09/23/2006
Washington Oak gets technical
By NICOLE WIETRAK

COVENTRY - Teachers at Washington Oak Elementary School have exchanged old-fashioned chalkboard lesson plans with something slightly more advanced.

Thanks to a generous $35,000 Hewlett-Packard (HP) Technology for Teaching grant, the elementary school has transformed the classroom learning process through innovative uses of technology including computerized writing tablets that students can use to improve their reading, writing and arithmetic skills.

Jennifer Jendzejec, a teacher at the elementary school, worked on the grant along with four other third and fourth grade teachers as well as Principal Dr. Donna Raptakis and received notification in May that they had been awarded the $35,000 grant.

"Now that we have this grant, we'll be able to heighten student achievement at the elementary level," said Jendzejec.

Raptakis, who after securing three technology grants at her old post as principal of Oak Haven Elementary School is no stranger to grant writing, said the team wrote the grant last year with the understanding that, if awarded, the technology would not be implemented until this school year. Raptakis explained that the teachers would need the summer months to acclimate themselves to the new equipment before bringing it in the classroom.

Washington Oak's grant enabled the school to purchase five HP Tablet PCs, five HP multimedia projectors, five HP digital cameras, five HP all-in-one printer/ scanner/ copiers, software and accessories. In addition, the five teachers that secured the grant were awarded a cash stipend and began participating in a professional development program that includes mentoring to support their use of the new technology.

"Parents are thrilled," said Raptakis of the new equipment. "Especially for the reason that when parents came to our Open House and saw the teachers using this technology, they got excited that their children would be using this on a daily basis."

Washington Oak was one of only 130 schools nationwide selected to receive an HP technology grant, and with over 600 students in grades K-6, the grant will begin preparing them for the newer technologies found in high schools, colleges and the ever-growing high-tech workforce.

"Our goal is we want to have more classroom equipment like this," commented Raptakis, "but it takes money so we're continuously working on other grants."

On Tuesday, after Michelle Hammer's fourth grade class filed back into their seats following recess, they immediately sat down at their desks, took out the lesson plan they had been working on, and awaited further instruction from Hammer.

The scene appeared to resemble a traditional day in the classroom until Hammer produced a small, rectangular electronic tablet, which she situated in the front of the classroom and used a projector to display the tablet's screen onto a white projection screen pulled over the obsolete blackboard.

Several sentences were then projected onto the screen and Hammer asked the students if they could find any grammatical mistakes.

Hands shot up into the air and students took turns coming up to the tablet and making their corrections. The markings they made on the tablet were shown directly on the big screen for all the class to see.

"It definitely gets them more interested," said Hammer. "They keep raising their hands and they keep wanting to come up to the front of the room."

After every lesson, the students each receive a print out of the sentences they worked on that day and can bring them home in order to study them and show their parents.

"It does motivate them to pay more attention and it's nice because we can print out what they do in class and they get their own copy," said Hammer. "Especially if kids are absent it's easier for them to play catch-up because they get to see exactly what we did the day they missed."

After one student had taken her turn at the tablet, Hammer asked the kids if they agreed with what corrections were just made, prompting 9-year-old Eric Lavoie to raise his hand and make his way to the front of the class.

Manning the tablet's stylus, Lavoie wrote a new version of the sentence, making some minor corrections along the way as his classmates attentively watched word by word.

"I like it a lot," said Lavoie after he had taken his seat. "I think it helps us a lot because it's more exciting."






©The Coventry Courier 2006