Edgewood Elementary School
HOMEPAGE

Six years ago, the leadership and faculty at Edgewood Elementary School made a commitment to provide our students with the technology that we considered imperative for success in the twenty-first century. Our progress in this endeavor has not come easy, nor has it been painless. Since our school district provides no technology budget, the funding of our goal has been, and remains, a major concern. Primarily, our technology has been purchased through the wise utilization of Georgia State Lottery funds and an initiative by the Georgia Department of Education called Pay for Performance. We feel that we have made prudent purchases of hardware, software, and provided our staff with sufficient training to feel comfortable with the technology.

As we began to focus on providing our students and staff with state of the art technology at Edgewood, our hardware consisted of five Apple 2E's on roll around carts. These computers were shared by 21 regular classrooms and various special programs. The students and teachers used these computers mainly for drill and practice and games.

When the Georgia lottery was established, the funding for technology became a very real possibility. Within 2 years, we were able to purchase one Macintosh computer for each classroom, automate our media center, and purchase the Accelerated Reader Program. Lottery funding has also provided a satellite dish, two fax machines, and four Internet connections.

Edgewood is one of two schools in the state of Georgia to be awarded Pay for Performance money each year since the Georgia Department of Education incentive program was initiated five years ago. Targeting technology as our main objective, the professional staff at Edgewood has voted each year to put our money back into the school, rather than take the rewards home. Thus, our faculty has contributed more than $100,00.00 toward technology in the building. Through this money, over the past five years, we have provided to each classroom; two Macintosh computers, one printer, one scan converter, and a 27" color monitor. We have established The Edgewood Technology Center, consisting of 24 IMac computers, one Internet connected teacher station, and one data projector. We have supplied our staff and students with four Powerbook laptop computers, three digital cameras, and two scanners. Broadcast equipment, enabling students to create and edit videotaped productions was also purchased with Pay for Performance funds.

At the onset of our technology initiative, training was driven only by individual teacher motivation. A few computer courses were offered through staff development, however, there was no specific focus. Four years ago, the Muscogee County School District hired five technology specialists an established a designated site for technology instruction. The following year, our technology specialist offered to provide our faculty with "site based" staff development courses because we felt that we were ready to focus on Edgewood's specific goals. This preliminary training proved invaluable because, in January of 1998, the State Department of Education implemented the InTech (Integrating Technology into the Curriculum) program, and Edgewood had a team of five teachers who felt ready to undergo the intensive, 50-hour training.

The five members of the original InTech team, in turn, trained the remainder of the faculty using the "Peer Teaching" concept. The instruction focused on using technology to supplement and enhance the curriculum already in place, rather that learning a particular piece of software. Our entire faculty completed the training in January 1999. Since the completion of InTech training, we feel that we are ready to begin to fully implement the technology we have purchased for our building.

Evidence of the use of technology is apparent throughout the school; in the required technology projects for grades one through six, in the required Invention Convention projects for third grade, required Media Festival, projects for fourth grade, required Science Fair projects for fifth grade, and required Social Studies projects for sixth grade.