With an infusion of $418,000 in federal grants and with the hard work of its faculty and technology support staff over the last two years, Greene County’s DeBusk Elementary School has become the county school system’s technology showplace.

Jason Patrick, the county school system’s technology coordinator, said during a recent interview that, thanks to two grants won by the school in recent years, DeBusk Elementary has the heaviest concentration of computer technology in use at any county school.

Other county elementary schools have the same technology, just not in quantities as extensive as does DeBusk, Patrick said.

When a Greeneville Sun reporter visited DeBusk Elementary recently, computers and computer-related educational devices were in use throughout the building.

Judy Collins, the technology coach for the 323-student school, said wireless, interactive teaching aids — such as SMART Boards, InterWrite SchoolPads and Classroom Performance Systems (CPS) — are paired with computers throughout the school’s classrooms.

Collins also noted that DeBusk School has two dedicated computer laboratories and that all classrooms are equipped with computers.

In addition, she said, each of the school’s classrooms is equipped with a digital camera that students and teachers use for a variety of educational projects.

Collins said teachers were taught to use the computerized educational devices through the Intel Corporation Master Teacher program.

“You can have all the technology in the world, but if teachers have not been trained to use the technology, it’s worth nothing,” she said. “The faculty was willing to do what they needed to do to become proficient in using technology.”

She pointed out that last year, 15 teachers worked 40 hours after school to complete “teach the teacher” technology classes.

“They were training to be master teachers through the Intel (Corporation) Teach the Teacher program,” she said.

Collins noted that another high-tech teaching tool in use at DeBusk Elementary, and all other Greene County elementary schools, is educational “streaming video” supplied via the Internet over the Greene County School System’s computer network.

She said a company called United Streaming Video develops and supplies educational video segments that dovetail with textbooks and other materials that teachers use in their classes.

When a Sun reporter toured DeBusk Elementary, fourth-grade teacher Ronnie McAmis used streaming video to give his students additional information about the early explorers of the land that eventually became the United States.

“Some of these videos come with master sheets that you can print out and give to the students before they watch the video,” he said. “This goes right along with what we’re studying.”

He explained that he often downloads the video presentations to compact discs and saves them to be played later.

“As long as we have a subscription [to United Streaming Video’s services] we can use the video segments,” Technology Coach Collins noted. “This is one thing we will want to continue, because K-8 teachers have found it very useful.”

Collins said the school paid $990 for a two-year subscription to United Streaming Video and received a free third year of the service.

McAmis said that thousands of video presentations are available to DeBusk teachers and other Greene County School System teachers through United Streaming Video.

“The kids are into watching television,” Collins said. “So why not use this?” Collins also said that video presentations are “downloaded” in the evenings to avoid tying up the school system’s computer network during instructional time.

When it comes time for teachers to show the video segments to students, she said, the video is a simple click of their computer’s mouse away.

“It’s there,” she said. “They just click on it. They don’t have to check it out from the library.

Collins also said teachers can pre-watch the videos and create tests that can be placed “online” for their students to take after watching the videos.

She said the video presentations also are coordinated with the Tennessee Department of Education’s “student performance indicators,” the learning objectives that are tested each spring with standardized tests.

Another high-technology learning tool in use at DeBusk Elementary School is called the Classroom Performance System (CPS).

Collins said students refer to the CPS units as “clickers.”

DeBusk fifth-grade teacher Tamara Wykle was using CPS to help her students study spelling.

Wykle explained that the students were taking a “quick grade” test, using small blue devices similar in appearance to television set remote control units to record the answers to the multiple-choice test.

The CPS unit automatically recorded the answers and assigned scores. Wykle also used the CPS units to help the students review a lesson about prefixes.

SMART Boards Used

In a DeBusk School computer lab used by the school’s younger students, third-grade teacher Amy Luttrell was working with her students. They were seated before individual computers that were running “Kidspiration” educational software.

While the young students worked at their computers, Luttrell stood before a wall-mounted SMART Board: an interactive white board that displayed a larger version of the information shown on the students’ computers.

