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New technology has been added to district classrooms to promote more hands-on learning.
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Currently, all Chico junior highs and high schools have sets of Chromebook laptop computers, and elementary students are interacting with iPads.
“Hopefully, in January, every junior high kid is going to get a Chromebook (to bring) home with them,” said Ted Sullivan, director of elementary education for the Chico Unified School District.
With this type of technology at hand, kids, parents and teachers are able to interact with one another.
One of the programs the district is using is Google classroom. It allows students to go over class material, complete their homework and turn it in, all online. This program makes it easier for teachers to give their students instant feedback.
Through the Chromebooks, the district has a filtering system called GoGuardia, a program that allows teachers to look at student screens all at the same time and monitor what they are doing.
GoGuardian gives teachers the ability to freeze a student’s screen or write them instant messages and look at their search history to make sure students are staying on track.
“We just want to encourage kids to use the technology for what they’re supposed to be using it for,” said Assistant Superintendent Kevin Bultema.
Along with these programs and Chromebooks, all three of the junior high schools in Chico have smart classrooms, and there are plans to build more
These classrooms are specifically used for science labs, but they’re filled with up-to-date technology that allows more interaction among students and teachers. The classrooms have monitors around the walls of the room and a big touch screen and note pad at the front of the room for teachers.
The budgeting for this technology is distributed throughout all schools in the district and is not limited to one area or school, one of the benefits of being part of a unified district,
Bultema said.
“Our ongoing annual budget to maintain the program we have now is $1 million,” he said.
This money pays for licensing the software, upgrading equipment and repairing and lost or damaged devices.
The school district’s goal is to get each student their own Chromebook, but with that comes replacing the laptops frequently.
“We have been increasing our budget, through what we class the local control accountability plan, so that we can get up to $1 million (in different money) just to replace the Chromebooks,” Bultema said.
-- by Kelsi Sibert
Photo credit: CUSD Facilities and Construction Department Facebook page