November 2005 — Features
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Warming Up To Wireless
“As we have learned how technologically capable students are at going around some of the rules we had, we had to change our plans accordingly,” Light explains. “As with any new educational program, we have learned a lot in the early implementation stages.”
All signs indicate that Brimley’s move to wireless has been a boon. Light, a veteran teacher of nearly 20 years, boasts that she’s a “wireless convert,” and says she has overhauled the way she teaches to capitalize on the benefits of the technology. Light also says that she’s made her lessons more “project-oriented” to exploit the real-time access students have to real-life data, which, in depth and scope, far exceeds the information that any one textbook could provide. In a recent lesson on genetics, for instance, Light had students log onto a special Web site where they could “cyberbreed” mice and observe certain traits through several generations. In a lesson on volcan'es, she had students examine seismic information and monitor eruptions online.
In addition to these obvious changes, Light’s teaching style has undergone some subtle transformations as well. She asks students to use their laptops to collaborate on PowerPoint presentations, and sometimes requires groups to use (and build) interactive Web sites to help each other learn. Moreover, with the help of a program called Discourse from Educational Testing Service (http://www.ets.com), Light connects with each student privately. Students can respond to questions without having to speak in front of their peers, giving shy and insecure kids the chance to have their thoughts heard. Even the appearance of Light’s classroom has been altered. It used to have the traditional rows of desks; now Light arranges the desks in groups so that students can interact with each other as they work.
“Students feel the laptops are helping them to be better students and be a lot better organized,” Light says. “I’d say [the laptops] are helping us be better teachers, too, and at the end of the day, that’s really what it’s all about.”
The Next Wireless Frontier
One district coordinator is aiming for the stars.
One of the largest public school districts in California, Manteca Unified
School District isn’t accustomed to doing things on a small scale. This
may explain the latest iteration of the Central Valley district’s wireless
project: a drive to build a $1.6 million wireless canopy system over the
entire surrounding community, enabling students and parents alike to
log on wirelessly from anywhere, with just about any device, at any time.
The effort dovetails with a thin-client implementation designed to give
students fast, safe, affordable and ubiquitous computing power.
According to Michael Dodge, assistant superintendent for Business
Services, it’s also the first phase of a bigger project to use the canopy
to run wireless VoIP, and eventually sell wireless access to the community,
creating additional revenue streams for the school district.
