When she first started teaching at Tennessee Technological University more than two decades ago, technology in the classroom of elementary, middle and high schools consisted of 16-mm film projectors, overhead projectors and film strips. Then came VHS and Beta tapes. Then there's building pages on the World Wide Web and giving multimedia presentations.
National data show that the Internet and computers are in access by different populations.
For example, the poor tend to use less than the affluent and those living in rural areas use less than those living in urban areas. And information today shows that the divide between these two different groups is getting greater. Enter the 21st Century Classroom, which has been around for many years, and Technology Empowerment for Tomorrow's Rural Teachers, a new developing program at Tennessee Tech, both of which are designed to bridge that divide. Phelps, with education professors Carl Owens and Pat Jordan, want to help teachers in the rural Upper Cumberland region confront and conquer this digital divide with the Technology Empowerment for Tomorrow's Rural Teachers program. With this new program, we're working on getting teachers 'projection capability' for their computers having the ability to project to an entire classroom what is pictured on one small computer screen.