The students were learning to identify shapes in objects displayed on their computer screens and to group similar shapes together.

In a computer lab used by the school’s older students, Collins said that students focus each Friday on learning to use their keyboards more efficiently.

She pointed out that orange “skins” are placed over computer keyboards during practice sessions so students can’t “cheat” by looking at their keyboards to see what letters they’re typing.

“By the time kids leave the eighth grade, they should be able to keyboard at 35 words per minute with no mistakes,” she said.

By the end of third grade, she said, state educational requirements now are that students must be able to type five words per minute.

Another form of technology in use at DeBusk School is a mobile wireless computer lab. When a Sun reporter visited, second-grade teacher Myra Waddle was using the technology to teach her students about adjectives.

The parts of speech were contained in an educational unit about “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

The students were seated before individual laptop computers that were connected wirelessly.

Patrick, the county school system’s Technology Coordinator, noted that the wireless computer lab represents a new direction in the use of technology.

“This is how you bring technology into the classroom, rather than bring the classroom to the technology,” Patrick said.

Collins noted that, beginning in first grade, DeBusk students are assigned individual “folders” on the school’s computer network.

In first grade through third grade, she said, the students call the directories their “treasure boxes.”

Before the second-graders began working on the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” lesson, they had “logged into the server, opened a lesson template the teacher had created, and saved it to their folder.

“When they graduate from DeBusk, they will have an electronic portfolio of the work they’ve done since first grade,” she said.

When a Sun reporter visited the sixth-grade classroom of teacher Carol Adams, she and her students were using a wireless device called Interwrite SchoolPads in combination with Adams’ computer and a projection screen.

Adams passed the clipboard-like device from student to student as the students used a stylus attached to the Interwrite SchoolPad to write their fraction-problem solutions and display them electronically on a large screen for their fellow students to see.

Collins said she feels technology use is advancing throughout the Greene County School System.

“I think Greene County, through our technology leadership, has been really on the bandwagon for technology,” she said.

“We recently had an all-day in-service training session for teachers in grades kindergarten through three at Doak Elementary,” she said.

“Back in November, we had one for (teachers in) grades 4-8. At the first of the school year, we had one for high school teachers.”

Technology coordinator Patrick said computer technology also is playing a growing role in efforts to assess what, and how well, students are learning.

Collins said one online program used at DeBusk assesses three times each year how well students are mastering the “student performance indicators” that are measured each spring by standardized tests that students are required to take.

Collins also noted that DeBusk students have access to a special Internet search engine that is age- and grade-specific in terms of content.

“When they search something with netTrekker, they don’t get anything pornographic or not age-appropriate,” she said. “These are all sites that have been reviewed by educators.”

She said students also can access the netTrekker search engine from home, using a password.

Jennifer Whitson bears the somewhat odd title of ORBIT commander because of her role as a sort of traveling technology expert under the state “ORBIT” grant for which DeBusk Elementary serves as an “anchor school.”

ORBIT stands for Orchestrate Regional Bases for Integrating Technology. The ORBIT project seeks to increase the integration of technology into the instructional process.

ORBIT centers are collaborative enterprises among five eligible schools within the boundaries of each state Department of Education field service center region.

Whitson travels to Cosby High School in Cocke County, Hawkins Elementary School in Rogersville, Mosheim Elementary in Mosheim, and Lincoln Heights Elementary in Hamblen County.

The schools to which Whitson travels, she said, are satellite schools with which DeBusk is sharing its technology expertise.

Whitson said she helps the other schools integrate into their curriculum technology that they have purchased with grant funds. She also helps the other schools’ teachers learn to use the technology in the classroom.

System Technology Coordinator Patrick said the ORBIT grants were available only to schools that previously had won “Launch II” technology integration grants. “The idea was to take the things they do well here at DeBusk and share them with other schools,” Patrick said. DeBusk’s Collins noted that the two grants brought a total of $418,000 to DeBusk School. “We are into grant-writing because we know that if you want to do extra things in your school, you’ve got to have money,” she said. “We’ve applied for three or four (grants) this year.”