Ardy Vallett
Linda Sabey

Majestic Elementary School, Grade 6

Area of Specialization: elementary education

• This is Ardy and Linda's first year with the PT3 Grant. These two teachers had experience with word processing and keyboarding in the computer lab, but did not have opportunities to use technology more. They first learned PowerPoint and are now confident in their abilities to use it and to teach it to their students. However, they also learned a lot from their students. Ardy said, "We kind of let the kids go, and it was absolutely amazing. They taught us. They found things that we never knew!"
  
  
• Ardy's students like working on their math facts now. "Pencil and paper for math facts absolutely does not work with these kids. So I put them on the computer in teams to see how fast they could do it. They'll have races and try to beat each other. It's been great. They've actually learned some of their math facts a little bit quicker."
  
  
• Cooperative learning happens in Linda's class now. Her students naturally became cooperative learners while doing their country projects. "Even my resource kids did their projects using PowerPoint, and they went very well. We had things like, ?I don't know how to get sound on here.' ?Oh, I do. I just did that so I'll show you.' We had that all the time. At the beginning I was just running from student to student, but at the end, I was just watching them help each other."
  
  
• These teachers now have students who are excited about learning.
  
  
  [Linda] "The experience that I've had, my kids really love computer, where in other years they have not been excited about it. The difference is they are creating something. Something they were learning from, something they wanted to do, the way they wanted to do it, not just keyboarding."
  
  
  [Ardy] "They were excited to go into these websites. I had kids??Oh, I found a picture of the cathedral in Croatia!' They were so elated that they were able to go from one place to another place, and they were able to click here and click there, and we didn't have to sit next to them. They were exploring, and they were able to find their own things. I think that especially in sixth grade and fifth grade, they need to have that experience of exploring and finding things out for themselves without us just giving it to them."