|
Videos ‘stream’ into classrooms in Kane schools |
|
Written by Publisher
|
|
Wednesday, 25 March 2009 |
Photo by Ted Lutz
Projectors show videos on screens mounted on the front walls of classrooms in the Kane Area School District. Teachers pick the educational videos, which are provided by a service and transmitted to the classrooms over the Internet via the district's new speedy fiber–optic communication system.
By Ted Lutz
Republican Staff
Videos are playing a key role in the education of students in the Kane Area School District.
Classrooms are equipped with projectors to display the videos on large screens mounted on the front walls. The videos include sound.
The use of classroom videos isn’t new. But the school district’s new fiber-optic communications system now enables videos to “stream” into the classrooms from Internet sites.
At one time, the district borrowed cassette videos from a video library maintained by the Intermediate Unit 9 in Smethport. Using their classroom computers, teachers now select videos directly from Internet sites designed for educational services.
“The demand (for videos) in the classroom is increasing all the time,” Mark Candalor said Tuesday in discussing the fiber-optic system. He is the school district’s director of technology.
Candalor said “every teacher in every classroom” has access to the Internet to download videos as an educational tool. He said the videos are available “on demand” by teachers. The projectors, mostly mounted overhead, and the large screens eliminate the need for TVs in the classrooms, he pointed out.
Candalor said “everything’s faster” with the new fiber-optic system available to the Kane school system. He said the cost for the service is “all within the budget” for technology.
Chris Niklaus, the assistant technology director for the school district, emphasized that the videos aired in the classrooms are “curriculum based.” “It’s fresh content,” Niklaus said.
Today’s computer-savvy students seem to respond better to their instructors through the use of the classroom videos.
“Students are much more engaged in the classroom when technology is in use,” Candalor said.
The technology curriculum begins at an early age in the Kane Area School District. Even 5-year-old students in kindergarten make trips to the “computer lab” at the Chestnut Street Elementary school where they receive “hands-on” instruction on the computers.
The educational videos available for the classroom via the Internet cover virtually every aspect of curriculum.
“There are so many classes that can use the videos,” Niklaus said. “There are even math videos.”
|
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 30 July 2009 )
|
