In classrooms around the world, educators and students embrace a future arriving now.By G. Patrick Pawling SummarySchools can engage students by employing the advantages of technology in education as they've been deployed in business. By doing so, education becomes a deeper, more collaborative process, students are drawn in, test scores go up, absenteeism decreases, and administrative processes become more efficient. 
Visit St. Joseph's Academy for Girls in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and you'll hear a sound that is becoming more and more familiar in classrooms: the clicking of fingers on laptop keyboards. But it's more than that. It's the sound of education changing. People learned very well for a long time with pencil and paper, and recent history shows that if technology isn't intelligently deployed, it may sit unused. To take full advantage of the benefits of technology, schools must:
On the administrative side, more schools are keeping records electronically, resulting in greater efficiency and productivity. With systems that route calls over the Internet, phone bills are dropping. New software eases the often-vexing intricacies of special-education record keeping. Electronic attendance systems ensure accuracy and accountability. E-mail, blogs, instant messaging, and chat sessions encourage more frequent interaction between students, teachers, administrators, and parents. These new tools appear to lead to improvements in standardized test scores, regardless of the economic situation of the school district, according to the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) in Washington, D.C., which advocates for the effective use of technology in primary and secondary schools. Increased use of technology in the classroom may even lead to improved attendance and reduced dropout rates, according to CoSN. That's not to say it's a simple equation. St. Joseph's Academy: Laptops Instead of Textbooks"I wouldn't be telling the truth if I said I have stayed on task every time," says Jessica Allain, a 17-year-old senior at St. Joseph's Academy, where every student and faculty member has a laptop and the entire campus is connected with a wireless network. But she quickly recognized that her laptop is a great tool to help her learn. "In classes like physics, we have no need for a textbook because we use a physics Website that has articles and video clips that make the material more realistic," she says. "In other classes, the laptop makes simple tasks easier by letting you type notes or make charts to organize information." Allain's experience illustrates a choice her school's administrators made when they first introduced this level of technology to the campus. They decided to give students a lot of freedom because that's what life will be like. But they also decided to prepare the teachers first. "Teachers have to be trained to deal with these new tools," says John Richardson, IS implementation director and teacher at St. Joseph's Academy. Some teachers issue "freeze" commands during a lesson, which means students are not allowed to touch their laptops until further notice. Others teach from the back of the room so they can see the students' screens. St. Joe's teachers also use Webcasts and blogs. Students e-mail instructors with questions about homework. If a student is too ill to attend classes, she can access her assignments and class notes from home. The school has even set up a relationship and videoconferencing project with a school in Mexico for students in its advanced Spanish classes. Administratively, the school's network supports class scheduling, parents' access to student grades, online shopping for school merchandise, billing, and student enrollment. As a result, the need for clerical support has been reduced, saving time and money. St. Joe's decided not to formally teach "technology" but to integrate technology into standard lessons. Students learn their technology skills in the context of their normal coursework. They also learn to manage and fix their computers. Birdville Independent School District: Texas-Size AmbitionsThe administration of Birdville Independent School District believes that the district's new network, which is capable of carrying voice, video, and data, will create a platform for a transformation of the educational process. Composed of parts of seven cities near Fort Worth, Texas, Birdville includes approximately 1,500 teachers, 1,100 staff members, and 22,000 students in 32 schools. Like districts everywhere, Birdville faces tight budgets and the challenge of economically disadvantaged students. The answer, says Superintendent Dr. Stephen F. Waddell, is to completely rework the schools' IT infrastructure to take advantage of new tools to help students and improve administrative efficiency. Once the new network is in place, the district will have the following technologies and benefits:
To Waddell, this is a true collaborative learning community: a way to use the collective intelligence of students, parents, the community, administrators, and teachers to supercharge the learning process. "We will have media centers in every classroom, where teachers can use voice, data, and video; the information will flow in all directions," he says. The technology also enables parents to communicate more effectively with teachers and administrators. "I have instant access to my child's grades, teachers, principal—and I use it all the time," says Julie Wallace, the district's executive director of technology. Technology will also help the district benchmark its performance. "We have to have data to hold people accountable," Wallace says. About the AuthorG. Patrick Pawling went to school when enhanced communication consisted of telephone calls from the vice principal to his parents. iQ Magazine, First Quarter 2006 |
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