Articles - Rebel Yell, November 30, 2000

But the children have all gone home for the day, and many of these students at Marc Kahre Elementary School have children of their own at home.

This is no adult literacy program. These students are teachers in the Clark County School District. Here, reading, writing, and arithmetic have been replaced by computer programs: Powerpoint, Clarisworks and Hyperstudio.

"OK, now click on the icon," Jo Moody instructs.

In an effort by the school district to make their teachers more techno-literate -- and more apt to use technology while teaching -- makeshift classes like this one are becoming common.

After school, before school, during prep time, teachers -- led by an educational computing strategist like Moody -- create new ways to integrate computers into their lessons.

"The level to which the computer is integrated in class depends upon the comfort level of the teacher," Moody said.

"Keep in mind that many of our teachers in the CCSD got out of college before this computer technology existed," School Board Vice President Susan Brager said.

The school district has one such strategist in each middle and high school, Brager said. School officials hope to put one in every elementary school too.

But funds are lacking. Currently there are fewer than half as many elementary school computing strategists as there are elementary schools in the county.

That shortage can make itself felt in unexpected ways.

Janet Anthony, third grade teacher at Marc Kahre and student in Moody's class, is transferring to Dondero Elementary School, where she notes a computing strategist works only one day a week.

"And he may be leaving for another position," Anthony said. "Depending on funding, there may be no ECS at Dondero this fall."

Lack of personnel is not the only problem.

"One frustration for many teachers is the difficulty of finding time to train," Moody said. "They usually have to do so on their own initiative, and their plate is full already."

Shelly Schlacton, fourth grade teacher at Marc Kahre, agrees. "As an elementary teacher, you need to ... be an expert at everything. Now there is pressure to integrate computers into an already wide curriculum."

To the teachers at Marc Kahre Elementary, who have frequent access to Moody's expertise, this statistic seems inconceivable. But other schools might not be so fortunate.

"I think that statistic is very accurate," former Western High School teacher Risa Weiss said. "When I was a new teacher, I felt very under-equipped. Teachers may have had a computer in their classrooms, but they weren't often used."

But Weiss may be helping to change the preparedness of future teachers. She and her colleagues are coordinating a program at UNLV's College of Education to make new teachers more computer savvy before they enter the workforce.

The program is called Project THREAD (Technology Helping Restructure Educational Access and Delivery), and it promotes staff development at the college level, Weiss said. "It helps faculty members who work with students who plan on integrating technology."

Last week the College of Education received a three-year grant of $1.15 million from the U.S. Department of Education to help reach the goals of Project THREAD.

"These funds will be used for computer training and equipment to help our faculty become a model for student-teachers," Weiss said. "Our professors now will be using new mobile labs: i-Macs on a wireless cart with a projector."

Project Director Neal Strudler stressed the importance of the grant.

"President Clinton announced 2 million new teachers will be hired in the United States in the next 10 years, and until now little has been done at the college level to assure those teachers will integrate computers into their entire curriculum.

"It is no longer enough for a student to take one high school class in computer technology during their K-12 education," he said. "They will need a great deal of exposure to that technology throughout their various classes ... to compete in the workplace of the future."

The new wave of computer-literate teachers coming out of UNLV may make an impact on the Clark County School District and its computer strategists, but Moody is not threatened by such change.

"It's challenging and exciting to work with teachers when they are familiar enough with the technology to have application ideas of their own," she said. "We can work off each other."