Camp E-Tech

Florence County School District Three

Lake City, SC
 

Introduction/Overview
Organizational Change
Budget & Finance
Professional Development
Technology Infrastructure
Outcomes
Evaluation
Contact Information
 

Introduction/Overview

Florence County School District Three employees collaborated with Lee County School District and the Youth Learning Institute at Clemson University to provide 200 students in grades 4–6 from Davis Elementary School, Lake City Elementary School, and Ronald E. McNair Middle School, their parents, and teachers, with the opportunity to participate in Camp E-Tech, a 3-day experiential learning camp designed to take children out of their natural environment and put them in a community-living atmosphere where they can learn about the environment, technology, and team building. Each year for the 3 years of the grant period, students selected to attend the camp will be students who have scored below basic on their state standardized math test. This experience will be provided to help students extend their learning beyond their rural schools and communities; to help them learn to collect, organize, store, manipulate, and interpret data electronically; and to help them communicate information from investigations visually in graphs, charts, and maps—all designed to help them improve their state standardized test scores. Technology coaches identified and worked with at least 12 focus teachers at each school to support and encourage them to plan, implement, and evaluate technology-rich, standards-based lessons.

Organizational Change

The decision to include this activity in the grant was based upon conversations with other schools who had attended the camp and the benefits they felt their students had received. Since district policy requires 1 chaperone per every 10 students, we involved parents by getting them to serve as chaperones. Focus teachers who attended the camp received training on MS Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, PDAs, etc. and additional classroom computers.

Budget & Finance

Costs for the camp include $90 per student, $45 per chaperone, mileage for buses to transport the students to the camp @ $.90 per mile, $15 per hour for the bus driver, and $20 bus cleaning fee. Total annual cost is approximately $9,776.

Professional Development

While camp personnel were working with students, additional camp personnel were working with the teachers on learning and using Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, video streaming, etc. and identifying ways to introduce technology into their classrooms.

Technology Infrastructure

Pentium computers, MS Word Suite, paint program, palm pilots, digital cameras, global positioning systems, etc.

Outcomes

There were three anticipated short-term outcomes from this project: (1) teachers would be deemed technologically proficient in accordance with district standards by their next recertification period; (2) students would demonstrate mastery of grade-level appropriate achievement standards in English language arts and math as measured by an online assessment; and (3) parental involvement in the education of their children would increase. Long-term goals included technologically proficient teachers who could use technology in daily lesson plans to increase student achievement, as well as increased student academic achievement on an annual basis.

Evaluation

Critical to the success of this project were the technology coaches who met with parents, planned each trip, attended and coordinated each camp with the Youth Learning Institute personnel, the students, parents, and teachers. Personnel at the Youth Learning Institute were also extremely critical to the success of the project. They bonded with the students so easily and were able to teach to the hands-on, inquisitive nature of each child. There would be no problems with scaling the project up or down—only the limitations of the camp/counselors (currently they can handle around 600 at any one time). Again, this project could be easily reproduced if a camp and camp personnel are available.

Contact Information

Lynda Hawkins
lhawkins@florence3.k12.sc.us
843-374-8652 Ext. 115