COVENTRY - Ryan Buglio sits at his desk at Western Coventry Elementary School and attempts to figure out a math equation that his teacher Joyce Martinelli proposed to him.
As he looks at the piece of paper and attempts to solve the problem, the answers, he said, seem so far away.
Buglio, like many of his third grade peers, is considered a visual learner. He said he has an easier time grasping a lesson using tangible, interactive methods like the ones set up in the new Kidspiration and Inspiration computer software programs that Martinelli recently purchased through a $1,500 grant she received from Electronic Data Systems (EDS).
EDS awards grants to teachers on the basis of written proposals in which the teachers describe how they will use the proposed technology to increase their students' ability and motivation to learn.
Martinelli wrote the grant for this competition in early April. It was the third year that she applied.
"This is a very competitive grant application," Martinelli said. "I applied two years before this and didn't get accepted and I talked to a friend who said his wife applied for her class for five years in a row and still didn't get it."
This year Martinelli made the cut. EDS selected her application as well as those of four other teachers from around the state at the elementary, middle and high school level.
"Mrs. [Michaele] Gauthier [the teacher from Western who co-wrote the grant with Martinelli] and I were jumping up and down when we learned that we received the money," Martinelli said. "The day after we received the check at the Statehouse, we put our order in for the software."
Martinelli and Gauthier used the funds to purchase Kidspiration 2.1 and Inspiration 7.6 software that will support the Language Arts curriculum in Coventry. The curriculum, Martinelli explained, requires that students read and comprehend informational materials to develop understanding and expertise and to produce written and oral work that restates or summarizes information, relates new information to prior knowledge and experience, extends ideas, and makes connections to related topics or information.
Using this software, Martinelli said, the students have another method of learning in order to meet these requirements. There are a number of activities that students can work in in both Kidspiration and Inspiration in the subjects of reading and writing, science, social studies, math and more that aid in learning. The programs are generally, Martinelli said, geared toward students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
"This software uses visual graphic representation and is ideal for the child who needs to learn more visually," Martinelli said. "It also helps the child who is a reluctant writer to get started because it provides them outlines that become more appealing to the students and makes them be more structured."
Typically, Martinelli said, this software is used in classroom settings to provide a resource to produce visual responses to reading. Students can also create a story matrix, a character or a Venn diagram to compare and contrast two pieces of literature.
"Graphically, it is one more tool in our belt to use to teach because not every child can learn [by hearing] or by [simply reading a] book. They need interactive programming," Martinelli said.
Shannon Conroy, an 8-year-old in Martinelli's class, was using the software to create an outline for an essay she was assigned on the topic of "How to Make a Health Project that will help you to Eat Right."
"After creating this outline in Kidspiration, the students can go from one format to another," Martinelli said. "For example, Shannon can cut and paste between this outline and Microsoft Word and then begin typing her five paragraph essay."
Grace Garies and Justin Fino, both students in Martinelli's class, said they find their assignments much easier when they are using the computer software. They said they enjoy using it because it also makes the lesson "a lot more fun."
"Using this software allows us to stretch our students a little bit," Martinelli said. "Most of the concepts that we are introducing them to are slightly high for third graders, but it gets them ready for what they need to know in the future."
"We have to get them ready for careers and it is obvious that computers are more than likely going to be a part of most careers in today's society and the future," Martinelli said. "So, if our students are coming out of here not comfortable or unfamiliar with computers, that closes out a lot of job opportunities for them. It is obvious that we need them to start young."
Every classroom at Western Coventry Elementary School has several computers. Jim Murphy, the district technology person, came to the school and loaded the software right onto the server so that every computer in the school is programmed with the new software, Martinelli said. Martinelli purchased 20 Kidspiration licenses and 10 Inspiration licenses so that, at any given time, 20 students in the school can be working on Kidspiration and 10 on Inspiration.
"This grant allowed us to give 460 children access to these programs and we are just ecstatic about that because teachers are always looking for new strategies to reach a child who is having difficulty learning or even to enrich a lesson and that is exactly what this software does," Martinelli said. "Without the grant, we never would have been able to afford such an expensive opportunity."