Respect your juniors: Collegians hear from kids themselves on how modern students learn

Tayler Mann taught at the college level Thursday, which wouldn’t be news except for the fact that she’s 9.

Mann and the rest of her fourth-grade class from Superior were on the University of Montana campus to show education majors how they use technology in their classroom.

“When I was her age, we still did reports from encyclopedias,” said Shannon Weeks, a graduate student in secondary education, as Mann led five UM students through a series of language and math exercises with their hand-held personal computers.
Mann and her students read aloud a children’s book – “The Day the Babies Crawled Away” by Peggy Rathmann – then they all reviewed and rated the book in their personal digital assistants, or PDAs.

She also led them through some math problems, where the hand-held unit gave students four numbers and the option of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing them to come up with a target number.

The program is funded by a two-year, $250,000 grant from the state in a program called TICTOC, or Technology Integrating Classrooms That Optimize Curriculum.

Superior is one of eight schools in a consortium taking advantage of the grant. Various high school and grade school classrooms in Plains, Hot Springs, St. Regis, Trout Creek, Clinton, Paradise and the DeSmet School also take part.

The grant purchased 140 Palm Pilots, keyboards and accessories (such as printers), according to Diane Woodard, technology coordinator at Superior.

By VINCE DEVLIN of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/12/02/news/top/news01.txt