CROSSING THE ‘DIGITAL DIVIDE’

English teacher Margaret Erickson, 67, approaches education these days with the philosophy that engaging students with technology they already use keeps their interest alive and opens a door to creativity.

Here’s a recent assignment for Erickson’s English class at Pierson Vocational Technical School: Watch a video on YouTube and write a response, create a cartoon from a Web site to illustrate the concept of respect, and open a Google account to deposit homework.

It’s a far cry from 1996, when Erickson began teaching with books and a computer program called Plato for grammar and reading, she said.

“Teachers, on the whole, are behind the students in use of technology,” Erickson said. “We’re trying to catch up.”

That’s why the Nogales Unified School District No. 1 sent Erickson, PVHS Principal Joel Kramer, Spanish teacher Dora Valencia and Information Technology Director Alex Lopez to Washington, D.C. They attended the National Education Computing Conference from June 28 to July 1.

Some 18,000 teachers shared ideas about how to use technology in the classroom, Valencia told the NUSD governing board on Aug. 10.

Lopez spoke with enthusiasm about “free open resources,” educational Web sites that can teach students. To take full advantage of the Web, students should be learning keyboard skills by fifth grade, he said.

“We believe technology is one of the greatest assets we can give our upcoming generation,” Lopez said.

He showed a video titled “Engage Me” to relay what the NUSD team learned.

It illustrated a kind of “digital divide” between teachers and students. High school students text on their cell phones, play iPods and network with friends on the Internet. Most of their teachers don’t, it said.

At the end, a student holds up a sign that reads, “We are digital learners.”

Many students are “mind-numbingly bored” in the classroom, Kramer said in his PowerPoint presentation from the conference.

“We need to change our method of engaging students,” Kramer said. “No more chalk and talk (lectures with a blackboard).

“Schools are stuck in the 20th century,” read a panel from the presentation, attributed to Marc Prensky, author of “Digital Game-Based Learning.” “Students have rushed into the 21st. How can schools catch up and provide students with a relevant education?”

The U.S. Department of Commerce ranked 55 industries by their level of information technology (IT) intensiveness, read another panel. Education was ranked dead last, behind coal mining.

“Our young people are woefully under-prepared for the demands of today’s workplace,” read a statement by Ken Kay, president of Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

More than 70 percent of teachers and principals are interested in using learning teams (of teachers and students) to transform their schools into learning organizations. This statement came from the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.

Erickson seems to be leaning in this direction in her classroom.

Teachers need to respect what students know, she said. “Some students are our teachers. I ask them to help out. There’s a lot of peer tutoring.”

“Our goal at Pierson is to go to the next level,” Kramer said.

Five classes at Pierson use Promethean boards, he said. These are interactive white board with markers that students can call up on their computer screen. On its Web site, Promethean Planet says it enables educators from around the globe to share lessons and ideas.

Kramer would like to get at least 200 laptop computers for students to take home, he said.

Erickson said laptops are essential and not a luxury. “Students can access all information in textbooks on their laptops. Eventually we will stop using textbooks.

“This provides for more creativity because there is an element of graphic arts” with students formatting their assignment using their own ideas.

“This way, they are not only doers, they are creators and thinkers,” she said. “We don’t want them to just accept information any longer and they can do this by working in a way that is technology based.”

(Manuel C. Coppola contributed to this story.)