Technology and good teaching practices combine to connect rural students with the wider world

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By Helen Silvis

Three years ago, Jeff Holt set off for his new job as principal and teacher of Bettles Field School in the Alaskan interior. He expected to teach eight students from this village of about 80 people. Instead, he found that over the summer, enrollment had grown to 16. The school now qualified for an additional teacher, but hiring would take time. Holt soon realized it would be March at the earliest before a new teacher would arrive.

Meditating on the challenges ahead—teaching his K-12 students everything from the alphabet to advanced calculus—he came up with a bold idea. Why not use the extra money available to buy new technology? With computers and the Internet, his students would have access to an array of resources as vast as the Arctic wilderness surrounding them.

"We're 200 miles north of Fairbanks, and to get here you have to fly in by plane," explains Holt, who is originally from Idaho. "There's no TV here, not unless someone has a digital satellite. There's one radio station—it's a religious station—and the newspapers are a day behind. So getting current events and getting news from the rest of the world is almost impossible without these technological links. Sure, we have a library with 8,000 to 10,000 books, but that's it. With the Internet the opportunities are endless."

By waiting until the next school year to hire a second teacher, Holt was able to add a big chunk of the school's budget to federal grant funds aimed at linking rural communities to the Internet. He bought a computer for every two students and arranged a satellite link through the local telephone company. He also wrote to software manufacturers, who offered him discounts on the programs he wanted: a video-editing program, for example, and a Web publishing program. Altogether the school spent $70,000 on technology in one year—and that wasn't the only cost.

"I was not afraid to take the burden of responsibility on my own shoulders," Holt says. "I had no maintenance man. I didn't have a secretary. I didn't have a janitor. I had myself and two aides, who worked four hours a day. That's how important I think it is to have that technology."

Certainly sophisticated technology has brought enormous advantages to small rural schools like Bettles. Not only do Internet links offer access to libraries of information, but they also create openings for collaborative work with other schools or organizations. Teachers can log on to education Web sites and choose from a wide range of professional development courses, while students can study subjects that are not available at their local school.

Alaska's North Slope Borough District, for example, serving eight villages in an area the size of Utah, uses compressed video technology to offer students specialized courses in math, art, and science. As well as attending class via two-way video links, students use e-mail and fax to submit their work and receive feedback.

But if the benefits of technology can be immense, they are also unevenly distributed. Sparsely populated areas are not linked to cable networks, and their telephone and satellite links can be erratic and sluggish, not to mention expensive. In addition, according to the Rural School and Community Trust, a higher proportion of rural schools are economically disadvantaged and can't afford expensive technology.

CROSSING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE
To bridge this digital divide, President Clinton and Congress have created programs aimed at equalizing opportunities for poor and rural students. All 50 states are to receive grants from the federal Technology Literacy Challenge Fund, which is distributing $2 billion over five years. Grant money from the Technology Innovation Challenge fund has helped train teachers to use technology. And the E-rate program offers schools discounts on the purchase of technology, with a preference for those in low-income areas.

Karl Kowalski, technology coordinator for Alaska's Northwest Arctic Borough School District, says only one of the 10 villages in his district has a direct telephone link to the Internet. In the other villages, residents can dial up a service provider, but they have to pay long-distance charges. However, all of the district's students now have Internet access through a dedicated telephone link that connects each school to the World Wide Web.

"The only reason we can afford to do that is because of the discounts we get through the federal E-rate," Kowalski says. "The full cost is $1,200 a month for each connection, but we pay 10 to 30 percent of that, depending on the school."

WHAT IT MEANS
Anne Batey, a professional development associate with Northwest Regional Educational Lab's Technology in Education Center, and her colleague Amy Pearl, an instructional design associate, agree that state and federal efforts to improve access to technology have been successful. Yet, they argue that simply measuring the number of computers and Internet connections tells less than half the story. "It's not what you have, it's what you do with it in the classroom that counts," Batey says. "You have to ask yourself, when does technology make a difference? What can I do with technology that I can't do without it?"

Pearl stresses the importance of the teacher behind the technology. She says, "Go into any school anywhere and you will see great teachers, good teachers, and worrisome teachers—and the worrisome teachers may be using the most technology."

A common pitfall is for teachers to focus on the tool at the expense of the content, she adds. "If the end goal is that the kids now use the technology … then we're off task. It has to be tied to standards that develop scholarship and thoughtfulness, not just about the source of the information but about what the information means."

To succeed in the wired-up classroom, teachers need to use exactly the same kinds of good practice they would use in any classroom, Batey says. To engage students' interest and commitment, teachers should set up projects that address problems in the real world and have significance for the students.

One class sampled water at local wellheads, for example, and used computer mapping to assess where contamination was strongest and identify possible causes. In this case, technology added value by presenting complex data visually. "You can put in data and then suddenly you see patterns. These sorts of things can be very powerful," Pearl says.

Small schools often excel at working with students grouped across grades and abilities, and this kind of collaborative project work is one of the most effective ways to introduce technology. Students develop research and analysis skills, Batey says, and they learn from one another through sharing knowledge within the group.

Equally important is the opportunity for students to publish information and to know their work will reach a wider audience. Publishing will raise the level of commitment to a project, Batey says. "The kids realize: 'My work is real. My work is important. It isn't just me getting a grade here'."

Yet, teachers at schools with older computers and no Internet access should not lose heart. Some of the most interesting discoveries can be made with very basic tools. Batey explains: "Let's say you don't have Internet access, but you have a spreadsheet and can display your data in a graph. Teachers can bring kids to a higher level of analysis with a commonly available computer application tool."

At Bettles Field School, Jeff Holt's unorthodox strategy seems to have paid off. His students consistently score in the upper ranges of Alaska's required tests, and they can create a spreadsheet or edit a video as readily as they grab pencil and paper.

In their project work, the value of their new technological tools is evident. Over the Internet, students have collaborated with a class in American Falls, Idaho, comparing weather conditions between the regions. They are also investigating the migration of wild geese and examining the merits of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. Each project will have its own Web site, linked to the school's home page and designed by the students.

When Holt's class attended a three-day Department of Tourism symposium on how to promote tourism in Alaska, they videotaped the seminars, added still pictures and music, and edited the tape into a three-hour film. They plan to send the educational video they have produced to Alaska's governor.

Now the work of three Bettles students will reach a wider audience. The three were among 20 finalists in an international technology competition, the Thinkquest Challenge, with their Web site: Natives of the Midnight Sun. Visitors to the site can learn about the flora and fauna of the region and listen to audio clips of elders talking about their lives and local traditions. Park managers from Gates of the Arctic National Park were so impressed that they hired two of the students to expand the Web site and put the information onto a CD-ROM.

If technology skills mean a richer educational experience for rural students, they may also help preserve the wilderness way of life, Holt believes. "If my students want to stay in the community, they can do so using the Internet for work."

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