Success Stories from 2004

Each year the Techmobile Instructor identifies students and sites that have taken full advantage of the mobile computer lab and highlights the gains in these short summaries.

Telling Stories

Thanks to Bruce Day, Executive Director of Rural Employment Opportunities, and his successful grant application to the Beaumont Foundation, the Techmobile had a brand new wireless computer lab and six new digital cameras. The new equipment opened doors for several lessons. The first were lessons involving photography that I hadn't taught since we worked with Polaroid cameras. The digital cameras offered the instantaneous pictures, which are useful when teaching photography skills; and poor pictures can be erased without wasting expensive film. I was also able to teach even first and second graders how to hook up the digital camera and transfer images to the computer.

One of the lessons we did was a PowerPoint story book. I took children's stories and recreated their pages on PowerPoint slides using clip art and scans. The students read or listen to the story and make predictions about what will happen next, show their understanding by manipulating text and graphics and retell the story to their peers. The students loved the story and loved even more that they could interact with it to show their interpretation of events. All the while they were learning computer skills like graphics manipulation, formatting, and file management, but that was secondary to the thrill of the story. The last page of "The Little Polar Bear" by Hans DeBeer, I intentionally left blank and told the students that they would use the digital cameras to fill in the missing picture. While we were outside taking pictures, the student saw a wild rabbi that fit in perfectly with the story. We all crept around trying to be as silent as possible so as not to disturb it and hopefully catch a great shot. They learned how to use the zoom and where to stand so that the light was just right. Then they were able to insert the picture into their story, print it out and take it home to share with parents and siblings. On parent night, the pink bus was packed with kids and parents as students who could barely use a mouse at the beginning of the week were opening PowerPoints and clicking through slides, excited to share what they had accomplished during summer school. One parent made this comment about her sever-year-old son, "He's going to have to show me how to use the computer now!"

I also did a photo journal lesson during which the students learned about contrast and perspective. The digital cameras proved to be a real motivating tool and helped kids become engaged in the learning process and work harder to accomplish the task set before them. David, a second grader in Polson made this particularly evident. He spoke very little English and spent most of his time with his head down or staring into space. Even speaking to him in Spanish didn't help much. However, when it came time to use the cameras, he blossomed. As soon as he took a picture with the opposites in it for the contrast portion, he would run over and show me what he had taken. Later, back in the classroom, we were debriefing and talking about the pictures we had taken. David spoke in Spanish and told about everything that he had done. It was the first time that I had heard him speak up in class. He knew that he had accomplished something, and that gave him the confidence to talk about it.

I worked with several teachers on skills that they indicated they would like to learn. In Hardin, I worked with one teacher on making digital pictures smaller and downloading them from the camera to the computer. In Sidney the teachers were interested in learning more about how to use the online learning program K-2 from the Learning Mile Stones component of Skills Tutor. In Huntley, we worked on creating PowerPoint stories to help children learn literacy skills. Now that we have a baseline to see where the staff's skills are, it will be easier to target the particular needs of the staff.

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