Rochester schools go wireless - 8/30/04
ROCHESTER — When Nate Childers, an eighth-grade science teacher at Hart Middle School in Rochester Community Schools, tested handheld computers in his classroom last year, he found the experience “eye-opening.”
Childers’ pilot program was a strong catalyst toward the district’s decision this year to provide wireless technology, and laptop and handheld computers to all of its schools.
Under the program, each school will be equipped with hardware and software that enables laptop and handheld computers to access the Internet via radio waves, and thus without phone lines or cables.
Childers said his test program dispelled some of the stereotypes of a technology-infused classroom: that the classes are too impersonal and the students withdrawn.
“It was just the opposite,” he said. “It generates more questions because you hear from different kids that you never hear from.”
Childers used a software program that allowed him to send questions to his students.
“They would respond in very real time. As a teacher, you ask a question and you typically get four or five kids that raise their hands. With this, every kid in the classroom responds and you know where they are at.”
Childers said the ability to track students’ progress quickly is critical, especially in large classrooms such as his, with more than 30 students.
David Richards, director of educational technology and information systems, said the district isn’t at the point where children can take the technology home with them, but it will be readily accessible during the school day.
“We will provide them with connectivity throughout the school building, throughout the school,” he said.
Right now the district is in the process of providing connectivity in all elementary and middle schools. Based on the success in the lower grades and the resolution of security issues, the district will start the process in its three high schools.
Superintendent John Schultz said the wireless objective is in keeping with the district’s strategic plan of “anywhere, anytime, any pace learning.”
“We are seeing the technology moving more and more in the wireless arena as well as getting smaller,” he said. “We’re going to have computers in the hands of kids, and they are going to be able to do much more than they have ever been able to do in the past.”
Richards said the goal is to bring technology to the point of instruction.
“So you don’t have to go to a special lab — by getting rid of the wire it gives us flexibility to use technology where instruction is taking place, whether it’s a classroom, hallway, a gymnasium, anywhere in the building campus, we will provide that connectivity.”
That’s good news for Amanda Schade, a junior at Stoney Creek High School.
“You can use (the technology) a lot more often than just being in a computer lab,” she said. “They will be more available if you can use them in the classroom. I just think it’s a lot more convenient to use and there’s more tools to access so you learn a lot more.”
Her mother, Carla Schade, whose other daughter Stephanie was in Childers’ pilot program class, agrees.
“The business world is going wireless and I see when it moves into the educational field, these kids are prepared then when they start jobs. They know how that infrastructure works.”
“This is something that we are not backing away from,” Schultz said. “We have had our share of budget issues as anybody has in this state. This is an area that is too important to say we can’t do it anymore. We need to find a ways and a means that we can shift our direction more and more into this arena.”
