Cookies, Milk, and PDAs
Third-grade teacher Stephanie Rick, who teaches at the Avoca West School in Glenview, Ill., says she’s no technology buff. Nevertheless, she likes to try out new things in class. As a result, according to the Wilmette Life, Rick was recently selected as one of 20 to Watch, a yearly National School Board Association honor bestowed on teachers and administrators who are “role models” and inspire their colleagues to embrace new teaching technologies.
On the day the Life reporter visited Rick’s class, her students were taking a practice social-studies quiz using hand-held devices that projected their answers on a Promethean screen to give Rick an idea how well they grasped the material. The award noted that Rick has launched a series of tech-based initiatives in her school and district. She started Blog Wild, a districtwide project that gets kids blogging about their school work. Rick’s class has an “e-pal” relationship with a class of students in England. And she lets her students create Podcasts about their favorite parts of books.
Rick tells the newspaper the secret of her success is enthusiasm: “Once I learn something, I’ll say, ‘Oh, I’ll do that with my class. It will be so much fun!’”
Filed under: K-12 Education News
Tags: Classroom Technology, Elementary Education, Technology Education, Technology for Learning
