Students, teachers attend high-tech summer camps

By Gracie Bonds Staples

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

At 9 a.m. on a recent day a group of middle school students were hunkered down at a bank of computers, telling stories.

The kids, mostly the children of Fulton County teachers, had gathered in a third-floor classroom at Crossroads Second Chance School to write stories for fellow students about everything from dividing fractions to editing video and producing how-to movies.

In an adjacent building those Fulton teachers were learning more ways to bring classroom instruction and student learning into the digital age.

It was the fifth of seven days for the kids in Tell Me a Story camp and the teachers in Camp TEACH.

"It's pretty awesome," said Averie Lico, 13. "I've learned all sorts of stuff, all these different ways to do projects."

Averie, a rising seventh-grader at Northwestern Middle School, was among 12 students attending the Tell Me a Story camp, one of two the Fulton school district held recently for students in third to eighth grade.

The camps are  the brainchild of Kathy Politis, director of instructional technology, who proposed holding them after receiving a $167,000 grant in February from the U.S. Department of Education.

The grant funded both the camps and an annual subscription to netTrekker, a Web-based collection of more than 300,000 instructional resources and an electronic Weekly Reader available from home and school to students and teachers.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to help teachers know more about technology and how they can use those tools to improve teaching and learning,” Politis said.

In addition to the camps for teachers and students, a third camp to provide digital content support for the district's technical staff will be held.

“The goal is to improve teachers' knowledge and skills for using digital technology and to create lesson plans that use technology to teach complex problem solving," as well as help teachers engage students more creatively, Politis said.

In addition, she said, the camps seemed the perfect way to offer professional development to teachers who have been faced with furlough days and other budget constraints.

Both the teacher and student camps were free, with preference given to the children of participating teachers.

In all, 23 teachers and 48 students attended the camps, which ended July 15.

Helaine Becker, a fifth-grade teacher at Creek View Elementary in Alpharetta, described  Camp TEACH as "a great collaboration of minds."

“Really, what I’m taking from this is ideas to get kids actively engaged in the classroom using technology to really enhance and deepen understanding rather than technology for technology's sake,” Becker said.

Studies, including one by the U.S. Department of Education, show that technology-rich schools generate impressive results for students, regardless of age, race and parental income. Those results include higher test scores, richer classroom content and improved student achievement, attitude and enthusiasm.

Although the 8:30 a.m. starting time took some getting used to, students' enthusiasm remained high for the duration of the camp.

"All of this will help us with school," said Chrissy Shackleford, Politis' 12-year-old granddaughter.

Chrissy said she had been introduced to a host of computer applications she wasn't aware of, including voki.com, Blabberize and photo editing.

"I didn't know about most of the sites so it's cool," she said.

Flannery Murphy, 11, who recently placed first in a digital photography competition, said the camp introduced her to goanimate.com, which she used to tell the story of Harriet Tubman, and mixbook.com, the site she used to make a scrapbook on puppies.

Becker, a 14-year veteran of the Fulton school district, said she was thrilled when she received an e-mail blast about the camp and hopes it becomes an annual event.

"I've been exposed to a lot more Web sites and free software," she said. "For example, last week we learned about a site called wallwisher.com, an interactive message board."

There, Becker said, students can generate and post questions as they move through a curriculum.

"I can then use the questions to focus instruction and generate open-ended project contracts," she said.

Politis said the content for the camp was made available online to participants in both the student and teacher camps.