09/26/2006
Chalk one up for technology - grant goes a long way for local school
Jessica Selby , Daily Times


Some teachers at Washington Oak School in Coventry have sworn off chalkboards.
Don Jacques and a couple of his colleagues no longer have to write lecture notes on the boards. Nor do these teachers have to make transparencies outlining the next days' lesson.
Thanks to the grant writing proficiency of Dr. Donna Raptakis, principal at Washington Oak School, three third grade teachers - Deb Kolling, Jen Jendzejec and Diane Hunter - and two fourth grade teachers - Michelle Hammer and Don Jacques - now have advanced HP technology to use for teaching in their classrooms.
"The days of overhead projectors and chalkboards are over," said Jacques as he pulled Thursday's introductory lesson on rocks and minerals up on the large screen that covered the chalkboard. "This equipment is just amazing. It's made me a better teacher."
"We used to have to write up our lessons on transparencies and, then, if we didn't foresee a question that a child brought up, we would have had to ask the children to be patient while we either wrote what we needed to on the board or fished around for another transparency and wrote it on that," he said. "Now, all we have to do is say to our students, 'class, just one second - and that's really all it takes is seconds - while I scan this in,' and then we can do everything we need right here on the tablet."
An HP Tablet, with a pivotal screen that can be written directly on, a digital camera, a multimedia projector with built-in speakers and a printer which doubles as a scanner and a copier, software and accessories, a cash stipend for each teacher and a professional development program that includes customized learning opportunities and participation in an online learning community to support the teachers' use of the new technology were all part of the package that Washington Oak School received in the HP Teaching with Technology Grant. The complete package is valued at more than $35,000.
"We were all really excited about being selected to receive this technology," Jacques said. "The kids were just as excited because it's a nicer way for them to learn."
"It's all visual so it keeps their attention," he said. "They like the idea of working on the computer and it allows us to be much more creative with spur of the moment ideas for the lesson."
Washington Oak was one of only 130 public schools across the country to receive this technology grant and the only school in Rhode Island. Raptakis said she thinks her school's special education program and plan for use of the technology played a pivotal role in HP Company's decision to grant her school the generous award.
"All five of the teachers that I teamed up with to write the grant are clinical instructors that have students from Rhode Island College that come to the school to teach our students science," Raptakis said. "Now these prospective teachers, in addition to our teachers, are being exposed to this technology and how to teach with it."
"That, I think, was an integral part of why we were selected and I am hoping we can expand on this even more and share this technology with other teachers, too," she said.
It is the grant writers' intention, Raptakis said, to deepen and broaden teachers' and students' scientific knowledge and skills to facilitate the integration of technology into science and math classroom experiences through the HP Technology for Teaching Grant Initiative.