Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506050004
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A message flashed across the computer screen in Tamra Oliver's second-grade classroom.
"Margaret Beeks, where are you?" the message read, and immediately the children in the Blacksburg elementary school wanted to type a response. In minutes, they would be talking by computer with Finland.
The man on the other end of the line, an employee from a Finnish university, asked the children if they knew where Finland was.
In an instant, the children jumped up and ran to the map to find Finland.
Next the man began talking about Finland's climate, but when he told the children about the temperature in Finland, he gave the degrees in Celsius.
"I don't know what that means in Fahrenheit," he wrote.
No problem.
The children went to the thermometer on the wall and made the conversion themselves.
"I couldn't believe it," said Oliver, who teaches 23 second-graders at Beeks Elementary School. "All of this was just happening - I had not planned any of it. It's making them want to learn, and instead of focusing on memorizing a lot of information, they're focusing on learning how to find information on their own."
For Oliver, and many other teachers across Montgomery County and nation, technology is changing the way classes are taught. Teachers don't write a fact on the board and have the students copy it down in a notebook anymore. And they don't assign a term paper and send the children to the closest set of encyclopedias. Teachers know that with the help of computers the children can do more.
"You can produce the most beautiful things compared to what you could do before," Oliver said, holding up a book bound in thick blue tape and written by one of her pupils. "Look at this. What they write is published like a real book. Can you imagine how proud the children can be of work like this? They take a lot of care when they know it's going to look this professional."
Charles Jervis, a biology and chemistry teacher at Auburn High and Middle School in Riner, said technology makes it easier for students to produce more in the same amount of time, and as a result, both he and his students expect better work.
Every year his students go to Williamsburg and write about the experience when they return.
"Before, we would have come back from Williamsburg, and they would have put the photos on a poster board and written a report," Jervis said of his students. "Now look at what they can do."
Jervis held out a tri-fold brochure, printed on both sides on green paper. The brochure is similar to those found in visitors centers, with scanned photos, maps and information about the area.
"Content-wise, they're still making the same observations, doing interviews and organizing the work," he said. "But the work looks so much better, and they're shifting the way they present their information."
Not only does the finished product look better, Jervis said, "the methodology is smoother. What was once labor-intensive [gluing photos to poster boards and typing on a typewriter], is now easier. You can free your mind to think more and learn more."
Technology will help students organize information, too, said Melissa Matusevich, an instructional coordinator for the Auburn attendance area.
"There are just too many facts out there now," Matusevich said. "We just can't keep cramming information into the kids and get them to memorize facts anymore. We need to teach them to use the computer to help them solve problems - real learning they won't forget."
Matusevich said she knows there are some people who think technology has no place in education, that children should be taught only reading, writing, arithmetic and a little history. But she compares technology in education to the age of the automobile.
"When the automobile was invented, my grandparents never owned one but my parents did," she said. "But for them, it was still new. For me, it was a part of my life. To our children's children, computers will be a part of their life. I think to ignore technology in education is to ignore the automobile."
In the classroom, it's impossible to ignore the effect computers are having. Oliver's second-graders, the youngest recipients of six computers installed by the Blacksburg Electronic Village as part of a grant, communicate with Australian children their age, read letters from people who see them on CU C ME (a small camera attached to their computer) and write their own stories about life in Blacksburg.
Most of these computer systems come from grant money or donations, but the county is looking forward to some state money next year. It also has its first-ever six-year technology funding plan (see Tuesday's story on the future of technology in our schools).
With the new computer in her classroom, Oliver says children stand in line to play educational video games and are more self-motivated than ever. She doesn't claim to be a computer expert but does say she is willing to try new things in her classroom.
"If a year ago I had been told I would be used as a model to the other classrooms, I wouldn't have believed it," Oliver said. "I've just learned all of this in the past year. The best part is that I'm taking them farther than I would have five or 10 years ago because the information just wasn't available then. Now, they have the freedom to do so much more, and they're only in second grade."
by CNB