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Reprinted with permission from
The Courier=Times Online
After seeing demonstrations of what elementary students can do with
technology resources last week, Person County Board of Education members
and other community leaders seemed mightily impressed.
A special celebration was held at Oak Lane Elementary School last Thursday
to commemorate the wrap-up of the $250,000 federal education grant through
the North Carolina Technology Association's (NCTA) Education Foundation.
Joining Oak Lane teachers and interim Principal Rick Chambers were U.S.
Congressman Brad Miller, who secured the funding, CISCO Systems
representatives from North Carolina and California, a state Department of
Public Instruction representative, members of the Person Board of County
Commissioners and State Rep. W.A. (Winkie) Wilkins.
After using Lobby Guard, a computer program that takes a picture of
everyone who visits the school and prints out a personalized
identification badge, those in attendance saw kindergartners doing
demonstrations with the PowerPoint computer presentation program; heard
about teacher training that has been provided through the school's
computer lab; and heard youngsters explain what they had learned by using
the technology made available to them as a result of the grant.
School board Vice Chairman Jimmy Wilkins said the day made him want to
return to teaching. Admitting that watching young children deftly handle
Smart Boards and computer programs, Wilkins said, "It's amazing."
Adding that he wished every school in the county had the resources the
NCTA grant had provided Oak Lane, Wilkins said, "If we don't get kids
focused on technology, our standard of living is going to fall."
School board Chairman Gordon Powell, also a retired educator, said of the
student demonstrations and the equipment at the school, "It is absolutely
mind-boggling. We think technology is for the higher grades only. This
makes us realize that we need to provide technology in kindergarten and
first grade. If we have the technology, they (students) can do it. We've
got to keep moving" toward providing more technology resources to county
students.
A second-grader named Annie showed off her skills Thursday through a
PowerPoint demonstration about her favorite famous American, Shirley
Temple Black. She explained how she did her research on the Internet and
cut and pasted sounds to make this year's project better than last year's.
Annie said she was able to add "more colors and make it bright. Last year,
I just read" a report, she said. "There was nothing visual."
She said this year's project had taught her to use word and picture
animation as well as how to conduct research on the Internet.
Principal Chambers said fifth-graders mentored kindergarten students this
year, helping them learn how to do PowerPoint presentations. Chambers said
of his older students, "They were great role models." He added that all
students "learned a lot and are very proud of themselves."
Joe Fredosso, NCTA chairman said, in order to make a project such as that
at Oak Lane come together, "it takes the school, the principal and
teachers, the students and the community." He commended Oak Lane on its
accomplishments over the past two years said, "We have the best education
system in the world in the United States. It is equitable and exellent."
Explaining that he suffered a learning disability as a child, Fredosso
said, through U.S. public education, "We can take a learning disabled
student and make him CEO of a company. Not every system in the world can
do that."
Yet, he added, "Now something is wrong. Forty percent" of today's students
"don't graduate. There is a skills gap, and employers say the majority of
employees need to be retrained" to meet the challenges of a technological
society.
"There is an issue in getting modern tools into the hands of students so
they leave school with modern skills," Fredosso said. Otherwise, he added,
"We sentence them to economic disenfranchisement."
China and India, Fredosso said, are now producing between four and six
times the number of engineers as does the U.S. each year.
Technology grants, like the one Oak Lane and other school sytems have
received, said Fredosso, provide the equipment and teacher training that
help "open up the world" for students.
"I am very proud of what I see today," he said, referring to the Oak Lane
demonstrations.
In 2003, Congressman Miller was instrumental in securing the federal
education appropriations to outfit a rural and under-served elementary
school with technology tools. The Education Foundation used the funding
to provide technology training for teachers and staff and to buy computer
hardware and software that has been integrated into Oak Lane's classrooms.
Teachers throughout the Person County Schools system and 123 from
neighboring districts each underwent more than 50 hours of staff
development through Quality Teaching and Learning Training at Oak
Lane. The QTL training showed teachers how to use effective,
best-practice teaching methods and to make appropriate use of technology
resources available to them.