McAlester News-Capital 05/31/2015

June 4, 2015 3:24 pm /

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MCALESTERNEWS.COM • SUNDAY, MAY 31, 2015 A3local

Schools gain tech via grantsMore students are getting more

technology placed at their fingertips in two McAlester schools.

Two McAlester elementary schools received grants from the Oklahoma Educational Technology Trust to pro-vide additional technology in class-rooms and teacher development on how to effectively integrate that tech-nology into curriculum. Will Rogers Elementary and Edmond Doyle Ele-mentary will receive $40,000 to spend on technology equipment and $25,000 for professional development.

“I’m excited for teachers to know how to use it, so they aren’t just put-ting an iPad in front of a kid with an app,” Will Rogers Principal Dawn Testa said. “We’ll be integrating tech-nology and arts into all curriculum.”

Testa said Will Rogers will be pur-chasing 75 iPads, 30 Chromebooks

and 10 Spheros — a robotic tool that works in conjunction with tablets — with the $40,000 technology portion of the grant. The purchase of 75 addi-tional iPads will put the school at a 2:1 student to tablet ratio.

The $25,000 of professional devel-opment will be coordinated through the University of Oklahoma’s K20 de-partment. Training is primarily teach-ers helping other teachers learn how to effectively use the new technology in classrooms.

At Edmond Doyle Elementary the focus is on purchasing as many iPads as funds will allow. Unlike Will Rog-ers Elementary, Edmond Doyle only has eight iPads currently. The school should be able to boost their number of tablets to 130 after spending the grant money, Principal Kathy Hunt said. This will put Edmond Doyle at roughly a 2:1 student to table ratio as well.

“We felt with the grant we needed to get up to where the others (schools in the district) were with the iPad,” Hunt said.

Hunt echoed Testa’s feelings about the professional development.

“We are excited for the training to teach us how to use it as a teaching device,” Hunt said.

Hunt, a McAlester native, has been an educator for 35 years and has wit-nessed the implementation of multi-ple forms of technology.

“I was in Will Rogers the first year we got computers, in 1983 or 1984, and we only had one program and that was to do math problems on,” Hunt said. “It’s unbelievable the dif-ference from where it was to where it is now. You’re still learning, it’s just a different tool do it with.”

Edmond Doyle Elementary and Will Rogers Elementary aren’t the first schools in the district to receive

this grant. Last year, William Gay Early Childhood Center and Jefferson Early Childhood Center received the same $65,000 grant. Both schools purchased iPads and implemented them in classes this year. Because both schools feed into Will Rogers and Edmond Doyle, educators are ec-static that students won’t have to stop using the tablets when they begin at their schools.

“William Gay and Jefferson had it and one of their concerns was they (students) would go from a school with a lot of technology to one with less,” Will Rogers Elementary Assis-tant Principal Stefanie Norman said. “They were so excited the kids will be able to continue on.”

Voters in McAlester recently passed a $2 million bond to overhaul the wireless infrastructure in schools, among other technological and safety upgrades. Testa and Hunt both ex-

pressed their gratitude for the sup-port of the community, and made the point that without the improvements the increased use of tablets wouldn’t be possible.

“It’s beyond exciting,” Hunt said. “All these devices might not work if we didn’t get the infrastructure. I’m very proud of my town, I was born here and I am very proud of my town.”

The district was worried the cur-rent amount of bandwidth capacity wouldn’t be able to handle the in-creasing number of tablets at schools like Will Rogers, Edmond Doyle and others.

“We want to thank the community, because without that infrastructure we wouldn’t be able to use this all,” Testa said.

• Contact David Dishman at ddishman@mcalesternews.com

By DAVID DISHMANSTAFF WRITER

EDMOND DOYLE ELEMENTARY EDUCATORS accept a $65,000 Oklahoma Educational Technology Trust grant for the purchase of technology to use in classrooms and professional development on how to best implement that technology. From left to right: Kathy Hunt, Crystal King, Sheila Ketchum, Barbara Gilbertson, Barbara Billos, Gwen Geis, Felicia Wilson.

WILL ROGERS ELEMENTARY EDUCATORS, McAlester Public Schools officials and local politicians gather after Will Rogers Elementary was named an Oklahoma A+ School. The title signifies the school’s dedication to implementing arts into all aspects of its curriculum. Back row, from left; Stephanie Holt; Janice Parrott; Jan Jackson; Angela Peters; Sharla Homer; Blair Green; District 17 State Rep. Dr. Brian Renegar, D-McAlester; Front row; District 18 State Rep. Donnie Condit, D-McAlester; Kara Henry; Mary Covington; Tina Stewart; Principal Dawn Testa; Danielle Younger; District 7 State Sen. Larry Boggs, R-Red Oak; and McAlester Mayor Steve Harrison.

come more arts driven if the class then acts out the story, creates and illustrates their own stories using tablets, and then uploads their work to a collaborative YouTube channel. They can also partner with other schools from across the state, or country, Testa said. Some of this will be aided through the addition of 75 iPads, 30 Chromebooks and 10 Spheros the

school plans to purchase with a grant it received from the Oklahoma Educational Technology Trust.

“We’re just really excited,” Testa said. “The students are going to see things they’d never see or even be able to see.”

• Contact David Dishman at ddishman@mcalesternews.com

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OKA+ ...

WILL ROGERS ELEMENTARY EDUCATORS accept a $65,000 Oklahoma Educational Technology Trust grant for the purchase of technology to use in classrooms and professional development on how to best implement that technology. Pictured, standing from left; Robin Benefield, Danielle Younger, Ashlee Edwards, Principal Dawn Testa, Assistant Principal Stefanie Norman, Amanda Grantham. Sitting, from left; Jennifer Lewis, Jennifer Reyher.

As bad as the Texas flooding has been, the heat wave in India has been far worse — in fact, the world’s fifth-deadliest since 1900, with reports of the 100-degree-plus heat even buckling roads. And it’s a con-sequence of the stuck jet stream, accord-ing to Francis and Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters.

When climate scientists look at what caused extreme events — a complex and time-consuming process that hasn’t been done yet — heat waves are the ones most definitely connected to global warming, Shepherd says.

The stuck jet stream has kept Alaska on bake, with the town of Eagle hitting 91, the earliest Alaska has had a tempera-ture pushing past 90, Masters says.

And on the other end of the country, New York; Boston; Hartford, Connecticut; Albany, New York; Providence, Rhode Is-land; and Concord, New Hampshire, all have received less than an inch of rain this month and are flirting with setting monthly records for drought, he says.

El Nino is known to change the weath-er worldwide, often making things more extreme. This El Nino is itself weird. It was long predicted but came far later and weaker than expected. So experts dialed back their forecasts. Then El Nino got stronger quickly.

Some scientists have theorized that the

jet stream has been changing in recent years because of shrinking Arctic sea ice, an idea that has not totally been accepted but is gaining ground, Shepherd says.

Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, likens what’s hap-pening to a stewpot: Natural climate fluctuations such as El Nino go into it. So do jet stream meanderings, random chance, May being a transition month, and local variability. Then throw in the direct and indirect effects of climate change.

“We know that the stew has an extra ingredient,” Hayhoe says, referring to cli-mate change. “That ingredient is very strong. Sometimes you add one teaspoon of the wrong ingredient and boy, it can take your head off.”

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Weather ...

AP Photo by Tsering Topgyal

INDIANS SLEEP on the roof of a house to beat the heat in New Delhi, India Friday.

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