at St. James Day School



Director of Technology & Curriculum

Instructional Technology Specialist

EXPECT CHANGE; EXPECT EXCITEMENT!
Dixie Wilder, Pollyanna Chevallier, Pat Wagy, Adra Hallford, and I returned from Austin Friday night and are already in the process of implementing some of the amazing ideas garnered from the 2008 Texas Computer Educator’s Conference. We arrived back in Texarkana between 7 and 7:30 pm on Friday, and when I checked email on Saturday morning, there was a note from Dixie saying she was on some of the websites referenced in the sessions she attended and was planning new things already. Her first sentence in that email is the perfect description of what I think all of us feel. She said, “I feel INSPIRED, OVERWHELMED, and WORN OUT!” What an apt description! I told her I had expected ‘worn out’, but had only hoped for INSPIRED and OVERWHELMED. How much fun to be overwhelmed with the sheer volume of ideas presented — and be inspired to put them into practice! That is where we are.

Each of us attended 12 to 20 one-hour or 90 minute sessions during the two and a half day general conference. Pat, Dixie, and Pollyanna were inspired to find that, for the most part, both attendees and presenters were classroom teachers like us with classrooms like ours. Most presenters assumed all teachers had LCD projectors (as we now do), and bombarded their audiences with all the possibilities of teaching with 21st century technology tools. As Pollyanna said, “It was a real eye-opener.”

Pat Wagy has already emailed the faculty with some of the things she wants to do with her class this year, and the plans she wants to develop this summer for use next year. Adra and I will be trying to facilitate their project plans as we continue to upgrade our technology program.

The next four issues of the St. James Weekly will contain a short article by one of the faculty members who attended the conference. Read them. You will feel their excitement and be impressed by the tremendous efforts we, as teachers, are putting forth for the education of your children. You will hear terms such as podcasting, video conferencing, digital movies, web projects, open source, and a million more ideas from these teachers. We’re on a roll and hope you will share and support our excitement.

I was reminded again last night of the importance of teaching this generation of children with 21st century tools when my first grade grandson asked if he could “Google the hotel” where his parents are staying in California (we had already video-conferenced with them via ichat). Of course I said yes, and he asked where Google Earth was on my computer. I had to confess I did not yet have it on my computer. “No problem,” he said, “I’ll just download it and install it.” And he did.
These are the children we teach. They don’t even know a world without technology. We must talk to our students today in the language they understand – and that is a language that is global, technical, and where information is retrieved instantaneously. We are making great strides in training our entire faculty in the use of these new teaching methods and tools. Thanks again and again to everyone who has contributed to the technology fund for making this training and new equipment possible.

Dee Miller, Assistant Head
Technology & Curriculum

Computer and Internet Policy

Technology at St. James

Our Technology History

St. James' computer program began in 1983 with two TI99/4a's, one Apple II+ donated by Mr. Vasco McCoy, and one Commodore 64. Today's students are privileged to work in two Macintosh Multimedia computer labs in addition to multiple computers available in each classroom. The entire school is networked for both LAN and WAN and every classroom has Internet access on at least two networked computers.

St. James was the first school in the area (1983) to offer computer and summer computer workshops. Our students were consistent award winners in state TCEA computer competitions from the inception of the organization.

In 1996, Dee Miller, our Technology Coordinator and Middle School Computer Teacher, was featured with two of her classes in a nationally televised NBC documentary concerning computer education, and again as a special on educational computing by KSLA in the fall of 1998.

In 1998, St. James introduced an experimental program in which fourth grade teachers taught their entire Texas history unit in the Middle School lab using computers and the Internet. It was a great success. During the 2000-2001 school year, St. James implemented TTT 2000 (Teachers Teaching Technology) as a result of that experimental program. In the fourth transitional year (2003-2004), 4th through 6th grade classes were scheduled in the computer lab for one hour each day and taught by their homeroom teachers. 2nd grade was scheduled twice a week in the Lower School lab, and 3rd grade, three times a week. As professional development, teachers spent one hour each week on a one-on-one basis with the lower school or middle school technology facilitator in preparation for their projects.


By 2001, COMPUTER was no longer a special class. Technology at St. James Day School became an integral part of the school day. In the real world, computers are a tool to be used every day, just like pencils, papers, textbooks, and rulers. Our students became competent, comfortable, and challenged when it came to technology! They combined critical thinking and creativity with their computer skills daily as they explored the core curriculum in the classroom.

Students in first through sixth grade were taught to use the computer as a tool for problem-solving, research, skill development, original design, critical thinking, and production. Highlights of our technology program included experiences with Logo programming, Lego/Logo Robotics, Desktop Publishing, Data Manipulation, Spreadsheets & Graphs, Telecommunications, Web Page Design, and creation of Multimedia Presentations. At St. James, the computer became simply another tool for learning basic curriculum.

With the loss of our Lower School computer teacher in 2003, Dee Miller taught first grade computer, assisted by the first grade homeroom teachers until a lower school facilitator joined the staff in January of 2004. First grade teachers were soon excited about the results of this new enrichment to old teaching methods! Both Dee and the new teacher served as facilitators and resource personnel the second semester, meeting with classroom teachers for planning and professional development conferences each week. Teachers taught computer skills as well as subject content through projects relating to the core curriculum.

Today, teachers are encouraged to teach their basic curriculum with twenty-first century tools. In addition to the four scheduled class periods for Middle School and the three scheduled class periods for Lower School, teachers can schedule as much time as needed for class projects in either of our two multi-media labs.

Following 59 years of tradition, St. James continually strives to teach a classical curriculum in context of today's changing world, using today's tools. A technology facilitator is available to help teachers integrate the computer with their curriculum as we move forward in our goal to make learning relevant for today's students.

We've been 'doing computers' for TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS! And we're GOOD!

We are proud to be Macintosh Computer Users!
A virus? What's that?!