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ST. PAUL —
This year, St. Paul’s new interactive distance learning, or IDL for short, enables kids from both Chetopa and St. Paul learn at the same time. The school board came up with the idea, and asked St. Paul teacher and technological administrator, Mr. Brian Carlson, if it was possible. “The hardest part was deciding to do it,” Mr. Carlson said. “Once we committed to the class, installing the actual technology and linking the classrooms was easy. We got it done in one day.”
Teaching a class where members are roughly forty-five miles apart can be difficult. To help coordinate, the classes are held close to the same time, and using Smart-Board technology, call each other, similar to a cell phone, but using the internet connection. An advantage of this is that the Chetopa students can actually see what Mr. Carlson writes on their Smart-Board, along with a video of him writing it, and giving instructions. To turn in assignments, students score their assignments on the website Mr. Carlson set up. All students can contact Mr. Carlson by sending an e-mail to him from their student accounts for help with whatever questions they may have.
Two Chetopa students who attend this class are Allison Gilbert and Jamie Jackson. Both students said the most frustrating aspect of this class is that it’s a little harder to get help when the teacher isn’t physically right in front of them like in a normal class. “It’s hard to ask him [Mr. Carlson] questions over the video-link, but it helps that we can e-mail him with any questions.” They liked the IDL class because it was so different from their other classes, but that the differences could also be distracting, with microphones in both classrooms, you can hear everything every student says very clearly.
“Kids get to work with kids in other schools, and there’s potential for collaboration,” Mr. Carlson says. “It’s a great opportunity for all the students.” With everything technology can do, with additional websites to communicate, more classes can be made available to students from all schools.
This year, St. Paul’s new interactive distance learning, or IDL for short, enables kids from both Chetopa and St. Paul learn at the same time. The school board came up with the idea, and asked St. Paul teacher and technological administrator, Mr. Brian Carlson, if it was possible. “The hardest part was deciding to do it,” Mr. Carlson said. “Once we committed to the class, installing the actual technology and linking the classrooms was easy. We got it done in one day.”
Teaching a class where members are roughly forty-five miles apart can be difficult. To help coordinate, the classes are held close to the same time, and using Smart-Board technology, call each other, similar to a cell phone, but using the internet connection. An advantage of this is that the Chetopa students can actually see what Mr. Carlson writes on their Smart-Board, along with a video of him writing it, and giving instructions. To turn in assignments, students score their assignments on the website Mr. Carlson set up. All students can contact Mr. Carlson by sending an e-mail to him from their student accounts for help with whatever questions they may have.
Two Chetopa students who attend this class are Allison Gilbert and Jamie Jackson. Both students said the most frustrating aspect of this class is that it’s a little harder to get help when the teacher isn’t physically right in front of them like in a normal class. “It’s hard to ask him [Mr. Carlson] questions over the video-link, but it helps that we can e-mail him with any questions.” They liked the IDL class because it was so different from their other classes, but that the differences could also be distracting, with microphones in both classrooms, you can hear everything every student says very clearly.
“Kids get to work with kids in other schools, and there’s potential for collaboration,” Mr. Carlson says. “It’s a great opportunity for all the students.” With everything technology can do, with additional websites to communicate, more classes can be made available to students from all schools.
