Sutton 21st Century Classroom Initiative

Sutton Tech Talk
Sutton's 21st Century Classroom Initiative

Go into a corporate meeting room, and what kinds of technology do you see? LCD projectors, wireless mikes, speakers, wireless pointers, interactive whiteboards, streaming of audio and video to and from remote participants, video and audio conferencing, and so on. And at Sutton, we want the same for our teachers. So, we've begun an initiative to make give our Sutton teachers 21st century classrooms, essentially augmenting APS provided technology with additional low cost add-ons that give our teachers the capability to digitize and present student work, both in the classroom and ultimately in digital portfolios that parents and other students can view. The first thing we did at the end of last year was to purchase additional LCD projectors so that all classrooms have this essential 21st century classroom technology.

In addition, we've set up a single room as a prototype of our ful 21st century classroom architecture, and the initial results are very positive. The PTA-supplied scanner is already a big hit for students to digitize their work as well as integrate print media into their project work, and this also allows the teacher to provide visibility of student work to parents directly via email or web page. The wireless pointer gives students a way to make presentations to the classroom from their own desk. And the speakers, webcam, and wireless mike will allow both teachers and students to do webcasts of their presentations, as well as video conferencing. The latter means our classrooms can have video conferences with remote experts, such as those from NASA as part of their digital learning network (http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/) or even parents who can conference in during the day using free software such as Skpye (www.skype.com) and give talks on their career and/or areas areas of expertise. It's all designed to fast-forward our teachers and students into the 21st century and also to aid in embracing fully our IB program at Sutton.

These low-cost add-ons to APS-provided classroom technology (e.g., the teacher laptops, classroom Linux thin clients, and hopefully soon, interactive whiteboards!), are exactly the sort of augmentation that the PTA can provide to help Sutton become the top middle school in Atlanta, if not the state, and that is ultimately the goal of the Sutton eParents: to improve student performance through the use of new technology. If you have any ideas, questions, or feedback on these and other Sutton technology issues, or would like to volunteer to help out with Sutton technology, please contact me at dhhoward@comcast.net.

Daniel Howard, Chairman, Sutton eParents Committee