CALUMET CITY | Walk into the classroom of Paul Puchalski, a seventh-grade social studies teacher at Lincoln Elementary School, and you'll see few students dozing off, daydreaming or fidgeting.
Students are actively engaged in daily lessons using an interactive white board called a SMART Board. The large, touch-controlled screen, the product of SMART Technologies, works with a projector and a computer and hangs at the front of the class.
Twenty-four classrooms in grades five through eight at Lincoln are equipped with the interactive boards and other modern technology.
More than $600,000 in federal grant money during a two-year period has helped this south suburban school provide high-tech items such as SMART Boards, computers; wireless, hand-held slates; and instant response systems along with teacher training.
Technology is a big part of the teaching and learning experience at Lincoln. It allows students to take tests and quizzes, watch videos, do class projects and even dissect frogs.
"It's a fun way to learn," 12-year-old Quentin Baker said, adding that students don't have to worry about not being able to read a teacher's handwriting.
Darryl Taylor, superintendent for Lincoln Elementary District 156, said children and technology are "a natural fit."
Seventh-grade science teacher Marina Martinez said her students enjoy using the interactive board to race against each other on their knowledge of the periodic table of elements.
Pencils and paper are no longer used in Martinez' class for tests and quizzes.
Instead, students are given a hand-held Senteo instant response device. They punch buttons that correspond to the multiple choice questions and answers appearing on the SMART board. Once they send their responses, the screen on the device instantly provides them with their score.
Martinez said she doesn't think she can ever teach again without the technology she now has at her fingertips and believes there are no limitations to what students can do.
"You would be amazed at how enthused they are," she said. "They don't know that they're learning."
Supervisor of Technology Rose Jordan said she predicted the change the technology would bring to Lincoln when she first applied for the Enhancing Education through Technology grant last year.
District 156 was one of only a few in Illinois chosen to receive the grant and is in the second year of the three-year grant program.
Lincoln is now teaming up with fellow grant recipients Brookwood Elementary District 167 and Brookwood Junior High School in Glenwood and West Harvey-Dixmoor District 147 and Rosa Parks Junior High School in Dixmoor to coordinate learning between their buildings for both teachers and students, Jordan said.
