Using technology to teach technology

PLEASANTON, Neb. — Keeping one high school class on track can be hard enough, but try teaching many classes at once and things can get tricky.

Corliss Dixon, Pleasanton High School's former business and computer teacher, came out of retirement this year to teach a technology class using the school's distance-learning room.

Students from 14 schools around the state watch Dixon live on their computers while she teaches in front of a camera and monitor in Pleasanton.

“I have to write down and mark everything I tell each period. Did I hit all my points each hour, or did I only tell one class that? I keep all their names beside me so that I can kind of learn who is who,” Dixon said, laughing.

The yearlong TECHS class (Technology Educational Challenges for High School Students) introduces students to computer networking, software engineering, cell phone technology and computer mechanics.

By the end of the year, students will have built their own computers, made Web sites and recorded podcasts.

John Stritt, distance learning coordinator for Educational Service Unit 10 in Kearney, said the course is in its sixth year and has been taught to students at 50 schools across the state.

Christian Miyamoto, a sophomore at Perkins County High School, said he took the course because he wants to become a software engineer.

“It's to get me prepared for college and a career in technology,” he said. “I've taken little classes before, but this is pretty much the biggest thing I've done that applies to that career.”

Dixon said she teaches students from Arcadia, Cozad, Elba, Elm Creek, Gibbon, Gothenburg, Greely-Wolbach, Heartland, Loup County, Perkins County, Pleasanton, Sargent, Shelton and Wilcox-Hildreth High Schools.

Dixon said this year the classes will learn to create their own applications for iPod Touch.

“Another project they'll be working on is they take markers and make a Wii control and then they can just use a white board as a Smartboard,” she said. “Instead of spending the big bucks for the Smartboard, they can make their own.”

Stritt said the class has changed since it began.

“As time has gone on, just like the Internet has evolved, we've taken students from being consumers of information to being producers of information,” he said. “Not only are they consuming or learning about technology, they're creating podcasts and Web sites and digital materials that can be training material for teachers or students. It's really grown, and that's probably the nature of technology.”