Classroom technology gets high grade

BOISE — The state’s multimillion-dollar annual investment in high technology for Idaho schools appears to be paying dividends, according to a new comparison of classroom technology across the United States.

Education Week, a national publication for education professionals, did not place the states in an overall ranking, but of the 82 areas assessed, Idaho’s performance was high for the access students have to computers and the use of technology and the Internet in schools.

But the report also found the state lagging in the availability of distance-learning programs for both students and teachers, ranking below two-thirds of the states. In addition, mathematics teachers apparently have not been maximizing technology in their classrooms.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done in integrating computer technology into classroom instruction,” said Dawn Wilson, education technology coordinator for the state Department of Education.

Only connection problems at two dozen sites prevented all 650 Idaho schools from giving standardized tests online to students last fall, the survey reported.

It also highlighted the $35 million Idaho Student Information Management System project that will standardize computer software in all 114 school districts by 2006, making it simple for parents to use the Internet to monitor their children’s academic progress.

Wilson called that project, the computerized application of the Idaho Standards Achievement Test and a new computer program to help students pass it areas the state will now focus.

Idaho followed the national trend in the past two years in trimming back its financial commitment to technology, but the 19 percent reduction since 2001 compared to a national rate of 24 percent.

Idaho was one of the states to eliminate the gap in access to technology for students in poverty areas. Every school with a high percentage of poor students had Internet access last year and 99 percent of all public schools were online.

There was a computer for every 2.9 students across the state in 2003. Only four states had lower ratios, and nationally there was a computer for every four students. The technology testing required to obtain a teaching certificate in Idaho has left only 11 percent of the schools with more than half their teachers considered computer novices.

Wilson said it was a reflection of the strides the state has made in outfitting public schools with technology over the past decade and making sure teachers know how the systems work.

“But it’s not just the teacher using the technology for the grade book, for attendance,” she said. “It’s incorporating it into classroom work.”

The department has used a grant from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation to train a small group of teachers statewide to do just that and they are now passing those skills on to their colleagues, she said.