Technology is tops at St. Mary’s, Ballston Spa

The K'nex rollercoaster crept up the track, finally reaching the top. The science teacher asked the fourth-graders at St. Mary's School in Ballston Spa what sort of energy was greatest at that moment.

The students barely had enough time to shout, "Potential!" before the coaster plummeted down the track.

Sue Reiter, the teacher, then distributed miniature, red Dell Latitude 2100 laptop computers to every pupil. The laptop's keyboard is designed for little fingers and the cover is rubberized for falls and spills.

After 20 minutes of log-on issues, every child played the same game on a Discovery education website. They had to manipulate "Boris, the strongest man in the world," to push or pull different-sized stones from different heights on different surfaces and decide what requires the most force.

The class quickly ran out of time.

Teaching aids
"It's just starting to gel," said Stephanie Ryall, teacher of the school's new technology.

In August, St. Mary's bought 28 laptops to share among its 238 pupils, 12 laptops for teachers to use with their projectors and three SMART Boards: interactive, internet-ready chalkboards. The annual fund, a fundraising event, and state aid funded the $43,000 purchase.

They now have six boards. Some are shared and some stay in the higher grade rooms.

One such room is Susanne Cumming's fifth-grade classroom. The teacher uses tools like a timer, dice, voices, shapes and colors. She can print notes for absent pupils, draw Venn diagrams and highlight important points, hide answers to questions, play Jeopardy and create math games.

It's more than a chalkboard, which cannot be found in her classroom. And she doesn't use the white board mounted on the wall.

The SMART Boards make pupils 10 times more interested, Mrs. Cumming said. They reach different types of learners.

How they help
Kindergartners recently used the boards to draw snowmen with Microsoft Paint software. This helps with fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, spatial relations and identifying colors.

A second-grade class used the laptops last week to learn typing. A third-grade class used them to learn about rainforests in Brazil from a PBS website.

Claire Costa read about tapirs, which she explained are mammals with a lot of fur. Michael Bidonde learned about jaguars, which is an American Indian word, he said.

Both students lauded the laptops for improving their typing skills. Michael said he writes emails faster now.

Mrs. Cumming's class recently finished research papers about saints with the laptops. The reports will be published in a book and donated to the school library.

Nearby St. Clement's School in Saratoga Springs uses a SMART Board and laptops in every classroom from pre-Kindergarten through fifth grade, according to its website.

Michele Lezon, principal of St. Mary's, said the technology is integrated in every classroom in her school now, as well.

"It's there, and for us not to use it would be not keeping up with what 21st-century technology looks like," Ms. Lezon said.

She is working with a donor to purchase additional mountable SMART Boards to fill every classroom on the second floor of the school. There will be enough portable ones left to stay in every classroom on the first floor.

01/14/10 [[In-content Ad]]