THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 24, 1994 TAG: 9408240477
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
Elizabeth City Middle School educators lob technical words like ``CD-ROM'' and ``file server'' around like they were the ABCs.
They get starry eyed over visions of linking ``voice-data-video'' lines into a great universal unit that will tie students and teachers to electronic communications systems around the world.
They picture a nationwide network of schools and scientists teaming up on huge projects that demonstrate how technology and society relate to each other.
And, they say, these dreams are not far off.
The middle school is one of 90 selected from thousands across the country for a five-year program that will establish partnerships between educators and technology experts.
Sponsored by the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers and fellow engineering societies, the ``Transformations'' project aims to help schools coordinate teaching of math, science and technology.
``We've been striving so hard to get all of this integrated together,'' Middle School Principal Diane Bradford told school board members Monday night.
Bradford and two others from the school attended a two-week workshop for the project in Boston this summer. They developed problem-based curriculum, discussed technology and society issues, and learned to use computer communications networks like the internet.
The project will continue to provide training, partnerships and access to such services as America On-Line, which, through computer modems, can hook any classroom to the archives of the National Geographic Society and dozens of other research organizations.
``It's given us a chance to have all this information at our fingertips that we didn't have before,'' said Linda Burgess, lead science teacher at the middle school and a participant in the workshop. ``We're on top of the world with this project.''
The school is preparing for the new era in communications by installing about 105 new computers, about a third of the devices the school system will receive without cost from a federal surplus pool.
The school also is planning a math-science-technology lab and studying ways to link its information systems together.
``We're looking at how to build the infrastructure correctly, so we have voice-data-video,'' said Susan Herring, an instructional specialist at the middle school and another program participant.
The engineering association sponsoring the Transformations project began reaching out to middle schools four years ago with a video series about technology and society.
The project aims to reach kids at a crucial time when they're forming career decisions, said Dennis Cheek, the project's director and coordinator of math, science and technology in Rhode Island's education department.
Cheek called technology an ``absent presence'' in school curriculum. Technology is used throughout schools to teach, but schools don't teach about technology.
But as research advances, informing people about technological change will grow more and more important, he said.
``You want to have a cadre of citizens out there that at least know the right questions to ask,'' Cheek said.
Bradford said the Transformations project fits in with the school system's evolving philosophy on how to prepare students for their jobs.
``We haven't really taught kids to apply what they know,'' Bradford said outside Monday's meeting. ``In school, cooperative learning is called cheating, ... but not in the real world of work. We've just watched kids come alive with team learning.
``The whole big picture is change, and you cannot stay where you are and survive anymore. ... We have so much we can do for kids, if we can get past the way we used to do things.''
The intellectual activity running through the middle school is being held up only by physical disorder. Delays in the building's $1.7 million renovation project - spurred in part by late-arriving equipment and the surprise discovery of asbestos this month - have pushed back the school's opening to Monday at the earliest.
In other action Monday night, the school board voted to move two modular classrooms placed in front of Northside Elementary School this summer. The Pasquotank County Commissioners, who fund the schools, recommended moving them after receiving complaints from residents and parents that they marred the building's appearance.
Several board members expressed concern about the issue, saying the schools cannot afford to redo projects over misunderstandings or uncommunicated complaints. Board members suggested asking commissioners to forward any school-related complaints to them in the future.
Board member Nita Coleman recommended getting a specific list of criteria for where and how modular units should be placed.
``Let's find out what the rules are so that we can follow the rules,'' Coleman said. She added that ``hiding'' classroom trailers ``is not going to make them go away.''
Board members do not plan to move a trailer that sits in front of H.L. Trigg Elementary, a location that was questioned at the Aug. 15 County Commissioners meeting.
The school system has 32 modular and mobile units, said Superintendent Joseph Peel, the equivalent of an entire school. by CNB