"Creating Tech Wizards" by: Beth Breiner

A new and exciting program that has students teaching teachers about new technology of the future, has emerged from eastern Pennsylvania called The Technology Wizards. These students are members of the Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit that supports 14 school districts and two career technical schools in Lehigh and Carbon counties. This program was created by Assistant Executive Director Cathy Groller. The creation of this program was sparked by having technology-savvy students who would provide on site sources of tech support to teachers. The first year of the program started with enlisting sixth and seventh graders to ensure the stability and growth. In the second year sixth, seventh, and eighth graders could participate in the program. By the third year of this program the grade levels would extend to sixth through ninth graders. The development of a Tech Wizards Junior program is also underway for elementary school students interested in computers and technology. The Technology Wizards program was fully operational by October 2007. Principals in each school facility were asked to nominate one to two faculty members as teacher advisors for this program. Faculty members were then asked to nominate students as well. The criteria for students to enter the program was to demonstrate a proclivity for technology and agree to participate in, and at times lead professional development training sessions for teachers. By the first year 26 sixth and seventh graders participated in this program. Students and advisers met once a month from November through May at the Intermediate Unit to train. Six of the school districts participated in the program using PCs, where the other two districts used Mac-based systems. It was very important that the program content would be delivered in a way that would model the very best practices for the educational theories. An example of this was that students in both the PC and Mac sessions had to create a one-minute persuasive commercial that would convince teachers of the benefits of using multimedia in the classroom. The students went to work and the teacher advisors were amazed in how well the students were learning and picking up the new technologies. By the end of the session students identified three new things that they learned and how they had learned them, and two things they still wanted to learn about. Students then took what they had learned back to their home classroom and the technology knowledge raised the roof in eastern Pennsylvania. This program is a huge success and others are developing all over the country.

I would use this technique in my classroom all of the time. This is such a great and interesting way to get students involved in technology. Having students teach other students and teachers is a great way for everyone to learn. Teachers learn new and exciting things from their students all of the time, why can it not be about technology. I believe that if this program were to be established in the San Diego school districts everyone would benefit from the programs educational ideas. I know that if I was a sixth or seventh grader I would definitely want to take this class and learn new things about the computer and how to use different applications on the computer. Especially how computers are in our everyday lives, knowing how to operate this technology will further launch education in the years to come. All in all The Technology Wizards program may start a trend that will overcome the rest of the countries school districts and facilitate a new way of teaching and learning for students.

Online chatting for schools

"Chatting It Up Online" by Pamela Livingston

In this article Mrs. Livingston, a third grade teacher at an all boys school at Chestnut Hill Academy, organized a live video chat with an author that her class was reading at the time. The author was Mary Pope Osborne who wrote the Magic Treehouse series. The chat was through Random House Children's Media Group and Talk City, Inc. Mrs. Livingston and other third and second grade teachers jumped at this opportunity and signed up for The classes submitted questions that were interesting and relevant to the author. The teachers overlooked the questions and submitted them to the company. Heavy planning before the chat happened to make sure the school and technical equipment worked together so nothing would interrupt the chat while it was going on. As aspects everything went great and the Internet chat was a huge success for the teachers and students. Teachers found that the chat was much more satisfying to the students than traditional writing a letter to the author and then waiting four months for a response. This way the students can see the person in real time and have their questions answered in a much more timely manner. With this experiment so successful this school and others will start finding new ways for their students to come interested in reading. this interesting way to enhance students' reading.

In my classroom students will have the opportunity as these boys did to have internet chats with authors and famous peolpe who are willing to talk to studnets. Having learned the material first studnets can understand the information more clearly when going into a internet chat. Doing the lesson plan before hand will give my students the upper hand and gain more knowledge than studnets who do not. Having this type of technology in the classroom students can find ways they might learn better than with traditional teaching techniques. Helping others to gain this knowledge is also a great trait to have in a students' character. Also, parents of my students will be very happy and pleased that their son or daughter is having such a unique and interesting experience at school. Some parents might want to find other ways through technology to enhance their child's performance which makes them a better student and ultimately a better person.

The NESTS for this artcle is NETS.S: 4; NESTS.T: II, III.