TEACHERS' OWN CLASSES, RESEARCH PUSHING MOBILE DEVICES IN CLASSROOMS
Editor's Note: This story is part of an ongoing series about technology in the classroom, how that affects education and how schools are coping with, or without, modern technological luxuries.
Dale Denwalt
Daily Elk Citian
The genesis of modern, constant technology in the classroom is already a few years old, but experts in the field believe the revolution will continue.
Every teacher candidate at Northeastern State University, in Tahlequah, Okla., is required to take a class called Technology in Education. It'd be described as a focus on "integrating technology into the curriculum through the teaching and learning process."
Professor Renee Cambiano said the university as a whole has only recently begun to think it's OK for every student to use smart phones, iPad devices and laptops in the classroom.
"That was a huge initiative because we need to move forward," she said. "So we're teaching teachers; we model the use of technology in the classroom. In fact, what we say is 'this is how you use it in the classroom.'"
Area schools have embraced the technology. Every classroom at Merritt Public Schools has an iPad, and students there could be issued their own by the end of the year. Others schools, like Canute, Sentinel and Clinton either have or will expand the use of that technology. Elk City, however, cites funding issues as the reason they aren't as advanced as the smaller schools.
For the complete article, pick up the Thursday, September 20, edition of the Daily Elk Citian.