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Skyping, Web courses create hybrid NJ classrooms [Asbury Park Press, N.J.](Asbury Park Press (NJ) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) May 18--Will future classrooms still use textbooks? Will they even have a need for walls for that matter? While predicting the future is better left in the hands of the Nostradamuses of the world, the use of more technology -- such as Skyping, online courses and tablets in grade schools -- is the trend. Skyping enables two people, or in the case of St. Aloysius and Bay Head elementary schools, two classes 20 miles apart to communicate visually in real time by using laptop computers and clip-on Web cams. The skyping project at those two schools is a collaboration between Donna May's sixth-grade math class at St. Aloysius in Jackson and Thomas Kennedy's sixth-grade math class in Bay Head. "The students in the sixth-grade class are always excited when we Skype with the sixth-grade class at Bay Head School," May said. May said a recent Skyping lesson involved review work of the metric system and the Summer Olympics being held in London. The students in both classes solved word problems based on the games and converted the metric measurements to the U.S. customary units. May and Kennedy were also able to use Skype to broadcast a presentation featuring a Holocaust survivor who spoke at Bay Head School. "Presentations of this type are another aspect of Skyping that we think will be valuable as we move into next year," said Olive Taylor, staff member of St. Aloysius. The technology costs involved with skyping were very nominal in the case of St. Aloysius and Bay Head. "Skyping is free to download and free to use peer-to-peer (1 computer to 1 computer) at a time," Dax Tartar, the technology teacher at St. Aloysius said. Another school where students are learning with different schools is Keyport High School. Since the 2008-2009 school year Keyport has been participating with Virtual High School, a company that provides online courses using Desire2Learn platforms. In this program students from all over the country take the same class at the same time. VHS provides over 400 courses covering the basics of Language Arts, Sciences, and Math to elective courses such as Video Game Design. The courses are taught by teachers from participating schools. Keyport Superintendent Lisa Savoia said she is very supportive of the program. "As a district we want to be competitive and offer our students the best educational opportunities we can," Savoia said. Savoia in fact is in favor of online courses becoming a requirement in New Jersey's schools. A handful of states -- Alabama, Michigan, New Mexico and Tennessee -- have already done so, while several additional states have on-line requirement plans in the works. The costs to participate with VHS vary depending on how many components a school would like to incorporate. All of their member schools pay an annual membership fee, which is dependent upon how many student seats they have and whether they are providing a teacher or not. Individual enrollments cost $450 per semester seat. Student Only Memberships range from $4,500 for five seats per semester to $15,500 for 25 seats per semester. Teaching Memberships range from $3,450 per year for five seats per semester to $8,450 per year for 25 seats per semester. Schools with teaching memberships pay the reduced annual fee for up to 25 seats per semester per course they teach. While Skyping and online courses are creating the virtual classroom, the Long Branch school district is eliminating some paperwork for their students after introducing tablets to their middle school in January. Long Branch Superintendent Michael Salvatore said all 951 middle school students have been given Samsung Galaxy Tablets and the district has purchased mobile learning plans, which allow the children to access their district server to complete their daily homework assignments and review their teachers' web pages. "After a few short months, we are seeing reading increases across the board at the middle school, which is a result of quality teaching and increased exposure to expository text. Now we are ready to unveil the tablets to elementary students for the remainder of the school year and the high school students in the summer and fall," Salvatore said. Salvatore said the tablets are relatively inexpensive at approximately $200 per tablet; however, Verizon executives made the district an "offer hard to refuse," when they donated more than 2,000 tablets after the district requested quotes for the middle school students. That reduced the cost to less than $20 per student. So can we expect a paperless future in the classroom? Salvatore says not yet. "We have embraced a new literacy program for next year, which will provide students with access to more than 7,000 novels online. Our intention is not to dismiss books altogether, but rather embrace a hybrid approach to reduce the expense of replacement texts and consumables year after year," Salvatore said. Dan Radel: 732-643-4072; [email protected] ___ (c)2012 the Asbury Park Press (Neptune, N.J.) Visit the Asbury Park Press (Neptune, N.J.) at www.app.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |