Tech now a valued member of classes
Creative uses help students and teachers communicate, keep up
In 2011, Eric Graves said he was among the first to use Twitter for his students because he noticed he was answering the same questions over and over.
It was the beginning of his classroom turning digital, something happening to varying degrees in schools throughout the region.
At first, Graves, a mathematics teacher at Lake Central High School, would just post useful information, such as solutions to common problems students were having. Then, students realized they were able to tweet him after school hours to get help with homework assignments.
“I do promote my Twitter account in my classroom and encourage students to follow me for important updates,” Graves said in an email. “Because of this, I have had students create a Twitter account for the sole purpose of following me for classroom updates.”
He would create a hashtag with a chapter, a subject and his name — something like #Ch1StatsGraves, for example — to give students a tool to find relevant information for his courses. Lake Central School Corp. prohibits teachers from friending students on Facebook.
“I have always been a fan of the development of educational technology,” Graves said. “I started with Twitter because it was the best available option and at the time, I was still using chalk and overhead projectors.”
Graves now uses a Smart Projector, which projects his computer screen onto a white board, which can be manipulated with
touch and he can write with electronic ink that saves what he writes so he doesn’t have to repeat things the way he used to.
Graves said he also has his quizzes programmed with Accel Test software, which allows for immediate grading. That allows him to go over a quiz as soon as students finish instead of waiting for the next class period. His homework and tests are digital, too.
“My classes implement online homework and testing, which can include open-ended questions, with graphing, and it’s all instantly graded so students get instant feedback,” Graves said.
“They can email me their exact questions (since each student’s question is unique) and I can provide insight on that question and share the information so other students can learn from the example.”
Lake Central isn’t the only school that has changed to online quizzes and exams. Duneland School Corporation has approximately 5,464 iPads, according to Kevin Wilson, director of information and technology — one for each student from kindergarten to eighth grade. They’re used in the classroom almost daily.
Ninth through 11th grade students are given HP laptops. Those entering their junior and senior years are given the option to bring their own devices.
“We ask our teachers to, kind of, really blend some of those traditional lecture pieces in with multimedia, for our kids who are used to multimedia — our kids who maybe don’t learn as well by listening, they need to see it done, or they need to see a video, or actually manipulate it with their hands,” Wilson said.
“We have greater ability with the iPads than we do with just traditional teaching mechanisms.”
The transition to a more technological classroom has been happening for four or five years, he said.
“We kind of look at it as we’re just trying to give students a better avenue to learn, and then teach them how to be in charge of their learning, and kind of direct their own pieces,” Wilson said.
Technology can be the best option for a classroom, Wilson said, but that’s not always the case.
“Technology can help, but having those kids sitting in a group of four and communicating with each other via words and writing is important and, in some instances, is the most effective solution,” Wilson said.
“We’re not giving the kids an iPad so they can do everything on there.”
The School Town of Munster has used technology in the classroom for eight years.
The district gives every student in grades five to 12 a Dell laptop, the price of which is included in their textbook and school fees for the year. It’s used in the classroom and at home, and Systems Administrator Kurt Popovich said the switch to digital started with the adoption of a digital curriculum.
“In some subject areas, there isn’t even a traditional paper textbook anymore,” he said, noting that students now get textbooks online.
The idea behind giving laptops is to make sure students have the same experience on the same device, though online textbooks have an adaptive online curriculum to challenge students based on performance. “You can have a group of 30 students and they may be functioning at different levels in an algebraic equation, and this curriculum can scale so the material matches their skills set,” he said.
Younger kids, such as those in third and fourth grades, use Chromebooks. As the devices begin to age, Popovich said better options will be considered.
“We’re always looking at what’s the next alternative out there,” he said.