Laptops, language programs bring change to schools

Lesson plans get spruce up with new technology

Thursday, Aug. 17, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Raphael Talisman⁄The Gazette Paint Branch Elementary School third-grade teacher, Lydia Laidlow of Beltsville,levels out a poster in her classroom as she prepares for the upcoming school year.

Beltsville Elementary School will have eight new educators, including four first-year teachers, after several longtime teachers retired this summer. The rookie teachers recently finished training at the University of Maryland College Park’s student-teacher program, said third-year Beltsville Principal Stephen Beegle.

Grooming educators new to heading a full classroom, Beegle said, will come with its difficulties and benefits.

‘‘It’ll add some challenges, but there will be fresh thinking and new creativity, which is always a good thing,” he said.

Like many local administrators, Beegle was excited about the shipment of new laptop computers for every teacher in the school. Incorporating video clips into everyday lesson plans could keep pupils’ attention on critical details.

‘‘This generation is into video games, so it should [be effective],” he said.

Mary Tschudy, principal at Calverton Elementary, said the school’s laptops would be used to analyze testing data, allowing administrators to tweak lesson plans seamlessly.

‘‘It will help us know where our students are ... and when we need to regroup and reorganize,” Tschudy said, adding that Calverton’s technology lab was renovated this summer, enabling pupils even more access to online learning tools. ‘‘[With the new laptops], we can really improve classroom instruction because more data can be processed.”

Calverton will also teach daily lessons in the new ‘‘Celebrate What’s Right in the World” program, where pupils would be encouraged to effect positive change and focus on individual talents and personal successes, Tschudy said.

The laptops could increase pupil participation, said Paint Branch Elementary teacher Edwin Saunders.

‘‘This is definitely a step toward a more interactive classroom,” he said.

At Adelphi’s Cool Spring Elementary School, Principal Frances Tolbert anticipates a renewed focus among pupils this year. She hopes the school’s new blue and white uniforms, which were approved of by more than 80 percent of Cool Spring parents, will de-emphasize the importance of wardrobe.

‘‘It signals that we are ready to learn,” said Tolbert, entering her third year as principal. ‘‘Children won’t look at one another and say, ‘He has a better outfit than I have,’ because they’ll be dressed [the same].”

As attendance has risen every year since she arrived in 2004, Tolbert said Cool Spring would continue rewarding classes for perfect attendance while using the new laptops to closely monitor who is missing class.

‘‘We are very focused on great attendance this year,” she said.

Some local schools, like Beltsville and Paint Branch Elementary Schools, have adjusted to an influx of non-English speaking students.

This year will mark the beginning of an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program at Paint Branch, where 34 pupils are enrolled to learn English as their second language, said Principal Saunders.

‘‘It’s a much-needed program,” Saunders said, referring to Paint Branch’s population of Vietnamese, Thai, Croatian and Latin pupils. ESOL coordinators will work with classroom teachers to incorporate more visuals in everyday lessons, Saunders said.

Adding another teacher to Beltsville’s ESOL program – which saw an enrollment increase from 140 pupils in 2005 to 170 this year – will better equip pupils and their parents for life outside the classroom, Beegle said.

‘‘We hope [the pupils] take their lessons home and help their parents acquire a better understanding of English,” he said.

E-mail Dennis Carter at dcarter@gazette.net.