Schools Put Up The Net Classes Prepare Kootenai Teachers For Flood Of Computers Into Classrooms

A dozen teachers hovered over as many computers conjuring up images of grizzly bears and hailstorms.

“This is great, this is really fun,” Sorensen Elementary teacher Becky Olin said last week, as she created a multi-media lesson on Alaska for her second-grade students. “This is just one more resource for them to use.”

Olin is one of dozens of teachers gearing up for the new computer hardware and software flooding Kootenai County schools this summer with the advent of the KootNet Consortium.

The University of Idaho is offering the training at its model technology classroom in Coeur d’Alene. Several classes already have been held, and more are scheduled throughout the summer into the fall.

The center is even offering weeklong three-hour summer classes for kids to familiarize them with state-of-the-art computers while they learn about whales, dinosaurs and other creatures.

While the UI’s “New Century Classroom” still remains the ideal, local schools are coming closer to attaining some semblance of it.

Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and Lakeland schools are expecting a shipment of 200 computers to arrive soon. More importantly, educators say, the KootNet Consortium will create a network for teachers and students to share information.

Already, trained students in each district are helping computer coordinators lay down the wiring for networks that eventually will connect the computers in each school, the schools and districts to each other.

Finally, perhaps by Christmas, most of the schools will be connected to the Internet, a worldwide computer network.

The nearly countywide computer network is being financed by a $312,000 state grant and smaller technology grants awarded to individual school districts.

A significant portion of the state grant is dedicated to teacher training. That commitment is made clear in the grant proposal:

“Just as there are few options available for those who do not wish to teach on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, there should be few options available for teachers who do not wish to be involved with technology.”

Although some are nervous about being thrust onto the telecommunications age, most teachers are excited, their peers-in-training said.

“There’s lot of interest in the classes being offered,” said Joy Crupper, a Lakeland elementary librarian who attended the UI class last week. On Friday she was working on a lesson about water, complete with a video of a violent hailstorm.

Her daughter Jenni sat next to her, occasionally taking over the controls to help her mother. Jenni didn’t seem to mind missing out on the nearby beach action Friday.

“She’s got the technical stuff, I’ve got the software stuff,” Jenni said, her eyes glued to the computer screen.

Administrators aren’t concerned so much about students picking up the computer skills, but more that teachers know how to integrate the technology into teaching.

“That’s why a lot of us are here,” Crupper said. “Kids have time to sit and play with it until they get it. One teacher said, ‘I don’t have time. I’ve got to get dinner and do the laundry.”

But not all teachers are expected to be up-to-speed when the hardware arrives. Each school will designate a “change agent,” a person who is expected to become well-versed in the technology and help others become acquainted with it.

The Coeur d’Alene high schools also are launching classes to teach students how to trouble-shoot and maintain computer networks. They, in turn, can train their teachers.

“Students can look at it from the standpoint of assisting their school, but also as long-term career potential,” said Judy Drake, director of secondary education at Coeur d’Alene School District.

At first, the computers, video cameras and laser discs will be situated in a “technology center” in each school. Later, when more funds are available, smaller centers will move into individual classrooms.

It won’t take long, educators predict, before using computers, laser discs and other related equipment will become second-nature to most teachers.

They already are to many students, who are growing up in a technological society. Some children just lack the opportunity to explore their growing digital landscape.

“The computer’s a tool, just like a piece of chalk,” said Steve Rasor, Spirit Lake Elementary principal. “It motivates students, captivates them. It causes them to think and problemsolve.

“It prepares them for careers we don’t even know about.”

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