Abington, Lower Moreland and Hatboro-Horsham school districts rolled out new technology initiatives this school year.
By Jack Firneno
Wire Editor
Abington superintendent Dr. Amy Sichel is the first person to admit the district has changed since she, or her daughters, attended school there.
“Teachers are no longer the primary importers of knowledge,” she noted.
They’ve become more curators and coordinators, guiding students through problems and questions rather than dictating facts and figures.
Thanks to the ubiquity of the Internet, and the increased availability of high-tech tools that keep people connected to it, more and more schools are changing the way they educate their students.
It’s all in efforts to enhance the learning experience, and to ensure students are well-versed in the most up-to-date tools they can expect to use when they go to work in a few years.
Abington, along with Lower Moreland and Hatboro-Horsham school districts, rolled out new programs this school year to make the most of today’s technological advancements.
But, stressed Sichel, “Technology is an accelerator. It’s not an answer. it’s a tool, a way to think differently.”
She discussed the robots built by Abington High School students. “They’re not from a kit. The kids researched them [online] and then built them,” said Sichel. “That’s what these high-end, thoughtful projects are all about. Look at the problem-solving.”
The children, she pointed out, created robots that could perform simple tasks — underwater, even — without a teacher giving them an instruction manual.
But, the internet and other innovations are still just one facet of modern education: “Technology … has to be used to master academic standards,” said Sichel.
It’s part of an effort that Sichel named STEAM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics.
Sichel, who is president of the American Association of School Administrators, coined the term last year when that organization commissioned the company Lifetouch to produce a video about her work.
Instead, Sichel opted to highlight what the district was already doing for years, and classified the endeavors under the STEAM designation. And, she discovered, part of that has been teachers changing the way they present information.
“You want everyone to be able to participate, not just have a teacher standing in front of the room talking,” said Abington Senior High School science teacher Brad Palmer.
Instead, instructors upload math problems or history questions on an electronic whiteboard. A student can work on the problem as the class helps him or her. Their work, and notes from the teacher, can be saved to a student’s network drive for review later. Or, students can each use an interactive clicker to transmit their answers to a multiple choice question.
It’s a boon to teachers, who can even choose if the answers remain anonymous. Either way, they get an instant assessment of how strongly each student understands the lesson. And, they can make sure they’re all participating.
With each student reporting in with the clickers, Sichel noted, “You can’t have a kid with his head down in the back of the class.”
But instructors are far from the only people benefiting from the practice.
“It’s teaching in ways that kids are interacting and working collaboratively,” said Palmer. They’re important skills for today’s workforce where, he added, “You’re not just a cog in the wheel. You’re working together now.”
Collaboration is also what drives Hatboro-Horsham’s new pilot program. This year, 15 classrooms from elementary through high school were equipped with one laptop for every two students.
These classrooms engage in “hybrid learning.” Similar to Abington, teachers are using new computer programs and hardware to individualize each child’s lesson as the class is happening.
Along with smartboards and clickers, hybrid classes use a three-step rotation process. Students spend time doing, say, math problems on a learning program. The teacher then assesses each one’s performance to determine where to focus the lesson. Then, students break into small groups to apply what they’ve just learned in larger groups.
The instant assessment angle is important, said David Weber, the district’s director of curriculum: “It’s a lot better than trying to read the kids’ faces to see who’s got it.”
And, molding the lesson as it happens, and then re-applying the concepts in groups also helps students work together to reinforce what they’ve learned, instead of maybe just assigning 15 problems to do for homework.
“If kids leave not understanding the concept, they’ll do it wrong 15 times, and there’s no opportunity to counter it until the next day,” said Weber.
Of course, as effective as these tools are, they’re also expensive. Smart boards, for instance, are easily $1,000 each and laptops aren’t much less. And, new technology can often have a short shelf life, occasionally making a purchasing decisions difficult.
But the costs are outweighed by the benefits, even as districts minimize the former. Abington repurposes old equipment, like relegating old laptops to younger grades or classes that need them for only Internet browsing.
And, many of Hatboro-Horsham’s latest additions like more laptops and iPads were funded by Innovative Learning Grants from the Hatboro-Horsham Educational Foundation (HHEF). An independent nonprofit organization, it awards around $100,000 annually in grants.
“There was very little focus on technology in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Throughout the 2000s, there’s been a big shift,” noted HHEF marketing coordinator Kim Rubenstein.
The group accepts private donations but gets much of the grant money through Pennsylvania’s Educational Improvement Tax Credit program (EITC), which offers tax credits to business that contribute to scholarship and educational improvement organizations.
But the technology isn’t always expensive, even when the lessons are priceless. Sichel, for instance, was surprised to learn how little it cost the robotics club to build their robots.
Engines cost just seven dollars each, she discovered, and the club uses inexpensive PVC piping for the body. The club’s sponsor, physics teacher Nyssa Yaeger, paid for them through a small armed forces grant.
And, other districts are finding ways to implement new tools without having to pay for them. Last fall, Lower Moreland School District debuted its Bring Your Own Device program as part of a nationwide campaign. Here, students can register their own laptops, smart phones or tablets with the school, which grants them access to the district’s wireless network and special software.
“Our purpose is to provide our students with the tools that they’ll have in their work life later,” explained Susan Casagrand, director of technology for Lower Moreland.
The district also uses tools like interactive whiteboards, but instead of purchasing clickers, many students are now interacting with their own electronic devices.
And, connecting to the district’s network gives students access to a version of Google Docs that’s exclusive to the schools, where teachers can upload notes and assignments, and students can collaborate on projects.
The program was piloted by a few classrooms late last school year, and rolled out district-wide in the fall. Currently, about half of Lower Moreland’s 2,149 students participate.
Casagrand expects that number to grow, citing a recent nationwide survey where about two-thirds of parents polled said they would be willing to buy electronic devices for their children if schools required it.
And although the district hasn’t crunched the numbers yet, it can expect to spend less on technology as that happens.
For now, Lower Moreland still invests in iPads and laptops for students who don’t have their own. And, Casagrand said, one teacher raised money to purchase devices for his students who didn’t bring in their own.
“Kids are comfortable with their own tools, and more apt to bring them in.”
