Educational Technology Blog
Clare Public School’s technology department is headed up by Terry Bond, Technology Coordinator and Network Administrator. The department’s team is Trevor McNerney, Technology Assistant Level I, Dwayne Strachan, Software Integration Specialist and Alex Abbott, Technology Assistant Level II.
The technology team is responsible for not only making sure the approximate 1200 computers and laptops are working, but also that the staff and students are trained to use them properly to enhance the curriculum of the District. Clare Public Schools is fortunate to have an almost one-to-one access level for students to enhance their learning experience. Part of this “abundance” of technology is due to the aggressiveness the District seeks grants and consortiums to acquire needed hardware to make the transition to the digital world as smooth for our students as possible.
Past grants have been the “Freedom to Learn” pilot laptop for 6th grade, which brought us 140 Dell Laptops. Then the following year we received another “Freedom to Lean” grant which brought 683 laptops to the Middle School for a one-to-one program. The focus of the program has shifted from 24/7/365 to an as needed check out system. The students are also supplied “thumb” drives to facilitate their work going to and from school. Sixth and seventh grade recently purchased a new math curriculum which included “ebooks”. These books were added to the laptops and the thumb drives, so that students do not even need to take their text books home. All of these and other efforts are to better prepare students to compete in the 21st century and beyond.
In addition to the laptops at the middle school is the computer classroom that is used for 7th and 8th grade instruction. The classroom curriculum not only teaches the students lessons on using computers and related software, but is co-curricular with other classroom assignments. There are also, 10 computers in the library for students to use for Star Reading and Math testing and to take Accelerated Reader tests. The middle school has one “check-out” computer lab for classrooms that do not have laptop carts in them, but do occasional research assignments. All classrooms in this building are multi-media for presentations and instruction.
The Primary School has three computers in every classroom and a media center lab of 30 for classroom check out. The third and fourth grade classrooms were just updated to include video projectors, teacher workstations, sound systems, document cameras and VCR/DVD players to allow teachers the opportunity to better present to their students. The plan is to continue this movement one grade level at a time each year until all classrooms are equipped with modern presentation systems. In the mean time there is a “check-out” cart with a projector for staff to use in their classrooms or in large group settings for presentations and instruction.
The High School has been working throughout the years toupgrade the classrooms as presentation/interactive classrooms. There are three computer labs for teacher checkout and two laptop carts. There are also laptop carts in a couple other key areas and more to be added wi
th the new science curriculum.
In 2005, Clare Schools purchased a new student accountingprogram. With this program parents and students can see their grades, attendance and assignments via the web. This change also gives teachers the ability to add grades from any where they have Internet access. This is just another tool Clare Schools uses to keep parents more informed of theirchild’s progress.
In 2008, Clare Schools added an automated calling system. This system not only calls all parents, students and staff to inform them of school delays or closings, but also calls parents when a student in grades fifth through twelfth have an unexcused absence. School administrators can also use the system to remind parents of upcoming events, such asthe school carnival or parent-teacher conferences.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for the growth of Clare Public Schools. The technology team has little time to take a breath each day.
