Program Helps Bring Technology To Classrooms

Cheney educators have started a project that gets teachers and education students together to use technology in the classroom.

The three-year, grant-funded program, called Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers for Technology, matches Eastern Washington University students with Cheney School District faculty. The education majors are learning how to use computer technology to help elementary students master their lessons.

Currently about 100 of the 700 teaching students are participating in 43 district classrooms.

“This is an absolutely wonderful opportunity our teachers and their student teachers have,” said the district’s technology coordinator, Patti Dean. “They bring technology applications to our classrooms, while our teachers help them with lesson plans and how to implement lesson plans.”

Meanwhile, the students enjoy a richer curriculum, she said.

Teachers and EWU students started early this month at Betz Elementary with a project that used digital video and pictures. The teachers equipped students visiting an FFA-organized petting zoo with digital cameras and camcorders. The students were instructed to document the event, then make computer presentations, using pictures and video, about their experience.

Other projects are planned throughout the school year using the Internet, multimedia software, digital cameras, camcorders and laptop computers.

The $600,000 federal grant pays for software, salaries and busing. Students will be bused as the occasion demands to computer labs or activities that the teachers have devised.

Professors Linda Kieffer, from the computer science department; and Nancy Todd, from the education department, applied together for the grant. They said the program is a must for preparing new teachers, who are expected to know how to use new technology.

“Many districts have passed levies to get technology in their classrooms,” Kieffer said. “Now, who’s going to use it?”

Most importantly, she said, the technology is not an end in itself. Rather, computers and multimedia add to teachers’ repertoire of teaching tools with which they strive to help students achieve the state’s academic standards.