The grant allowed for new purchases from Mimio Interactive Teaching Technologies. The products will turn any plain surface into an interactive whiteboard. Then, by using a digital pen called a stylus, students and teachers can manipulate digital objects on the board.
The new technology will be installed and be ready for classroom use by Nov. 29.
Kathy Korty, district technology integrations specialist, will train the middle school teachers how to use the software.
“They’re going to fly with it,” Korty said, who is a Mimio certified trainer and also teaches online classes for Central Michigan. “We’ll be (discussing) how to make their lessons more interactive and how to use the bells and whistles of the software.”
The competitive grant was available to any organization, church, school or government body in the greater Middletown area.
T. Duane Gordon, the executive director of the Middletown Community Foundation, said the non-profit received about $500,000 in requests last quarter. The community foundation was able to fund $165,000.
“(Interactive whiteboards) are a long way from the old chalkboard,” Gordon said. “Kids have to be technologically literate in today’s society.”
Edgewood approached the community foundation last year and asked for interactive whiteboard products to benefit some kindergarten classrooms. Gordon said the community foundation’s distribution committee told the district it would rather see them benefiting older students.
The two parties eventually negotiated for three new interactive whiteboards at the middle school level. The community foundation would purchase two as long as Edgewood would fund the third.
The third Mimio set — an interactive bar and projector — was purchased by the district at the end of October for about $2,500.
“At one time we got kids notebooks so they can write every day — now we want them blogging,” Korty said. “I think teachers have to step up to the plate. We’re not in the 1800s anymore.”
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