Historical Fall 2006 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Only a few days before the new school year would dawn, I visited St. Roch School and met with the principal, Gloria Openlander, and two teachers, Sarah Christian and Ed Martin.
I had heard that St. Roch had adopted some cutting edge technology to increase student learning. Smart Boards Every classroom at St. Roch and their computer lab have Smart Boards.
The Smart Board is a computerized wide screen blackboard.
It allows interaction and also allows a teacher to tap the resources of the web to provide enhanced learning tools.
It can serve as an updated, advanced research tool. Ed Martin teaches 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders.
Each of these grades studies a Shakespearean play.
The 5th graders do A Comedy of Errors, 6th graders study Twelfth Night, 7th graders tackle Romeo and Juliet, and 8th graders do A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Martin uses the Smart Board to show pictures of Shakespeare and where he lived.
He is able to save the notes he puts on the Board. Updated maps of countries are readily available.
Some interactive sites allow students to hear plays being read. Students have also listened to Garrison Keillor reading his poetry. For 5th and 6th grade science classes, the Smart Board enables students to produce weather charts.
There are interactive health items from the BBC. Calligraphy can also be taught using the Smart Board. Sarah Christian teaches 4th grade at St. Roch.
She feels that the Smart Board c a p t u r e s c h i l d r e n ‘ s a t t e n t i o n . Changing colors and use of clip art aid in that endeavor.
In social studies, the students were able to really look at Mt. St. Helens.
She is able to incorporate interactive and animated sites into her lessons. Today’s kids are used to being entertained so Christian believes this helps to hold their attention.
She starts each day with an agenda on the board. Lessons and links to various sites can be save and reutiliized.
The learning is coordinated with the material in the children’s textbooks. Many textbooks now come with CDRoms and they provide questions that can be used for assessment. CBC was the first high school to adopt the Board. Openllander and the upper grade teachers visited and were quite impressed. Msgr. Polizzi also checked it out and felt that what you could do with the boards was phenomenal.
The generosity of parents and parishioners and others made it possible for St. Roch to obtain the boards. Students from St. Roch come from 24 zip codes and represent racial, socioeconomic, ethnic and religious diversity.
There will be 218 students this year using the technologically enhanced classrooms and 32 in the preschool. Ms. Openlander feels that St. Roch graduates do well in high schools that require high academic performance.
She likes the fact that Smart Boards meet numerous learning styles.
It helps the child who needs to hear things.
She is proud of her veteran staff that has adapted to the new technology and finds it a great teaching tool. Martin has taught at St. Roch since 1973 and Christian has been there for nine years. Acquiring and adapting Smart Boards has been a complete team effort. Young St. Roch Openlander has helped a establish a young parent group as a way to welcome many of the young families moving into Skinker DeBaliviere.
It covers families with children from infancy to age 5. Rachel Ebling is the head of this group and can be reached at 721-8867 by anyone interested. Social activities, such as potlucks and an Advent coffee. are attended by Openlander and her staff.
This group allows people to feel connected to the St. Roch community.
Original photograph caption
Smart Board classroom demonstration at St. Roch School. Photographer not credited.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, Fall 2006.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2006_09.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
