Teachers teaching teachers

Photo by Karen Donato
TEAMWORK — Linda Goodall, left, a third grade teacher at Houlton Elementary School, teamed up with her niece, Emily Lilley, a second grade teacher at Wellington School to present a workshop for RSU 29 employees on using Smartboards in the classroom.
By Karen Donato
Special to the Pioneer Times
    All educators in RSU 29 participated in a recent workshop learning from their peers. As we know, technology is not going away and it is always changing. In order for everyone to get onboard the RSU 29 administration planned a day-long event to introduce an updated district-wide website and several programs to enhance it.
    Employees participated in workshops that included: Google sites, video blogging, Oodles of Googles, SmartBoards, Photostory 3, music editing software, the use of document cameras, supplemental math linked to the current programs being taught in the district and data entry and attendance issues for secretaries.
    The new RSU 29 website will be available to the general public and especially parents soon. All schools will have their own home page that will provide up-to-date information about what is going on at a particular school. Individual classes may also have a separate home page so parents can view individual class activities.
    The new website will also allow parents to access information easily; even when they may have students enrolled in three different schools in the district. Before, parents had to remember more than one username and password to log into each school, that will be changed to one for all.
    It was clear before the day was over, the workshop was not sufficient to cover the vast amount of material being introduced, so another one may be held in the future.
    Some teachers are wearing many different hats these days; Kevin Mania, junior high band instructor is also the school’s web master with Kevin Kimball and Carmen McGuire keeping the hundreds of computers in operation. Other teachers or support staff leading workshops included, Emily Lilley, Linda Goodall, Jason Anderson, Michael Hannigan, Dee Butler, Craig Fournier, Beth Ludwig, Mike Hutchinson, Martha Berry, Gretchen Fitzpatrick, DeWayne Morse, Rachel Carmichael, Gerald Morey and Susie Crovo. Each individual school will have a person trained to update their school home page with assistance from Mania as needed.
    It has been a huge job to change or create a new e-mail address for every employee, as well as the hundreds of students from grade three to seniors in high school. All old e-mail addresses in the previous program are being transferred over to the new site, which has been a job in itself. Teachers, students and parents can keep in touch with questions even after school has ended for the day.
    Teaching has changed a lot in the last 40 years. It is no longer a job anyone can step into without some experience in technology. Classroom chalkboards have disappeared and in their place are Smartboards that provide just about everything, but the kitchen sink. Teachers are now able to import prepared lessons, worksheets, graphics and videos from the Internet to enhance their lessons using Smartboards. Students use specific markers or even their finger to complete tasks on the boards, a truly amazing technology that keeps the attention of the students. Many classes also utilize laptops or iPads on a daily basis.
    In the 1960s, teachers were going home at night to create worksheets using mimeograph paper, which was ultimately a special white paper attached to carbon paper. The next morning before school opened, teachers lined up to run off the worksheets hoping the duplicator fluid didn’t leak and ruin the document.
    The first machines were hand-cranked and then came the electric ones, but one still had to stand by the machine and count the number of worksheets needed as it spit out the pages. After this, came the photocopier. This was an exciting day that eliminated a lot of work. It was also appreciated when pages were missing and an extra copy was needed.
    Teachers can now create documents and worksheets at their desk in their classroom or at home and send them to a central printer in the school or to another school in the district to print, picking them up once they arrive at school in the morning.
    Technology is taking teachers and students to another level. With the advances in technology many time-consuming tasks have disappeared and teachers are now directing their energy to researching the latest materials available for their classes and students have information available instantly. No more reading material in encyclopedias.
    What do you suppose will be invented in the next 40 years? Could teachers be replaced?