New tech means new teaching methods in Ashland
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ASHLAND —
Some classrooms in Ashland are looking a little different these days. That's because students are taking the classroom with them - to their homes, their friends' houses and the public library, to name a few.
New technology initiatives in place this year have students taking their work home with them and, teachers say, they're getting excited about it.
The district is looking to get a few new pieces of equipment that will further bring it into the 21st century.
At a School Committee meeting earlier this month, a handful of teachers demonstrated some of the new tools they have been using in the classroom.
The new classroom techniques, which encourage students to utilize wikis and different online programs like Moodle, are elements of two programs being tried out by teachers in the schools.
Middle school teachers Karen Bernier and Lauren Laing have been using Moodle, an online program teachers can use to create courses or augment in-class lessons with online activities. They said they have been seeing a great response from their students.
They are using the application as part of a program called Project ABLE (Achieving Blended Learning Environments). Project ABLE is being used by 46 teachers from 10 school districts that belong to the ACCEPT Education Collaborative.
The teachers said that Moodle, which is similar to Blackboard, is very flexible and they can design activities that will not only effectively teach subject content, but encourage participation.
Laing and Bernier said that using Moodle prepares students for the education they will receive down the road, which will likely look different than the traditional classroom setting students are accustomed to today.
"They are learning the skills they will need in order to take an online class," said Bernier.
Eighth-grade English teacher Dolores Frazer said she has also been assigning her students some non-traditional work. This semester, she set up a wiki site for her classes. Her students, she said, love the idea.
"This was the most fascinating thing I have seen," Frazer said, talking about the level of activity she has seen from the students on the site.
In pages on the wiki, she said, students have been discussing reading materials at length and, to her surprise, some of the most active posters were those students who usually kept mum in the classroom.
Frazer said the techniques she learned about administering the wiki and using it effectively as an educational tool came from her participation in a statewide program dubbed the Massachusetts New Literacies Institute.
"We are really becoming much more able to say we are providing a 21st century education," Superintendent Ann Dargon said at the meeting.
The district is also hoping that a grant from Ashland Educational Foundation Inc. will bring some new tools into the classroom.
Alan Graham, director of technology and operations, said the foundation runs an annual capital campaign to purchase school equipment that will serve most of the students.
This year, he said, the district is hoping it can purchase tools like document cameras, which would be used as replacements for overhead projectors. He said officials also hope to purchase interactive projectors, a mobile projector cart and a MimeoTeach, which attaches to the side of a whiteboard and, when combined with a computer and projector, turns it into an interactive system much like a Smartboard.
(Kendall Hatch can be reached at 508-626-4429 or khatch@cnc.com.)
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