OHIO STATE EDUCATORS LEAD $2 MILLION HEAD START TECHNOLOGY PROJECT

   COLUMBUS -- The Ohio State University College of Education is leading a $2.06 million Head Start project to create training that will serve as a catalyst for preparing teachers of young children to be proficient in technology.

   The U.S. Department of Education project, “Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology,” will serve educators in low-income urban and rural communities.

   “We will start with 300 teachers in the three-year demonstration program,” said James Scott, director of the Technology Helping Educators (THE) Consortium. “The goal is to enhance the technology proficiency of higher education faculty, which also will enhance the technological skills of the preservice students in their teacher education classes, who in turn will use appropriate technology practices in their classrooms with the children.

   “It’s a domino effect.”

   Scott, who leads the project in the education college, said a very different approach is needed with young children.

   “What is appropriate for a 3- or 4-year-old preschooler is not appropriate for a first-grader,” Scott said. He said teachers must understand very young learners, what is developmentally appropriate and what teaching practices are effective.

   The college is among seven partners in the Technology Helping Educators Consortium, which will set up a dozen “communities of learners” in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The consortium next month will choose the 12 demonstration programs from 150 Head Start and Early Head Start programs in the three states.

   The communities of learners will be composed of parents, administrators and preservice teachers in Head Start programs, childcare centers and elementary schools. They will receive social and technological support, including electronic links to Ohio State and its Region VB Head Start Quality Network.

   “One thing we’ll do is help teachers assess appropriate software from the many educational products that are available,” Scott said. “Teachers have to know what to look for.”

   Computers are available in some Head Start classrooms. He said, “We have found some children are very adept, and some teachers not as adept.” The grant will enable early childhood teachers who teach low-income children to become technologically proficient.

   The grant co-authors are David Fernie and Rebecca Kantor Martin, both professors of teaching and learning at Ohio State; Charles Lynd, information services coordinator for the Region VB Head Start Quality Network; and Dennis Sykes, director of the Region VB Head Start Quality Network, Center for Special Needs Populations.

   The THE Consortium partners are: the QNet at OSU (operating in Indiana, Illinois and Ohio); the Ohio Department of Education; Resources and Instruction for Staff Excellence (RISE Inc.); the Ohio Coalition for Associate Degree Early Childhood Programs; the Ohio Higher Education Consortium for Inclusive Early Childhood Education; the Ohio Family Literacy Statewide Initiative; and the Ohio Community Computer Center Network.

Contact: James Scott, (614) 447-0844, extension 121, or scott.5@osu.edu

College Communications: Gemma McLuckie, (614) 292-4658 or mcluckie.1@osu.edu