Posted on Wed, Feb. 15, 2012

Schools are kicking off their saddle shoes and booting up.

Last week, the nation celebrated its first Digital Learning Day, with webcasts and public relations events. But more telling was the wide assortment of activities taking place without fanfare in workaday classrooms.

Many forward-leaning online schools are embracing teacher involvement, but ever more teachers are embracing the Web. A virtual convergence may be in the making.

"It's a revolution that continues to evolve," said Brian Bridges, Modesto-based director of the California Learning Resource Network. Experts predict a majority of students using some form of online learning by the end of the decade, he said.

"They don't think schools will go away, they just think they'll be reinvented," Bridges said.

The reinvention has begun.

On Friday, Downey High Principal Richard Baum was wrapping up student class selections for next year made through the school's online attendance program, said John Scott, Modesto City School's director of information and technology.

"It's a big step," Scott said. The district used to rely on paper forms to organize 15,000 high school students' seven class periods.

"Technology enables a teacher to extend the traditional classroom beyond its four walls and fenced fields. It puts resources in the hands of parents that they can use to help their kids and it delivers timely information about grades, attendance and school activities," Scott said.

This generation uses smart phones the way their parents used crayons and markers.

"Today's kids are tech savvy. They surf the Web before preschool, text message with one hand tied behind their back, travel in virtual worlds and translate any language with a phone app," Scott said.

That said, the district filters online access at all its student computers to avoid spam and keep youth on G-rated pages. Facebook, MySpace and other social media are also blocked, though the district will take up the issue soon, Scott said.

Across Modesto, he ticked off pairings of tech and teach:

• El Vista Elementary sixth-graders in Gregory Eilers' class put together a weekly news clip that they webcast.

• Enochs High math students have a Facebook page moderated by Phil Jaramillo and two other math teachers.

• Jim McCarthy at Gregori High tweets assignments.

• Davis High college counselors video blog. Assistant Principal Ryan Reynolds set up a Twitter feed for the school.

Robertson Road Principal Gregg Elliott said a classroom set of iPads makes the rounds of his south Modesto school daily. "They're fantastic for research," he said.

Robertson Road fifth-grade teacher Lisa Sotomayor said the tablets help keep students on task and tuned in to lessons. The school has a computer lab, but it has to be reserved far in advance and traipsing her 33-student class across campus takes time.

"For me, it does work better (to use the iPads)," she said while students worked on a science lesson about human circulatory and digestive systems. "I get this lesson done in 20 minutes," Sotomayor said, gesturing around the room at small heads excitedly bent over the tablets.

Quick check with 'clickers'

At Apricot Valley Elementary in Patterson, a technology grant from Stanislaus Partners in Education enabled the school to buy "clickers" for students. The hand-held devices have buttons kids push to answer multiple choice questions, an instant check for teachers of how many students understood the lesson.

"I reteach the concepts that are harder for them immediately," said teacher Diana Gregory, who uses clickers for early morning reviews and weekly tests.

Third-grade teacher Katherine Molina said her class watches the group score and tries to beat it. "I like the instant feedback as well. I'm able to see who needs additional help," Molina said.

Another option for classroom teachers, suggested in the online virtual town hall convened for Digital Learning Day on Wednesday, is to flip traditional lecture-homework lessons around, Salman Khan, founder of free online lessons provider Kahn Academy, said students can hear lectures at their own pace at home, then do the homework problems in class with the teacher.

"It's a huge advantage. This is where a lot of the learning happens," Khan said in the webcast, noting it's at home doing problems that students often get stuck and "just flail around."

Web-based textbooks and online projects were tried by Turlock Unified this year in a pilot project using mini-laptops for honors chemistry students at Turlock and Pitman high schools.

On Thursday, the teachers met with district administrators to assess the pilot project, Superintendent Sonny Da Marto said.

"They were very excited. It has made a big difference. They felt the kids were performing better," he said Friday. The district plans to expand the program next year, he said.

Nine English teachers got sets of mini-laptops at Savage and Ustach middle schools, both in the Sylvan district in north Modesto, said teacher Kari Caviness-Schack.

The classes use an online writing assessment program for student essays. It has an editing feature that helps kids with grammar and spelling. A tutoring feature helps with focus and organization.

"It's very much like having your own personal writing coach," Caviness-Schack said. More important, she added, teachers get instant feedback to focus on what kids need right now.

Students save their essays in an online file folder to work on at school or home. Group projects can be instantly shared among classmates. There's no chance the dog will eat this homework.

New level of engagement

Savage English teacher Sherry Chapman said, "There is no replacement for teacher-student contact, but the technology brings student engagement to a new and exciting level."

She uses a Jeopardy-style game to review material. Kids can post answers with their phones.

Students have formed a long-distance book club, meeting weekly with seventh- and eighth-graders in Alaska who are assigned the same novels. Small groups gather around a computer and talk via Skype, she said.

Former Sylvan educator Joe Wood now coaches teachers on using technology for the San Juan Unified School District. He tells them to work with the software and get used to the idea that the kids will adapt to using it faster than they will.

"You have to have some comfort level with the idea students will know more than you do about it," Wood said by phone Friday. "Teachers have this feeling that they have to know everything, and really, it's OK to say to your kids, 'I don't know. Why don't you work on that and let me know.' "

He also tells teachers: Be bold.

"If the computer's being a little weird, turn it off and restart it. You can't break the technology, short of spilling soda all over it," Wood said.

Savage Middle School English teacher Needra Voorhees summed up, "It's not all perfect, we still have lazy people, but they are so few and everybody else is so excited."

Literature opens students' eyes to the world, and computers give them places to look, Voorhees said.

"The computer can't totally replace the grammar, the actual reading of a book, the search for errors in one's own writing, but with the carrot of the computer dangling out there in front of them, they manage to approach these things more willingly. It is a tool, but one they need to learn to use for their brave new world," Voorhees said.

Bee education reporter Nan Austin can be reached at naustin@modbee.com or (209) 578-2339.