‘Boot camp’ drills Peach teachers on technology

FORT VALLEY — Teachers at Peach County High School attended a boot camp last week.

But it wasn’t outdoors, and it didn’t include physical exertion.

The Technology Boot Camp held at Hunt Elementary School was a week-long exercise for teachers to learn new applications and software that was available to them as part of a $5.2 million federal school improvement grant over the next three years.

With the money, the school system ordered 1,500 Hewlett Packard tablet PCs with Microsoft Office and Windows 7.

“The key thing is to extend the brick and mortar and build a virtual learning network,” said Charlie Waters, director of technology for Peach County schools and one of the instructors for the camp.

When the tablets arrive, the new PCs will be given to each high school student. School starts Tuesday in Peach County.

“Studies have shown that a high level of technology has a positive effect on student achievement,” Waters said.

He stressed the computers will have content filtering devices to limit what the students can do.

One new software program is DyKnow, which allows teachers the ability to publish information onto student computers, upload homework assignments and be able to black out students’ screens. It even gives teachers an option to shut down the students’ computers.

Frank Gilbert, senior customer relations manager with DyKnow, instructed teachers as they tested the system to see what its capabilities were.

DyKnow can help teachers instantly open browsers to do research on each student’s laptop as well as share screens on a special whiteboard, which will be in each classroom.

Peach County is only one of about a dozen school systems in Georgia to have this type of software.

The laptops will be given to teachers first. Waters expects within a month of the shipment arriving, they will be in the hands of students.

“We’re dedicated to providing access to the Internet to bridge the gap between traditional textbooks to digital,” Waters said.

Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Angela Woolen, call 923-5650.