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Teach me technology

Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published November 10, 2006

Photo by Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Third-grader Tripp Rinke shows off a handheld computer as his classmates at St. Paul on the Lake School in Grosse Pointe Farms use theirs to complete a writing assignment.

Then came a silver bullet.

Actually, it was a small, silver-screened gizmo. St. Paul on the Lake School in Grosse Pointe Farms issued handheld computers — also commonly known as PDAs — to its students.

"For the first time in my life," Manz-Dulac says, "I did not have to get after him about doing his homework. He was incredibly motivated.… He'd do his reports and little presentations on the handheld, and then print it all out."

Manz-Dulac's story is a single thread in a giant high-tech tapestry that has intertwined computing and elementary education in ways unheard of a generation ago. Today's Catholic grade schools are getting resourceful in catering to a student body of tech-hungry pre-teenagers.

From handheld computers, to digital camera classes, to mobile laptop computer labs, to wireless Internet, and even up-to-the-hour online report cards that help parents stay abreast of their child's education — schools across the Archdiocese of Detroit have it all.

And in a culture where fourth-graders commonly know more about computers than their parents, they need it.

"We have to do what we can to make kids comfortable with (technology)," says Susan Leslie, associate superintendent/curriculum for the archdiocese office for Catholic schools. "School's going to be different in the future."

Photo by Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Austin Gessner works the digital camera and BrandonMasserant mans the teleprompter as their fifth-gradeclassmate Jenna Bell reads a script.

Their world
At St. Charles School in Newport, to know the curriculum, you've got to know which buttons to press. Grades four and up at the school work each year in their own digital video studio, writing scripts on computers, appearing on camera in front of a green screen, and operating the equipment themselves.

"With all these buttons," says St. Charles fifth-grader Brandon Masserant about the digital video camera, "it's complicated for, like, getting it set up and stuff."

But they do it.

In fact, says Judy Paxton, editor of a journal published by the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, they love doing it.

"It definitely increases productivity for the kids," says Paxton, who previously had managed educational technology at seven Christian schools in the Grand Rapids area. "Students are excited when they can use technology in learning."

By the numbers
Perhaps it's because they use it anyway.

According to Pew Internet Research, about 60 percent of sixth graders use the Internet – and the number jumps to 82 percent in the seventh grade.

By the time students are 13 years old, the Internet is old hat. Ninety-nine percent of teenagers who use the Internet at school also use the Internet outside of school, Pew found.

Also, most teenagers in the United States have at least one electronic device for everyday use — a cell phone, or PDA, or their own laptop.

When it comes to education, says Paxton, technology can make learning more interesting to students, helping them to better organize their work and stay on task. As students move from elementary grades to middle grades, she adds, it can even help increase their attention span.

Another benefit to a high-tech classroom is that testing done on computers gives instant and precise feedback. A computer program that mimics a video game to teach students math, for example, can produce statistics telling a teacher where the student needs to improve — without the intermediate step of the teacher having to lug home a stack of papers to grade.

Indeed a teacher's grasp of technology is as important in using it, Paxton says, as is the technology itself.

"The success of it depends on the teachers who are using it in the classroom," Paxton says. "They knew their students, and they know what they're trying to learn — so the teachers have to analyze the best way to use it."

Making it happen
Parents browsing the oft four-digit prices of the latest desktop computers this Christmas shopping season might wonder, first, how Catholic schools are able to afford the latest technology.

There are several answers.

Though Santa Claus isn't one of those answers, there are gift-givers involved.

Donors — some individuals, some corporations — who see value in keeping students on the cutting edge have helped St. Charles, St. Paul on the Lake, and several other schools afford the latest technology.

More fundamentally, though, funding technology is part of a school's infrastructure.

Ask Charlene Jenkins, principal of St. Charles, and she'll tell you that – if it helps their children intellectually – parents are willing to pay for it.

"My parents came to me with the proposition that we have a technology fee," says Jenkins, "Ours is $50 per family, and it's helped quite a bit."

And what about the schools in the inner city, where Catholic communities strive to keep tuition affordable?

"There really are some federal dollars out there," says Kathleen McBride, principal of Most Holy Trinity Elementary. "We definitely value technology and it's a priority. Like lots of schools it's the dollars that are needed."

Most Holy Trinity and others take advantage of federally-funded teachers and programs, often shared with nearby public schools. And as federal standards dictate that students have to be technologically literate by the eighth grade, grant money is sometimes available to help private schools afford the technology needed to make it happen.

High (tech) expectations
Regardless of how they afford it, though, grade schools have to have their students ready for the high-tech world by the ninth grade.

High-tech Catholic grade schools This is just a sampling of how schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit are using technology in the classroom: • Students at Marist Academy-Lower Division in Pontiac use laptop computers in their classroom. Parents can use an Internet grade book to regularly check their student's progress and contact teachers. • Shrine Catholic Grade School in Royal Oak uses SMART Boards – a digital alternative to chalk boards that allow teachers to put graphics, Web pages and charts in front of students, and tailor it to their curriculum. • Most Holy Trinity School in Detroit's historic Corktown district has students participating in remote learning sessions, where they interact with an off-site teacher that they view via an LCD projector. • A math teacher at St. Joseph School in Lake Orion keeps a blog — a form of online journaling — with her students. She gives lessons; students give feedback. The school also taps into a specialized Web site that gives it access to 5,000 educational videos on various topics.

"In terms of what we expect kids to know (by high school), it's quite a bit," says Dino Vandenheede, academic technology director for Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield Hills. The academy's all-girl high school is one of a couple in the Archdiocese of Detroit that has students carrying their own laptops from class to class.

In general, students have to know by high school how to use basic word processing programs and how to hand in reports on compact disc. Most know presentation programs, such as Microsoft PowerPoint.

And typically students by grade nine will have had experience creating graphs, charts and tables in spreadsheet programs.

"By the eighth grade, we hope students will be proficient in productivity and multimedia," Vandenheede says. "Basically, they're going to use technology to support themselves personally, and for group collaboration… to design, develop, publish and present products using technology."

Is it enough to make parents shy away from helping their grade-schoolers with homework?

It can be, Vandenheede says.

"Most of the kids and parents readily admit that a student knows more than a parent about computers," he says. "We have kids that go home and teach the parents how to do a PowerPoint presentation." Of course, knowing things that parents can't might be compelling for a child. It's also evident that the desire to use technology multiplies when siblings are involved.

Manz-Dulac now watches her second-grader at St. Paul on the Lake look over the shoulder of her fourth-grader, pining for the stylus and the little electronic screen of the handheld computer.

"I look forward to him being able to get his hands on it, as well," she said. "He's eager to be the next in line."