Students at North Lyon County USD 251 will soon be seeing changes in the classroom. The school district received a $101,200 grant from the Jones Foundation to purchase technology equipment.
The district will purchase Promethean presenter tablets, ActiView Visual Presenters and Promethean ActivBoards.
Becky Clopton, school improvement coordinator, said the new technology will benefit students in the district.
“It’s more engaging to them,” Clopton said. “This involves the students with hands-on material.”
With the ActivBoards, teachers can use a digital pen to create images on the board. Clopton said if a teacher draws a circle, the circle will be corrected into a perfect circle. It can also convert words a teacher writes into a pre-selected font.
“It’s amazing,” Clopton said. “We had a demonstration for teachers and they were in awe. They’re excited.”
The presenter tablets are a little bigger than a textbook and are for student use. What the student does on the tablet is projected onto the board. Each core classroom will receive three tablets.
The last item the school district will receive are the ActiView Visual Presenters. This piece of technology captures an image and projects it onto the white board. Clopton said the image can be in 3-D and can be rotated at any angle.
USD 251 applied for the grant in June and found out they received the grant in July.
“We are extremely grateful to the Jones Trust for giving us the opportunity to offer this kind of experience to our students,” Clopton said. “This is a huge boost for our students to be able to experience this.”
Kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms will receive the ActivBoards, while sixth grade through 12th grade classrooms will receive the tablets.
Clopton said the district is getting ready to order the equipment and that it should arrive and be installed in October. The grant includes training for teachers, including how to use the equipment and how to integrate it into the classroom, as well as installation, Clopton said.
“It gives teachers more opportunity in delivering instruction. It brings the subject to the classroom in ways that are more engaging to the kids,” Clopton said of the new technology.