DECATUR — New technology is taking education far beyond chalkboards and textbooks in the Decatur School District.

The district has always made an effort to keep up with changing technology, using federal funds to put SMART Boards in the classrooms and upgrade computer labs over the past several years.

More recently, some forward thinking teachers have shown the value of technology in the classroom, and the school’s administration and board has made a serious commitment to bringing the latest and best technology into the district.

This year every teacher has an iPad, and students have access to laptop and iPad carts in both the elementary and high school, according to Mitch Wilber, Decatur’s federal programs coordinator. The school has also upgraded its internet infrastructure with a new wireless system and more bandwidth to support all the devices, he said.

New technology is vital to prepare kids for the next level of educational and professional opportunities, Wilber said.

“It’s a game changer in the way kids learn,” he said.

Not only does it give students an engaging way to learn new material, but becoming familiar with technology will also help students deal with the technical aspects of test taking. iPads are compatible with the new Common Core testing format, and getting kids used to the technology could help them be more comfortable taking tests, he said.

Teachers throughout the district attended professional development during the summer to learn how to better utilize technology, Wilber said. Now a handful of teachers are training their coworkers so that those who are more advanced can help the beginners, he said.

At the elementary school level, sixth grade math and science teacher Jacque Smith starts each class with a video clip to get students engaged.

She also uses Khan Academy once a week. The free online academy has thousands of videos that cover K-12 math, science topics such as biology, chemistry and physics, and even finance and history, according to the website www.khanacademy.org.

Her students use learning apps, play math and science games and even make video presentations.

“The kids enjoy it and, the more we do in class, the more receptive they are. It gets them excited and wakes them up,” Smith said.

High School teachers James Garner and Melissa Stephenson have been very instrumental in working toward using technology in the classroom and infusing it into their curriculum, Wilber said.

The possibilities for ways technology in general and iPads in particular can be used in the classroom are endless, Garner said. He uses the technology to keep students engaged, save time and open a much larger world to students.

Using an iPad, laptop and online resources allows Garner to look up multiple examples while teaching, tap into resources like Khan Academy, or let his students hear poetry read by award winning poetry readers instead of reading it himself. The tools allow his students to make their own documentaries and advertisements and to connect with students studying the same subjects hundreds of miles away.

Garner and teaching partner Rachel Stokes of Greenville, S.C., recently spoke at the National Council of Teachers of English national convention in Las Vegas about literacy in the 21st century.

Last year, the two teachers shared their experience using technology to connect their Advanced Placement Literature classrooms to study George Orwell’s novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” The teachers used their iPads and Skype as a window into each other’s classrooms and used Edmoto, a secure social learning network, similar to Facebook, for class discussions.

The advantages of using iPads in the classroom over more traditional methods are many. The iPad is very mobile and much faster than a laptop computer. It can be carried from classroom to classroom or give teachers the freedom to walk around the classroom with the iPad in their hands as they teach, Garner said. Teachers can pull examples or graphics off the internet much faster than they could draw them out on the board, helping keep students engaged.

“They’re programmed to pay attention to what they see on a screen. They’re a television generation,” he said.

There is an incredible amount of free educational software and fantastic teaching tools available. The technology doesn’t really change the information teachers provide, but there is a lot to be said about kids seeing the information coming from someone else, Garner said.

“As far as a teaching tool, it’s incredible and I think we’re just scratching the surface of what we will be able to do with it,” he said.

The high school library has several iPad carts with 30 iPads each that teachers can check out for projects.

Stephenson said the students are excited to get the technology in their hands, and students who have a short attention span can move along very quickly. Teachers serve as guides to make sure the devices are used appropriately.

The Arkansas Department of Education has teaching resources on its own division of the iTunes library, according to Stephenson. There are also a lot of apps for practical purposes other than teaching, she said. Teachers can use their iPads to take attendance or use Hmong and Spanish language translating apps to help write notes to parents.

“We do want the kids to get their hands on them. There is so much out there that is free and appropriate for school,” Garner said, “They will probably come up with a 1,000 uses for it we never thought of.”

News, Pages 11 on 02/06/2013