Grant Will Let Students Explore State Online Multimedia Materials Will Focus On History, Science, Cultural Diversity

Idaho students soon will be able to use computers to explore the state’s history, science and cultural diversity under a five-year effort to greatly expand use of digital technology in schools.

Idaho State University and the Blackfoot and Jerome school districts in October won a $5.3 million Technology Challenge grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

The money is financing a project called Just in Time, including programs that will appear on the Internet for the general public and in more detailed form on CD-ROM.

Students - or anyone with access to a computer with a modem - will get a taste Jan. 7. They will be able to plug into the project’s new Internet Web site to look at a picture of the letter from President Lincoln making Idaho a territory.

By spring, students in Jerome and Blackfoot schools will begin tapping the information as a pilot program. Students in other parts of Idaho will do so by fall.

“We’re going to create a reservoir of materials for the next two decades for the children of Idaho to use,” said Al Strickland, an Idaho State University education professor and one of the project’s directors. “There’s never been anything close to this anywhere in the country.”

Instead of national textbooks - which largely ignore a remote state like Idaho - students, teachers and minority groups from across the state will create presentations for computer use. The materials will be “multimedia,” using sound, graphics, pictures and moving images instead of simply text.

Materials will be produced in three sets, for elementary, middle and high school levels.

The history segment will explore commerce, mining and other aspects. The science portion will include geology, weather and zoology. Members of minority groups will help develop materials on Idaho’s cultural diversity.

Technology teams will be trained in each of Idaho’s 112 school districts. The teams will train teachers to develop their own computer-based programs, tapping the Internet, museum collections such as the Idaho Historical Society’s and other sources.