January 23, 2010
Use technology as tool for good, say high school educators
By Denise MacLachlan
Herald staff
Colette Roche, above, English teacher, Webmaster and educational technologist at St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School in Vallejo, uses Pageflakes, an RSS feed aggregator, to create an easy way to access class blogs. Photo courtesy of St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School
Only a few years ago, when high school students researched topics at the school library, they first thumbed through cards at the card catalogue to find books on their subject. They copied the books’ Dewey decimal numbers onto a slip of scratch paper, then headed into the stacks to retrieve the books or discover that more enterprising classmates had beat them to the shelf.
It’s different now.
High school students access their library’s holdings online from home, browsing through the possibilities and noting whether a book is available or checked out. If available, at their request it will be waiting for them at the librarian’s desk.
Students also browse through other libraries. At Jesuit High School in Carmichael, for example, students can explore the holdings of all libraries at UC Davis, as well as at California State University, Sacramento, and all of the Sacramento public libraries. And at their request, the interlibrary loan books will be waiting at their school librarian’s desk.
But students don’t depend much on books anymore. They are more likely to browse scholarly databases of research published in print and available on the Web, view videos of lectures and scientific demonstrations, and download raw data and the interpretation that goes with it.
And because it’s all online, everyone can have a copy; nobody waits for a book to return.
“Fifteen years ago, technology was its own subject area, and students worked in a computer lab to write short bits of software or print out essays,” according to Jim Weber, technology coordinator at Mercy High School in Red Bluff. “But now, technology has become so integrated into education that it has become a tool almost as common as a three-ring binder or mechanical pencil.”
The now old-fashioned computer lab is moving into the library, as people use computers to search databases as well as to learn computer programs and the old study carrels for writing papers become computer work stations. Computer technology itself is becoming a tool used in different ways throughout the rest of the school.
In language classes, interactive software allows students to listen to a language spoken in a range of accents by native speakers and then receive immediate feedback on their own pronunciation. Similar technology assists music students by first playing a recorded piece of music, then comparing that recording to a student’s singing or playing. The software program gives the musician immediate feedback on missed notes and faulty technique, which the student corrects in the next performance.
In science classes, tools such as temperature probes or scales can be hooked up to a computer, and software programs record the data and generate graphs instantly. Students now record data from physics experiments directly into software that creates not only graphs but also animated clips that demonstrate the data. In engineering classes, technology makes possible the creation of programmable robots, which students create and program to accomplish remote tasks.
Some schools now even offer biotechnology classes, as computer technology makes it possible to bring what was once strictly a college curriculum into high school. Teri Stone, biotechnology teacher at St. Francis High School in Sacramento, said that biotechnology, which she considers one of the most important emerging sciences in the world, incorporates computer science and mathematics to collect and analyze experimental data from biological and life sciences so that scientists all over the world can share information.
Computer technology even transforms high school writing. Students don’t merely type (or keyboard) their essays; they blog, publishing their ongoing research and their ideas for the greater community to read and respond to in an interactive way far beyond the capacity of a traditional classroom discussion.
“Technology is a tool,” said Colette Roche, English teacher and educational technologist at St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School in Vallejo. “We use it to teach the whole child.” She said that students are growing up in a digital age and should be proficient in the tools of their time. She also noted that improvement in technology continually transforms the possibilities in teaching and learning.
In a recent essay, Roche recalled seeing science teacher Jason McCabe stop his car on his way to work to scoop up water from a marsh by the side of the road. Later that day, Roche found the marsh water sample magnified and on the digital screen in McCabe’s classroom where the students were absorbed the variety of life in that drop of water.
The students were absorbed in studying the water sample, not the technology that magnified it.
“Technology should always enhance the curriculum, not distract from it,” explained George Wagner, systems support manager at Jesuit High School in Carmichael. Students and faculty both adapt to the technology, he noted, so that it becomes almost invisible in itself as the teachers and students study what the technology makes possible.
“Technology also facilitates what goes on between the teachers and students,” he said, adding that technology also allows the parents to be more involved in their children’s education.
All of the Catholic high schools in the diocese have Web sites where teachers can maintain Web pages of their own. Most teachers use their Web pages to post assignments and respond to e-mails from students and parents; some accept digital files in lieu of typed papers, and even make parts of their grade books available to parents and students alike.
And in their physical classrooms, teachers now have the technology to go online and project Web sites onto the screen, present research, stream video clips, and in some exercises, work interactively with students on their computers.
The technology allows teachers to present information and learning experiences in several different ways to reach students with a range of individual learning styles, according to Christian Brother Donald Johanson, assistant principal for curriculum and instruction, math teacher and Webmaster at Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento.
Teachers can present material verbally, in visual and audio media through a clip on the Web or a live feed, and in interactive formats that have the students responding from their own laptops or even cell phones as the lesson occurs.
Brother Johanson added that teachers must be proficient in technology not only because the technology is a helpful pedagogical tool but also because “technology is the world the students live in.”
“Students today are very technologically-oriented,” he said. “You have to meet them and walk with them in their world.”
Students at Mercy High School in Red Bluff are not quite as technologically-oriented, and those at Cristo Rey High School in Sacramento even less so, according to technology instructors at both schools.
In Red Bluff, the “digital divide,” as Weber puts it, is the result of both economics and geography.
“Here in the north state, the economy is very depressed, and many families live near the poverty line,” Weber noted. “Plus, services are unavailable in many areas. Ten miles out of town, you get dial-up and modem noise. For many students, school is where they get broadband.”
The economic story is even worse at Cristo Rey High School, where nearly all of the students come from low-income families.
“Most of our students don’t have access to the Internet at home,” said Becky Policar, vice principal for instruction at the high school. “We have a computer lab here at school, where they learn the skills they need for work and for college.” Cristo Rey students fund their tuition by working one day each week at local businesses.
The students become proficient in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and at keyboarding itself, noted David Brown, work-study coordinator at Cristo Rey. Students spend four weeks during the summer before their admission learning the software they’ll need at work and in the classroom, he said, and then the students add to their proficiency in the technology as they move through the curriculum and their own work experiences.
Instructors at Cristo Rey High School would like to provide more updated technology to their students, but at Cristo Rey, just as at other Catholic high schools in the diocese, technology is considered a tool to be used to further instruction or facilitate communication.
“The students learn a lot in their work experiences, and we continue to use our computer lab in the curriculum throughout the school year,” Policar said. “We’re pretty confident that our students are well-prepared for the technology at college.”
“As a tool, technology itself is neither good nor bad,” noted Roche of St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School. “It’s our job to teach the students to use it, and to use it for good.”
