Advanced tech enhancing education in Pickerington

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When Brian Seymour, director of instructional technology for Pickerington Local Schools, found himself in a classroom listening to a Tussing Elementary School fourth-grade class talk about oceans, he was surprised to find that a majority of the students had never personally seen the subject of their lesson.

“I went into their classroom and asked them, ‘How many of you have ever been to the ocean?’ One kid out of 26 kids raised their hand,” Seymour says. “So, how can you have a discussion and be productive with this lack of experience?”

Because driving to the coast for a field trip was not a feasible solution, Seymour went for the next best thing: a set of virtual reality goggles.

Using one of the district’s four VR kits, the students spent a half hour snorkeling, scuba diving and descending into the ocean’s depths in a shark cage. After the students emerged from their digital dip into the sea, Seymour says, the difference in their engagement was incredible.

“The writing level and the discussion level went dramatically up because, now, those kids had that experience,” he says.

This use of technology is an example of Pickerington schools’ “tradigital” approach to learning, which, says Seymour, merges “the best practices of a traditional classroom with the best teaching practices of a digital classroom.”

“It is not necessarily about the technology, but it’s about the change in instruction that the technology allows us to do,” he says. “The kids are getting what they need to be successful, and that really should be the goal of education right now.”

One way the district is trying to meet this goal is through the One2One model of device distribution.

As the name implies, the technology plan aims to provide one device for every student enrolled in the district. Elementary school students will have access to carts of iPads in each of their teachers’ classrooms, while each fifth- through 12th-grader will receive a Chromebook that he or she can bring back and forth from school to home.

Seymour says full implementation of the plan, which means providing one-to-one device availability for the district’s approximately 10,500 students, will take four years – a shorter time period than the original estimate of six years.

“It will be about 90 percent of the school district come August of next year,” he says.

The initiative is set to cost approximately $1.35 million per year with the expectation that costs will eventually be consistently around $1 million per year, Seymour says. Funding comes from the district’s technology budget, which was previously used for technology leases with companies such as Apple.

Kyle Kesselring, a fifth-grade language arts teacher, has been working to incorporate students’ Chromebooks into his classroom at Diley Middle School.

“I think I’ve been to the copy machine four times all year,” Kesselring says. “I am probably 99 percent digital in my class right now.”

From using Google Docs to remotely work on group projects to engaging in class with exercises tailored to suit individual learning needs, Kesselring’s students use technology to further their educational experiences.

“They have all the information of the world at their fingertips whenever they need it,” Kesselring says. “We just need to teach them what to do with it, how to find it and where to go with it from there.”

Seymour says the One2One program also encourages students to learn life skills. Teachers can use monitoring software to ensure the students remain on task, but it is up to students to bring Chromebooks that are in working order to school each day.

“It is giving kids those kinds of responsibilities. You know, taking care of it, making sure it is in good shape, making sure that it is somewhat clean,” he says. “Making sure that it doesn’t get broken, doesn’t get damaged.”

Students are required to charge their Chromebooks at home and are not allowed to use chargers or power cords while at school.

 “Very rarely do you have a kid come without their Chromebook charged,” Kesselring says. “Would you expect that from a 10-year-old?”

Seymour says the district’s One2One plan incorporates technology as an additional resource in the classroom rather than a replacement.

“Our technology plan is written with educational goals. ... It is not written with, ‘Oh, you’re going to learn how to use Microsoft Word,’” he says. “Our goal is, ‘What skills do we need to teach kids?’ And that’s really where we went with it.”

Kesselring says he sees the use of technology as the logical next step in preparing students for life in an increasingly digital environment.

“This becomes a tool, but it does not replace them communicating with each other. … It is just the next step,” he says. “It is okay for kids to be one-to-one. This is what is coming, this is their world and we need to get them ready for it.”

Amanda Etchison is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.

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