Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Education notebook: Technology resource teacher called 'a gift'
Education notebook
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Meg Swecker, one of Roanoke County Public Schools' instructional technology resource teachers, holds her index finger to her lips.
"Quiet on the set," she tells a group of first-graders.
The set is Susan Kern's classroom at Back Creek Elementary School. A project titled "How Tall is a First Grader" is under way. The students wrote sentences about what they are taller and shorter than and illustrated the comparisons. The class, with Swecker's guidance, created a VoiceThread to share their sentences online.
That's the kind of work that earned Swecker this year's Educational Technology Leadership Award from the Virginia Department of Education. The award is given to individuals who use instructional media and technology to improve teaching and learning.
"Meg is a gift," Kern said. "Classroom teachers don't have time to research this stuff."
For the VoiceThread project, Swecker first took digital photographs of the students' papers and uploaded the images to her laptop computer. One by one, the students came to the front of the classroom to read their sentences into a tiny microphone.
"I am taller than a cat. I am shorter than a city," boomed Fletcher Burden.
"I am taller than a dog. I am shorter than a man," soft-spoken David Richardson read.
When Swecker played back David's recording, a huge grin lit up the boy's face. There is a huge difference in the classroom when the students are engaged in learning, she said. She uses technology to grab their attention and to hold it.
Swecker posted the completed VoiceThread on the Internet to share with children around the world who are participating in "How Tall is a First Grader" on wikispaces.com.
Her time is divvied among Back Creek and Green Valley elementary schools, Cave Spring Middle School and the school system's administrative office.
Swecker and her husband traveled to Mexico this week to enjoy another of her passions: scuba diving. But the trip is not all play; she is working, too. The couple teach scuba diving, but Swecker will be checking in with eighth-grade students at Cave Spring. She will use Skype, a Web-based tool that uses computers to make calls and hold videoconferences.
