Educational Technology | NW Education

MACKAY, Idaho-

A gaggle of fifth-graders races into Charlyne Kaulukukui's classroom. Through another door, a batch of kindergartners hustles to the six computers stationed at the room's far end, where the younger and older students pair up. As the little kids tell stories based on pictures they had drawn earlier, the big kids record the tales on the computers. Calling upon their more advanced writing skills, the older mentors add shape and structure to the kindergartners' storytelling.

Kaulukukui-or Ms. K as she is known in this town of 500-floats among the pairs of students, listening in, offering guidance, and providing support. At one computer, Erin keyboards her sister Katie's story, coaxing more information from her and supplying punctuation as the tale about a snowy Valentine's Day unwinds. Katie steps to the keyboard to sign her name to her creation before printing it. Then she reads her story aloud with Erin's help. The story is stored on a disk along with other projects that together form an electronic portfolio that will follow Katie through her years at Mackay Elementary School.

Ms. K is pioneering new ways for her 15 fifth-graders to learn and grow through the use of computers and other technologies in the classroom. Cross-grade tutoring, online research, and international e-mail are some of the ways Ms. K employs technology as an instructional tool-a tool she weaves throughout her language arts, science, geography, and reading curricula. "At the elementary level, we teach 10 to 12 curricula a week," she says. "I hear teachers ask, 'How can we add more?' How? You integrate it. When I teach social studies, I bring in history, literature, writing, and now, technology. It becomes a web with social studies at the center." Projects range from economics to English. For example:
This year, Ms. K has developed an economics project in which her students "play" the stock market, watching their investments rise and fall, moving money around, and determining when to buy and sell. Students access a daily financial report-both the morning call and the closing bell-through Infobeat (http://www.infobeat.com/)
A Malaysian e-mail friend of Ms. K corresponds with the students and tells them about the economy in Asia and its influences on the world market. "Children need to be aware of cultural diversity," says Ms. K, who is a native of Honolulu. "They need to see and understand other people, the places they live, their countries, and to have an appreciation for other cultures."
Four young women in Denmark are learning how to write proper English with the help of Ms. K's fifth-graders. One Danish girl recently wrote in part: "Hallo Ms. K!! My name is Anette. I'm 14 years old. I have birthday September the 30th. I have three jobs . . . My mother is a hause wife she is 32 years old ... and her name is Anni, and my father work in our capital (Copenhagen) he is 36 years old and he name is Jens." The Idaho fifth-graders edit the letters, rewrite portions of them, and send them back. The letters are projected on a TV monitor, and the students review them together, noting grammatical errors, problems with punctuation, and mistakes in verb tense. Ms. K linked up with the Danish students through their teacher, whom she met in an Internet "chat room" where people from around the world converse online. (The address for the "Net meeting" where the two women connected is http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting/).

"The wonderful thing about technology is that it brings the world to our classroom," says Ms. K. "My goal is to prepare my children for the world-to let them know that they can have an education, see the world, and always come back home again." Besides corresponding with the Danish youths, Ms. K's students have e-mail relationships with students in Italy, France, and China. "I'm learning a lot about other people and what's going on in the world," says fifth-grader Ellen. "You can see things, hear things, I can do it all by myself." talk to people, and get places. And I can do it all myself."

In another classroom, sixth-graders Jessica and Amanda huddle over their computer. After clicking on Yahoo! (a popular tool for searching the World Wide Web), they type in the word "armadillo," and wait a few seconds until a list pops up offering a wealth of Web sites. "Most of these sites are businesses with the armadillo name in it," Jessica observes. "But we've still gotten a lot of information for our project."

Today, the girls are looking for pictures of armadillos, so they return to Yahoo! and narrow their search, typing in "armadillo picture." A site pops up with lots of scanned photos of the armor-clad creatures common in the Southwest. Jessica and Amanda click and copy the photos, then import them to Microsoft PowerPoint, a program for planning multimedia presentations, useful to everyone from corporate CEOs to sixth-grade students.

In PowerPoint, Amanda and Jessica have combined text and photos for a report they will present to their classmates. The presentation software will be wired to a 21-inch TV monitor that allows the girls to project visual images while they give their oral report.

Sixth-grade teacher Cindy Kimball says technology addresses the working and learning styles of more students, and keeps students engaged in their learning. "We require that all our sixth-graders do a PowerPoint presentation," she says. "This is an exciting way for them to transfer their knowledge, and they're using a variety of communication skills. These reports are a way for them to reach everyone in the classroom."

When a new project is introduced, Kimball works with five or six students, helping them to locate appropriate Internet sites, developing a list of key access words, and guiding them through the maze of Web sites. Those six students then share the information with others, acting as coaches in the early stages of project development.

Students, Kimball cautions, must be monitored when they're on the information highway. Navigating the Internet can lead to sites with sexually explicit photos, language, or other inappropriate material. "I don't let them do anything on the Internet without me there," she says. "There are a lot of sites that are not appropriate. We have to be real careful-go step-by-step and preview where we want the kids to go."

This year, fifth- and sixth-grade teachers are participating in the Idaho State University Mentor Program for teachers. (Second- and third-grade teachers began the two-year program last year). The program, paid for through a grant from the university, provides methods of curriculum integration for word processing, spreadsheets, electronic presentations, and Internet use. Participants then train colleagues in their school and model technology integration. As a result, teacher collaboration has increased along with the implementation of technology-based teaching.

Still, Ms. K says, computers have limitations in the education of children. "I like computers," she says. "I find them exciting, but they cannot replace teachers and books. They cannot say to a student, 'It's OK, you're having a bad day.' They cannot put a Band-Aid on a child's scraped knee. They cannot touch human lives in truly human ways."

TEACHER'S FOOTNOTES

On sites and software:
Ms. K has several sites bookmarked for her students' convenience, and also has her favorites written on the board just above the computers. They include:
Security Industry Association sponsors the SMG 2000 stock market game, a 10-week simulation of Wall Street trading that provides a framework for teaching students in grades four through 12 about the American economic system. It is designed for classroom use to increase understanding of the stock market, the costs and benefits involved in economic decisionmaking, the sources and uses of capital, and other related economic concepts. Angela Garcia is the Stock Market Game Coordinator for the Idaho Council on Economic Education (agarcia@cobfac.idbsu.edu).
Yahooligans (http://www.yahooligans.com)is a kid-friendly site with snappy graphics and a main menu that includes links such as Around the World (countries, politics, history); Art Soup (museums, dramas, dance); Computers and Games (shareware, software); School Bell (clubs, homework help); Science and Oddities (space, animals, robots); Sports and Recreation (scores, hobbies, trivia); Entertainment (TV, movies, music); and The Scoop (comics, newspapers, current events).
USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com) is the daily newspaper online.
National Geographic (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/) includes articles and photos appearing in the highly respected magazine that looks at global issues and cultures from around the world.

On overcoming fear:
"I started with an old Apple computer and stayed there even after we began shifting to faster, more powerful computers. I had become comfortable and reluctant to change. I was secure. Now my security is in adventure—in exploring and looking for new sites and new applications. This has opened up my thinking and my world, too."

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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01
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