[November 19, 2008]

Technology integral part of schools today: School Innovation Day

Nov 19, 2008 (The Daily Southerner - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Parents, family members or those who were just curious about how two schools in the county are using technology were invited to School Innovation Day on Tuesday.

The event, which was recognized by more than 100 other schools in the state, allowed the public to take a tour of the ways each school is utilizing technology.

In Edgecombe County, Phillips Middle School and Edgecombe Early College opened their doors to show the ways their laptops are benefiting the students and teachers.

At Phillips, one of their teachers completed training with Intel Teach to the Future, which trains educators on when and how to incorporate technology into their lesson plans.

"The Intel Teach Program is a research-proven, worldwide professional development program that helps educators enhance 21st century learning through the effective use of technology," according to the Intel Web site.

The teacher that received the training is now training 10 other Phillips teachers.
Each participant that completes the training receives a data projector and document camera by the school system.

While all of the high school teachers in the county have received their laptops, Edgecombe Early College is the only school, which both students and teachers have laptops.

The Early College received their laptops last spring through a grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation.

The school is approaching a year of working with the computers and have incorporated multiple software programs into their curriculum.

Programs such as Google Documents, Animoto, Movie Maker, Google Earth and Google Talk encourage more collaboration between teachers and students in and out of the classrooms.

"Not only can they interact with their instructors in the classroom but also interact with them outside of the classroom," said Early College Technology Facilitator Brent Bryant.

Google Documents and Google Earth are particularly important for essays and research.
Google Documents is used for sharing different types of Word, Excel, Power Point, and other types of documents for viewing and editing, while Google Earth allows you to request a specific address and it shows you the location in 3-D.

Other software allows the students to experiment with animation and sound such as Animoto and Movie Maker to create videos.

While students can't use their phones to text their teachers in class they can use a computer instant messaging system, similar to AIM to ask questions.

"Instead of having to be there, I can communicate with them and interact with them right here," Bryant said.

The Web sites and programs that the students use are monitored by teachers on Schoolvue and Content Watch, but the school can't completely stray them away from using popular sites that are similar to Facebook and MySpace, which are used for social networking.

Instead, Ning is used which allows them to create a profile, post pictures and videos, post announcements for events, leave comments, blog and other features.

"It's basically like a social networking Web site and its basically another version of MySpace and you can only interact with people at school so you don't have to worry about predators," said Early College student Nikeya Cherry.

Students are seeing the advantages of having the laptops available to them.
Maria Rauda, 11th-grade Early College student, was attending the school before and after the 1:1 Laptop Initiative was started at the school.

"More students got to get their work done because a lot of students don't have Internet access at home," Rauda said.

Bryant agrees that the laptops have had positive effects on the students.
"The students are a lot more engaged in their learning. It's a lot more ways for teachers to collaborate with them."

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