July 2004 — SETDA
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Tennessee: Westside School Celebrates the Successful Infusion of Technology into State Curriculum
Westside School has just finished having a successful "Technology Celebration" that indicated how we are infusing technology into the Tennessee state curriculum by showcasing student demonstrations and projects. We invited our school administration, school board members, community leaders and other educators from the area to the celebration. We have talked all year about our EdTech Launch grant, but felt the people outside our building thought this grant was only about computers and technology. While our faculty knew what we had achieved with the first year of our two-and-a-half-year grant, the guests were amazed at what our students demonstrated.
That demonstration was curriculum modeled through technology, not just technology for technology's sake. No longer d'es the public think that Westside is just having fun playing around with computers; they now know curriculum is not only being taught, but that the students can demonstrate the knowledge firsthand. When an administrator or community leader was taught a mini-lesson on finding the area of a triangle from a student using a laptop, projector and interactive whiteboard, it hit home that these students had truly internalized the curriculum. It was also apparent that there were a variety of students taking part in these demonstrations - not just the best and brightest, but also the average students as well as those students with special learning needs.
Westside School is located in the small southeastern Tennessee town of Athens, which is a growing industrial area. The fourth through sixth grade school has a student body of 297 and a total teaching staff of 18, which includes special area teachers. Westside School, like so many other schools, had an adequate number of computers in its classrooms, and teachers were encouraged to attend professional development workshops throughout the year. However, as all classroom teachers know, attending workshops and having time to implement the ideas learned upon returning to school is very difficult. Teachers didn't have time to practice the skill needed to put what they learned into practice, so the skill wasn't used. Computers were being used for free-time computer play, as well as occasionally for "skill and drill" through game software. The EdTech grant has been instrumental in correcting this form of professional development.
Assessing Student Technology Literacy
How did we achieve this new approach to professional development? The answer lies with the requirements from the state department in writing the grants. Two of the goals of this grant are to have all students taught by teachers qualified to use technology for instruction and to have all students educated in a technology-rich learning environment that supports academic achievement. The first intervention of the grant is to have whole-school professional development under the guidance of the full-time technology coach. Our teachers spend one day a month with the coach in small groups covering technology training, with substitute pay provided by the grant. During this day, we work on how to use technology for curriculum integration. If the training for the month focuses on working with Microsoft Office programs for classroom use, teachers would bring in their own curriculum material and develop lessons for their students that require the use of that program to demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter.
