Ten years ago, Darlington kindergarteners were excited to be called on to write the letter of the day on the chalkboard. Today, they are enthusiastically writing words and symbols using SMART Board technology, which has the ability to save or print the child’s handwriting or convert it to a keyboarding font.
Simple interactive computer games become a whole class exercise when displayed on the SMART Board. Science and social studies filmstrips popular just a few years back have yielded their place to United Streaming’s wide selection of videos for all grade levels and curriculum areas. Downloaded from the Internet, these videos can be viewed through the computer via overhead projector, an improvement in technology that adds quality to the lesson and saves time for the teacher.
In fact, every teacher on the Lower School campus uses technology in the classroom to streamline learning and add excitement to the academic day, but in recent years Darlington has made an effort to go one step further. With the support of computer instructor Patricia Ayer and technology specialist Kandi Riddle, primary and elementary teachers are now integrating technology into their curriculum on a daily basis.
Fifth grade may be Darlington’s most expansive integrator of technology, according to Ayer. Bebe Cline routinely adds a technology component her students study different books in Language Arts. For instance, after reading “Walk Two Moons” by Sharon Creech, they will use digital images, voice-over narration, music files, and Photo Story 3 to make a travelogue that will reveal their understanding of the novel. While studying Richard Peck’s “Long Way from Chicago,” a novel set in a small town in the 1930’s Depression Era, Social Studies and Language Arts join forces. Technology drives an Internet search for facts, photos and newspapers detailing that period of our country’s history. After much discussion and research, fifth-graders divide into groups to create their rendition of a newspaper that may have been published by the characters in the book. Then, after reading “The Great Gilly Hopkins” by Katherine Paterson, students come up with new lyrics to period music from the book’s setting. Using recording devices in the Lower School’s Music Lab, they are able to produce their own CD and/or music video.
SMART Board technology has opened up a number of opportunities for students in fourth grade. By providing high quality, immediate access to videos on an endless array of topics, it becomes fast and easy to provide students with real life examples of what is being covered in the classroom. In both Science and Geography, fourth-graders enjoy interactive activities that support what they are learning in their textbooks.
“Our unit on the regions of the United States culminates in the students’ creation of individual PowerPoint presentations which detail the facts and wonders of a specific area or landmark,” said Cindy Stinson, fourth-grade teacher. “A world map can be projected onto the SMART Board, and students can come up and use special markers to draw in latitude and longitude lines. Technology can be quite an attention grabber and keeper when it is put to the right use.”
The unit on animals and their habitats is popular with third-graders, but in this lesson, learning does not just take place inside the classroom. Students visit the Library, where they choose an animal to research and learn to write note cards and a bibliography. Next stop is the Computer Lab, where Ayer helps them download photographs and build a PowerPoint containing their research material. At home, the children make a diorama of their animal in its habitat. All elements of the project are combined for a final presentation to the second grade, called the “technology zoo.”
Third-graders also use PowerPoint presentations in a Social Studies unit called “Spotlight,” which is designed to help students share information about themselves with their peers in a friendly, yet entertaining format. They are asked to reveal their likes and dislikes, goals, family life, and talents, feeling the slides with images and words. Each child gets to be the Spotlight for one week. After a student gives his or her Spotlight presentation on Friday, students write a summary detailing what they learned about their classmate.
Microphones in the Computer Lab allow second-graders to make digital recordings of themselves retelling the traditional story “The Gingerbread Man” for their final project in a Language Arts unit on storytelling. This digital audio is then downloaded to a Photo Story 3 or Movie Maker project, along with photographs of the students that have been transposed onto scenery they have drawn themselves. Each finished project is burned to a CD for the families to keep. Most recently, second-graders used an interactive CD called “Let’s Discover Georgia!” in Social Studies.
“The CD offers four different activities that engage students using facts about our state. The students especially loved the timeline of major events in Georgia history,” said Tami Wilcox, second-grade teacher. “We have also been studying mammals in Science, and recently used the National Geographic Web site as a tool to learn facts about the cheetah. We watched an amazing video that illustrated how fast the cheetah can run. We knew it was the fastest mammal on land, but seeing it in action really brought it to life.”
At the Lower School, students in grades 2-5 also participate in the Darlington Writes Program, which was developed to help teach the fundamentals of writing. Technology is a key aspect of this program as well.
“I use a set of three photographic writing prompts to set up stations in the Computer Lab,” Ayer explained. “Students work in groups of three. They sit at one station and write the beginning of the story for given image. When time is called, they move to the next station and write the middle of the story for the next image. At the next call of time, students shift again and write the end of the third story. We fondly call this exercise Round Robin writing and it has been very inspiring for reluctant writers.”
Even students as young as pre-K, kindergarten and first grade are technology users, as teachers integrate SMART Boards into daily lesson plans.
“I love using my SMART Board in class. The children are so drawn to it and love interacting with our lessons,” said Beth Smith (’87), pre-K teacher. “This week, we did a lesson on our addresses. Each child had their picture on a house and a mailbox with their address on it. They had to find their mailbox and drag their house to it. It was great reinforcement for this lesson.”
“Technology should never replace a component of our curriculum; it should only be used to support or enhance it,” said Ayer. “I am so excited about the learning that takes place at the Lower School and the place that technology holds as a conveyer of creative expression for our teachers and students.”
