Opening Windows to Learning

Classes don’t officially start for 45 minutes, but inside the computer lab at Oak Hills Elementary School, 16 children are clutching mouses bigger than their hands while working on their reading skills.

Down the hall, kindergarten teacher Heather Sloan is searching the Internet for a Halloween tale she can display on an overhead monitor linked to her classroom computer at story time. In Room 9, meanwhile, Michele Feigenbaum is preparing a work sheet covering online research methods for her second-graders, whose animal reports are almost due.

Welcome to a 21st century model for melding technology and elementary education. Because of its seamless, yet aggressive embrace of computers as a learning, teaching and parent-involvement tool, the Oak Park school recently became one of 12 nationwide--and the only one in Southern California--to be designated a Blue Ribbon school in technology by the U.S. Department of Education.

Award Is School’s Second in 9 Years

Principal Anthony Knight and two other school representatives flew to Washington this week to accept the award, which is scheduled to be presented today at a ceremony for the 264 elementary schools nationwide selected for Blue Ribbon honors in the 2000-2001 school year.

Forty-three California schools--including University Elementary in Thousand Oaks--are being commended.

Oak Hills Elementary earned extra recognition for its technology program in addition to a standard Blue Ribbon designation, the school’s second in nine years. The coveted national award, which only goes to schools that have first received the state’s Distinguished Schools Award, recognizes campuses that foster high academic achievement, involve parents, promote technology and the arts, and help struggling students.

The Department of Education reviewed 35 schools vying for recognition in technology to determine how well they use computers in both daily activities and reaching long-term goals.

At Oak Hills Elementary, located in an upper-income community on the eastern edge of Ventura County, technology is ubiquitous. An annual $15,000 gift from the school’s PTA and another $15,000 in annual district funds have been used to create a state-of-the-art computer lab with 34 Compaq PCs, high-speed Internet access, a color laser printer and digital cameras. Each classroom has a television with cable and satellite access, a laserdisc player and at least three new PCs, which are linked through a fiber-optic network.

The principal says it is how the school applies its technical resources that matters.

“There are people in the educational community who think technology needs to begin at the secondary level. But I don’t believe that, because every day I walk in the computer lab I see kids engaged in real work,” Knight said. “If the computers disappeared from the school, I think achievement would diminish.”

The school maintains a Web site that allows parents to communicate with teachers, who check their e-mail at least three times a day. Each class gets a minimum of 45 minutes a week in the computer lab, and for even the school’s youngest children, technology is an area in which they are graded.

Technology Introduced in Early Grades

First-graders, for instance, produce computer-generated landscapes, self-portraits and math diagrams using children’s painting software. After being introduced to the Internet, second- and third-graders use the Web to take global temperature readings for a science lesson or to research biographical reports. In fourth grade, students learn formal keyboard and formatting techniques, while fifth-graders are required to prepare a PowerPoint presentation on the American Revolution.

Laura Almada, a parent of two Oak Hills students who works in the computer lab as the school’s technology aide, said that while she limits her children’s computer time at home, she appreciates the exposure they receive at school.

“We teach kids this age how to use a dictionary and an encyclopedia. The Internet is just another tool. And what better place to teach kids how to use it than at school,” she said.

Oak Hills teachers, some of whom have found their own computer skills outpaced by those of their students, say technology has helped them engage youngsters in their lessons.

Brian Kull, who runs a before-school literacy academy the school began last year to help struggling readers, said he had to turn away students who wanted to sign up for the 7:45 a.m. tutorial because their skills were too proficient.

“They want to come to get that extra time on the computers,” he said.

Earlier this week, Heather Sloan’s kindergartners didn’t seem to notice when their teacher read a story whose pages came from a Web site instead of a book. And there were no whines of frustration when Feigenbaum directed her class to a kid-friendly search engine so they could find photographs and facts for their animal reports.

In fact, after scrolling through a screen full of hyenas, 8-year-old Oree Sokelman said the computer lab was the “second-best” thing about school, after recess.