Net widens world for high schoolers

CYNTHIA HOWELL ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

 

Rachel Yingling, a senior at Winslow High School, dropped in on Amsterdam for a few minutes Friday morning, while Aaron Collins of McNeil checked out Montreal and Daniel Clark of Waldo toured ground zero in New York City. All the travel was the virtual sort, done from a computer laboratory in west Little Rock. Thirteen students from some of the state's most academically troubled and rural school systems parachuted into international cities taking in the live scenery through the viewfinders of Web cameras. "There's the Golden Gate Bridge!" exclaimed travel guide and Stanford University Professor David Fetterman. Fascinated students peered through the early morning California fog to make out the landmark. Seconds later they gazed at a Swedish skyline.

 

Fetterman, a professor in Stanford's School of Education who specializes in the fields of educational evaluation, ethnography and policy analysis, was more a magician than lecturer as he guided students through virtual classrooms. He also demonstrated video-conferencing and tutored the design of personal Web sites featuring photographs, maps and animation pulled from the Internet and free software. Yingling's Web site featured a peaceful scene from the United Kingdom and photographs of the members of her favorite band, Weezer. She added an animated American flag from a free animation Web site. Collins' site showed scenes from his old hometown of New Orleans. And Winslow High student Aaron Wood designed his Web site around his interests of off-road motorcycling and basketball, particularly superstar Michael Jordan. Clark, a sophomore at Waldo High School, said he's always liked working with computers. "This has taken me a big step further," he said about Fetterman's lessons. Clark said he intends to use his newly acquired knowledge to help his school system of 450 students build a districtwide Web site that will be linked to an already existing high school site. "I'm kind of excited," Clark said about the new site. "It's going to let the whole world know about Waldo, Ark., and what we do there."

The two-day training session at the Arkansas Department of Education's Technology Center is one in a series of sessions that the Education Department is offering this year primarily to educators, but also to student leaders, in districts classified as academically distressed because of low student scores on standardized achievement tests. Fetterman was the featured speaker this week. Next week, the superintendent of the Hartford, Conn., school district, who is also a guest lecturer at Harvard University, will be in Arkansas to talk about turning around low-performing schools. "I want them to see all the possibilities for improvement," Charity Smith, the Education Department's assistant director for accountability, said about the distressed districts. "I want them to have access to everything that there is," Smith continued. "They deserve the best in the country. Just because of where the districts are located and just because they are struggling right now doesn't mean their students can't get access to a world-class education. That's what we want for these children."

 

Waldo High School Principal Edgar Montgomery said his school is already taking advantage of technology to provide Spanish I and II instruction to students. The language lessons are taught via the Internet from the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences in Hot Springs. Still, Montgomery marveled Friday at the promise of technology demonstrated by Fetterman. "It's amazing. It's just amazing what we are going to be doing in the future," Montgomery said. "It doesn't matter where you are, you have access to the world. There is no excuse for a poor child from Waldo, Ark. It's out there for him if he's willing."

 

This article was published on Saturday, October 20, 2001 Copyright 2001, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc. All rights reserved. This document may not be reprinted without the express written permission of Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.