Saratoga News
Education
St. Andrew's students are computer-savvy
By Emilie Doolittle
A couple of St. Andrew's School sixth-graders ran to their science class with their laptop computers in bags slung over their shoulders. In class, all of the students opened their laptops to look at an anatomical heart online. They were reviewing parts of the heart in preparation for a dissection of a pig's heart the following day.
At the front of the classroom, science teacher Sue Dvorak put an anatomical heart on the Activboard, an interactive whiteboard that permits students to write on projected computer images. The students labeled parts of the heart using a wireless Activpen, which has the same pointing functions as a computer mouse.
The middle school students at St. Andrew's are loaned laptops, which they carry with them throughout the day. They are learning how to use Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Flash, Kid Pix and new software that some of the teachers have just learned over the summer. This technology infusion is funded by tuition costs. The students' interactive, technology-based lessons are sometimes comparable to a television game show or to a sportscaster or weatherman using a telestrator.
Next door, social studies teacher Erin Stacey asked her seventh-grader students questions that were posted on the Activboard, and each student answered using Activote, a handheld device similar to what audience members use when polled in game shows. The students' answers were recorded anonymously, but the number of correct and incorrect answers showed on a chart on the Activboard for the class to see after each round. Not only did the students sit up straight and listen, but they gave each other advice to help the class improve its score.
"It's really a fun interactive way of studying," said seventh-grader Melina Goldman. "The teachers really use technology nicely, to teach us."
"You have to realize that these students are at a higher level than we were at their age," said Stacey. "So we have to keep up with new technology by going to conferences, networking and brainstorming with people on the subject matter."
The students are learning to use application software that some of the teachers just learned in college or during a recent summer preparation course.
The middle school students use Adobe Flash, an animation program that allows them to layer images matched with time sequences. The students also use Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel. In the lower school, third-graders start doing online research under the guidance of their instructors.
"We're in the heart of technology; how could we not leverage it?" said technology teacher Teresa Nair. "Our administration understands the implications of technology, where it's going and how it is used in the Silicon Valley."
"It helps to have someone in the classroom really champion that integration of technology," said Carol Mann, the director of information systems at the school. "Having Teresa to work one on one with the teachers, it makes all the projects relevant to what's going on in the classroom." Mann works with teachers to implement technology with the curriculum. She said that the school doesn't just give teachers new technology, it makes sure that the teachers know how to use it.
"We want to support with technology, but it will never replace the individual teacher and the spirit of learning," said Nair. "It's the teacher that drives the excitement of the students."