches in the education department at Tabor College, audited the course.

Wiebe will lead a second session in July with 10 teacher-students enrolled.

“Hopefully, then, everybody is up-to-date and trained,” Wiebe said. “Of course, we’ll have new teachers every year. But it may be a couple of years before we have a full class. Intel and Microsoft recommend that there be at least 10 teachers in a class.”

What makes the course attractive to teachers, Wiebe said, is that the school district provides a free laptop computer to each class participant and a budget of $2,000 to purchase the equipment and supplies they will need to implement what they’ve learned in their respective classrooms.

“I don’t know of any other school district that gives a laptop to take this class and money to use,” Wiebe said. “It’s a great incentive. I think it makes them a lot more excited about using these kinds of tools in their classrooms. If you don’t have the money to buy the equipment you need, why take a course?”

Mohn said the board first thought about paying the teachers to take the class, but decided it would be a better investment to have the teachers take the class with no pay, but then provide funding for classroom use.

“We said, ‘If you’re enthused enough to learn this, and you’ll give your time to it, we’ll invest in instruction by providing you with a laptop and provide you with $2,000 worth of a budget that first year to implement technology into your classroom,” Mohn said.

“We just began to think that was a better investment of our money. We’re going to see a continuing benefit from that.”

Mohn said the laptop is theirs to use as their “computing connection to the world” for as long as they teach within the district.

Wiebe said the assignment for each student in her class was to come up with a project that uses the technology they learned to enhance something the participants already teach.

Projects covered a variety of topics and purposes:

— Several teachers developed a brochure template with the Publisher program that students can use to communicate what they’ve learned about a specific unit topic.

— Woelk, who teaches English and is yearbook adviser at Hillsboro High School, created a PowerPoint primer on basic design concepts to show his yearbook staff.

— elementary school media specialist Sandy Arnold used PowerPoint to create a presentation that shows students how to find and use information on the Internet, including tips on identifying legitimate Web sites and guidelines regarding copyright laws and plagiarism.

— Bruce Winkler, technology facilitator at the elementary school, developed a project that will help teach students as young as first and second grade the basics of programs such as Publisher and PowerPoint.

“I was really impressed with how they plan to use (what they learned) in their classroom,” Wiebe said.

“It’s interesting because I was told not to give very strict guidelines when I teach this class and let the teachers figure out what they’re going to do and how they going to use it,” she added.

“The unit plans they created were all very different from each other. It was impressive to see how they could come up with something on their own.”

Being a teacher of teacher has its challenges, Wiebe said.

“Teachers are the worst kind of students because they want to know concrete directions, where exactly they should go with this, what exactly they should create. I didn’t do that,” she said.

“Some of them were frustrated at the beginning. But the teachers who were the most frustrated had the best projects.”

Several teacher-presenters said they felt the class was important if they were going to stay a step ahead of students who are becoming savvy about technology at increasingly younger ages.

“This course is designed to show the teachers what the kids know already and what to be careful about and not let them do-the risks of letting kids get on the Internet and the things you need to do ahead of time to avoid those risks and keep kids safe when they do go online,” Wiebe said.

Down the road, USD 410 intends to provide computing devices for every student in the district. Some districts have already done so, but Mohn said the local board believes it makes more sense to train teachers to use the computers first.

Mohn said, “Some schools bought computers for every kid… and said in so many words, ‘We’re going this way; teachers, if you want to come along, you can.

“We’ve said we’re going to take three years at least to get laptops in the hands of teachers. What we hope to hear (from teachers) is, ‘If I need to have one of these, every kid needs one.’

“I’m beginning to hear that now.”

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