Schools in touch with the times

As the world roars inexorably deeper and deeper into the digital age, it's reassuring to see local schools are keeping up with the electronic times.

A recent series of stories in the Inter Lake probably opened some eyes to just how much is being accomplished:

At Flathead High School, students use a high-end digital production system to create modern broadcasts of school announcements.

At Whitefish High School, biotechnology and bioinformatics are now part of the science curriculum.

There's an interactive, touch-screen computer whiteboard in almost every classroom at Edgerton Elementary School in Kalispell. It has made the school a showcase for educators across the state who want to see how interactive whiteboards can enhance classroom instruction.

Rural Flathead County schools haven't been left behind.

Deer Park School still has an old-fashioned bell tower, but it also has an up-to-date computer lab and a curriculum that begins teaching computer skills to first-graders. Remote Pleasant Valley School has a bank of computers and high-speed Internet for its five students.

And even physical education classes in some schools benefit from technology, ranging from heart-rate monitors to cardiovascular machines.

But no matter how high-tech our classrooms become, or what cutting-edge devices make their way into education, we have to make sure it's not at the expense of critical thinking.

The varied electronic conduits provide a wealth of information (and, at times, misinformation) for students.

The mission and the challenge for educators is to teach students how to make sense of that information.

"One component of education is to teach the students how to judge the information they're getting off the Internet," Cayuse Prairie Principal Rick Nadeau says. "I think that's an added component to education."

Teachers may have new technological skills to learn in the not-too-distant future. Some already are recording lectures and chapters of books that students can download to their MP3 players. Some school libraries have flash drives available for checkout, and some teachers are beginning to experiment with podcasts.

Technology hasn't altered the basic job of teachers - educating students - but it has provided a panoply of new tools to help that job. Even in the brave new world of technology-enhanced education, teachers still have the most vital role shaping our youths for that world.