Idaho Invests In Next Generation Training Students For The Future Made Possible By Funding For High-Tech

From the migration of the earliest Americans to the Civil War and Reconstruction, students in Mike Clabby’s history class are visiting the past with the tools of the future.

“It’s better than doing worksheets and tests,” said eighth-grader Gus Stein, who was typing his report on the “Age of Jackson” into a computer.

After that, Gus and his work group will insert the report into a program that combines illustrations, sound, video and text. They shoot the videos, draw the maps, electronically scan in the illustrations, record the sound and put it all together in a snappy format.

The best productions in the class will be pressed into a compact disc, providing a multimedia resource on American history.

“Each kid will get a CD at the end of the year instead of a stack of papers that they’ll throw away,” said Clabby, a Lakes Middle School teacher. Copies of the disc also will go to sixth-grade classes.

This class is considered one of the “bright lights” in an educational landscape where most computers are outdated and parked in a word-processing laboratory down the hall.

Until recently, advances in classroom technology have been largely driven by individual teachers with the desire to jump into the middle of the computer revolution.

But now that the Idaho Legislature dedicated $10.4 million to school technology two years in a row, all Idaho schools have more opportunity to upgrade their classrooms and schools.

“We are moving very quickly to either catch up or leapfrog technology other states have been using for years,” said Rich Mincer, a classroom technology consultant with the Idaho Department of Education.

But, Mincer adds, “we have a long ways to go to achieve equity - where every student has access to technology.”

Four years ago, the governor and the state’s education reform committee declared high-tech schools a priority in Idaho.

Since then, schools have moved toward that goal in fits and starts. Many remain in the wagon-wheel rut of teaching about computers or using them to reward students who finish their classwork first.

“We have for the most part been in the dark ages,” admits Mullan schools superintendent Robin Stanley. The most common use of a computer in his district, he said, is as “an advanced typewriter and calculator.”

“We want our kids to use computers as resources,” he said.

The main limitation for most schools is money. But inadequate buildings (such as those lacking enough electrical outlets) and inexperience have slowed progress, too.

In St. Maries, school officials are spending their state dollars to hire a technology guru to guide administrators, install hardware and train teachers.

“In order to use our financial resources, we have to be smart about what to buy. We have to know what we’re doing,” explained superintendent Dave Cox.

School districts were required to complete a technology plan this year in order to get state money. Many districts chose to pursue more dollars through a competitive grant process.

Of 13 grants awarded statewide for a total of $3.1 million, North Idaho schools won two.

A consortium of Shoshone County and Benewah County schools narrowly lost, placing 14th. The idea was to provide Internet access to those rural schools.

Kellogg and Wallace, however, did win an unrelated grant for satellite technology that will bring educational video programs to their schools.

“It’s kind of like a roller coaster,” said Plummer/ Worley schools superintendent Bob Singleton. “You work hard to get a grant. You put a lot of time into it, and to lose it is discouraging.”

Here’s a handful of the cutting-edge programs in the works in North Idaho:

At Worley Elementary School, teachers Dale Johnson and Bobby Harrison have networked four computers that can all use commercial on-line service. The classrooms also share a computer that projects to a screen.

The software, laser printer and color scanner allow students to do multimedia reports similar to those in Clabby’s class. Teachers also may get training this summer on how to use technology in the classroom.

In Boundary County, Naples Elementary is the technological gem. Its 47 computers for 120 students were provided by the state when it became one of six model schools in Idaho in 1993.

The district plans to expand some of that technology to the high school and other elementary schools with the help of a $196,971 competitive state grant.

Three school districts in Kootenai County formed the KootNet consortium that won $312,000 in state money. Each school now lacking a computer lab will get a technology center equipped with four to six computers, scanners, laser disc players, video cameras and laser printers.

All the schools will be networked to each other and to the Internet through the University of Idaho.

Priest Lake Elementary, which has only 65 students, raised $35,000 last year to buy eight new computers, two printers, a digital camera and other high-tech goodies, making it among the smallest, but best equipped schools in North Idaho.

Many of these projects are modeled after Classroom 2000, the University of Idaho’s education showpiece in Coeur d’Alene. The classroom is equipped with the latest technology and is used to train teachers.

Classroom 2000 coordinator Heidi Rogers lectures that technology is a tool - not an end in itself.

Although some elementary schools now have computer labs, Rogers argues that the best place for technology is in the classroom.

“If a pencil is a tool, we don’t put all our pencils in one classroom,” she said.

The prevailing philosophy is that computers and television should not be used to pacify students or occupy them while the teacher does something else.

“We’ve quit electronic recess,” said Cox of St. Maries School District. “Sometimes the games and reward activities were effective as rewards, but did little to facilitate learning.”

Does the new model of technology as a tool actually improve student performance?

Rogers is convinced that it does, and cites research to back it up. But not everyone is ready to promise better test scores.

“The jury’s still out,” Clabby said. “You have to really watch it so it’s not just a fun session.”

If nothing else, it’s a motivator for students. Trying to keep the attention of children raised in a technological society is tough, Rogers said.

“Kids want to learn. They want access,” she said.

Clabby sees his students caring more about their history reports and eager to work on them. Some come in after school to work. “The biggest limitation of the class is me,” he said.

Johnson, too, has witnessed an eagerness among his students.

“They’re motivated to learn. Each morning when the doors open, the kids are running into the classroom,” he said.

Especially in rural communities, educators are counting on multimedia software, on-line services, and educational television to give their students access to more information.

“Being as remote as we are, our kids lose out a lot,” Singleton said. “Technology is going to help us bridge that gap.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with story: Plug into some terminology from the electronic age Here are a few technical terms being heard more often in North Idaho schools: CD-ROM: Stands for “compact disk-read only memory,” and is an optical storage device similar to a musical CD. It hold 600 times as much information, including sound, graphics, text and video. Distance learning: The practice of using either computers or television to bring information and educational programs to a classroom. Often used in the context of video classes captured by a satellite dish mounted on top of a school. Interactive media: Systems that allow two-way communication, either by computer or television. Network: The circuits that connect computers to each other for transfer of information, such as a telephone line. Internet: A worldwide network of individual, smaller networks. Through the Internet, computer users can exchange electronic mail and information. Multimedia: The combination of text, graphics, sound and video in one format, such as a CD-ROM. On-line: The state of being connected to a network and capable of exchanging computer commands and information. Susan Drumheller

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Susan Drumheller staff writer Staff writer Kevin Keating contributed to this report.