CTAP Region 3

Karen Cole’s students at St. Michael’s Episcopal Day School in Carmichael, California are getting an interactive and an advanced educational experience using Web 2.0 tools and other technologies.  Karen is the librarian and Learning Center Director for St. Michael’s.  She credits her school's engagement with using 21^st century technology tools as collaborative team effort of teachers and staff at her school.  Karen considers herself a novice with these tech tools and continues to learn new ways to engage her students and peers and attributes much of what she has learned from taking the live online workshops on MyCTAP.org.   

Karen models and teaches technology skills to both staff and students.  She has several computers in her library for research and has a technology lab annexed to it.  Her students explore, create and use Microsoft applications, Google tools, online resources, blogs, wikis, podcasts, and several multimedia programs such as Audacity, Movie Maker, and Photo Story.  Flip digital video cameras were recently acquired and Karen plans to have students create projects for a “Character Counts” project.  As far as the Google tools, she has created a custom search engine for student research on Ms. Cole’s e-library, which is used by parents and teachers alike.  She and her team of teachers used Google Docs to develop parts of their school’s accreditation report and students use it to work on group assignments.  The fourth grade students worked on their Endangered Animals Project and created multimedia projects with information they researched. Her collaboration with another teacher resulted in creating student “booktalk” podcasts with 5^th graders on their website entitled Station KSTM hosted by Podbean, a free podcast, social subscription website.  The podcasts that students create are about their favorite books.  The use of this web log of podcasts is being expanded to the other teachers and students at St. Mary’s this year.  Her fifth graders also created a “mini-zine” about presidents using MS Word and Publisher.  Karen’s collaboration with the fourth grade teacher allowed students to create a research projects using PowerPoint on volcanoes and earthquakes, which students then used the printed handout to design a hand-held “lift-the-flap” quiz to take home and study.  After taking a CTAP online workshop on non-linear PPT, she produced a template for a Jeopardy game which allows students to make very interactive quizzes on content studied in their homeroom classes.

With her busy schedule of classes for preschool through sixth grade, she also manages to teach technology in an afternoon program, and additionally works with students and staff individually throughout the week.  Karen firmly believes that the success of using technology at her school is totally a collaborative process and on-going team effort with the teachers at St. Michael’s.  She believes that using technology keeps students engaged in the learning process and more enthusiastic.  Karen feels the teaching staff also appreciate the opportunity to use technology as a tool and definitely is more comfortable in its use.  Parents are particularly excited with the increased emphasis on integrating technology in all areas of the curriculum.