The school's emphasis is on reading improvement. Cherry's fourth grade students use the accelerated reader program. An Academic 2000 grant two years ago placed twelve computers and twelve printers in the classrooms. Computer desks were built by a farmer in his spare time. Students keep a daily reading log on the twenty-five Alpha Smarts, which were provided by the district. Paint Creek ISD has just gotten a TIF grant, which will provide networking to every classroom and state-of-the-art computers for student research projects.

Cherry is eager to work with the new equipment and use it with her fourth graders and home economics students. She already uses a digital camera and a scanner. She is already adept at using the Internet for lessons and projects, and has contributed a lesson to the Teachers' Internet Use Guide lesson bank.

One of her most memorable experiences occurred when she had a student who was not in her regular class, but was assigned to her classroom, and normally worked alone. For one learning activity, she decided to design a customized lesson for him that he could work on by himself. The night before, while she was at home, she explored some websites on eating disorders and bookmarked them. She then used Microsoft Word 97 to generate a list of questions for the student to answer, using information that he was to find on the Internet. "He did a good job of it. He thought that this was far more enjoyable than simply reading about eating disorders from a book."

What made this particular project successful? Having access to the Internet in her classroom, and finding the time to write the lesson. But most important, it was the student's willingness to learn, and to remain engaged in the activity.

Cherry values networking with other educators and sharing lesson plans. She gave an inservice day at her school to share what she had learned in her initial training session on the Teacher's Internet Use Guide. The teachers said they learned a lot during the morning activities, and were eager to create a lesson that afternoon. Unfortunately, the Internet went down, and so did the teachers' hopes for creating their Internet-based lessons. Cherry hopes to repeat the inservice session again next term, and the teachers plan to contribute some lessons to a sharable database the next time around.

Return to the Teachers' Internet Use Guide Home Page