The Sayre Area School District showed off its recent technology accomplishments during a special celebration Thursday.
    Not only did the district’s “Flip the Switch” ceremony show what the district’s been able to accomplish with a $190,000 state grant, but also how the community, students, teachers, parents and others are helping to take the district’s classrooms into the future.
    More importantly than equipping the classrooms for future learning has been the success of the technology in better preparing students for the future.
    Students are more engaged than ever, partially because of the advanced learning now at their fingertips with the help of technology, district officials said Thursday.
    Mary Cole is the “Classrooms for the Future” coach for Sayre School District.
    “We’ve seen a change in the way students are learning,” she said Thursday. “And teachers are no longer lecturers. They are facilitators, guides and sometimes they are the students themselves. The Classrooms for the Future grant enabled our teachers to prepare our students for tomorrow’s challenges today.”
    Students from Jason Pipher’s class will travel Monday to Harrisburg to highlight movies they have made with the technology given to them through the grant, Cole added. That presentation will be part of the “Classrooms for the Future Student Capitol Day.”
    The Bradford County Commissioners and representatives from the local municipalities, as well as school board and community members, were given the opportunity Thursday to see the technology first hand and speak to teachers and students about how its changed the way they teach and learn.
    In Larry Templeton’s class, students are e-mailing high school students in India, exchanging information about different cultures and religion.
    The e-mailing is being made possible through a program called ePals.
    Students are e-mailed by the students and can return e-mails, but the correspondence is first monitored by Templeton, he said.
    The program hasn’t only opened up correspondence for the students it has opened up a whole new world.
    Students have learned what is culturally acceptable in India, as well as what religions are practiced there, and have even learned about the differences between “British English”, which the students speak, and “American English.”
    Some of the students from Sayre sent introductory e-mails asking their fellow Indian students about themselves and in the process, innocently asked if the students had a boyfriend or girlfriend, said Templeton. The teacher in India did not allow these e-mails to go through because speaking about romantic boyfriends or girlfriends is not allowed in schools, said Templeton.
    When the Indian students said they had been on “holiday” it was later learned this meant they had been on vacation. The students in Sayre googled, or searched on the Internet, for the definition of some of the words used in the e-mails, locations referred to or movie stars referenced by the Indian students, Templeton said.
    Depending on what Templeton is teaching, he can click on almost any country where the technology is used and find a teacher requesting to be matched with students interested in learning about a different culture, he said.
    Templeton also spoke to visitors about the Wikispaces program, which allows him to place assignments for students on the site, direct them to Web sites he wants them to use for class, and accept e-mailed assignments from students.
    The program also includes a schedule of assignments, which means if a student is out sick they can check the site to see if they have an assignment and if they wish they can complete the assignment for the day they come back. In the past, students may not have been able to complete work because they had to have text books or note books with them at home, said Templeton.
    The e-mail system even shows the time a student sent their assignment in, which essentially means students have few excuses for not doing their work, or getting it done on time, said Templeton, and fellow teacher Eric Knolles.
    In addition to the programs which allow them to reach out to other schools, countries, and cultures, the students at Sayre are also utilizing software which allows them to explore their creativity.
    Programs like Flash and Photo Story 3 give students the opportunity to create animation or slideshows.
    Thursday, an auditorium full of students and community members were shown an short animated creation by Daran Carlin-Webster and a mock commercial for president by eighth grader Heather Cole.
    Through the grant, the district was able to purchase four digital video cameras, five laptop carts with 140 student laptops, six digital cameras, and 28 laptops for teachers.     Since receiving the equipment the teachers have been provided with 840 professional development hours, which has also included weekly workshops for the teachers.
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    Lisa R. Howeler can be reached at lrhoweler@morning-times.com.