Bend’s Juniper Elemetary hosts technology night

Many schools host curriculum night, an opportunity for parents to meet teachers and find out more about programs offered. On Thursday, Juniper Elementary in southeast Bend put a new twist on this school tradition by hosting its first “Technology Night.”

Students and teachers were able to show parents how they’re not only keeping up with ever-changing tech trends, but also using them as classroom learning tools.

In 2006, Juniper Elementary became a technology magnet school. In the 10 years since, they have integrated technology into the curriculum of all kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Every third-, fourth- and fifth-grader has their own iPad, which they use as a powerful learning tool.

“They can actually go in and highlight the text and save it, or they can cut it and paste it, and put it on a piece of paper that’s on the iPad, and put things together,” said Juniper Princiipal Dan Wolnick. “Also quick access to vocabulary — holding down their finger on a word allows the definition to pop up.”

In addition to classroom uses, the iPads also allow educators to gather information on students’ progress much faster. This is what Wolnick refers to as a “quick feedback cycle.”

“Students, they want to know how they’re doing when they’re working on something, and technology allows us to speed up that feedback cycle, so they can get information back and we use that, and the students use that for improvement,” Wolnick said.

Kathi Smith-Boyle, a fourth-grade teacher at Juniper, talked about what makes this program successful.

“We’ve been a lot more involved with the evolution of the technology, in the educational system, and we’ve gotten really good at seeing what’s new out there and how we can incorporate it into our curriculum as part of our everyday education,” she said.

It clearly is part of students’ everyday lives. While some of us might have spent our fourth grade class time reading Shiloh, 9-year old Mollie Wagnon’s agenda looks more like this:

“We saved the books into PDFs, and then we shared it out as a video, and we put it into iMovie,” she said.

Wolnick said it’s important to note that the kids aren’t behind the screen all day, and technology should be used as a tool for learning. He said balance in education is the key.