Bringing High Tech to the Heartland

Abstract This paper describes a one-year project to bring computer skills and strategies for computer equity to rural middle school teachers. A variety of distance learning methods was used to train teachers. Teachers carried out projects involving their classrooms and the community, to encourage parental support of computer education for their children. Projects are briefly described, and the results of interviews with students of participating and non-participating teachers are reported. Participating students, both girls and boys, reported more often than non-participating students that they will probably use computers in the future and want to know more about them. Rural schools comprise most of the nation's schools and a majority of school districts are rural, with rural teachers educating one-third of the country's student population (Helge, 1981). Although transportation and telecommunication have reduced some of the differences between rural and urban areas, there is an increasing gap between urban and rural areas, in that rural areas have fewer resources, higher poverty rates, lower incomes for women, and lower aspirations on the part of rural youth. Rural young people remain victims of cultural lag, where home and school continue to condition them to accept a role definition that is no longer valid. Rural youths' view of themselves, their lives, and their careers may be partially circumscribed by access to technology and their perceptions of the role of technology in their lives. In most rural areas, access to computers is limited and there are few resources for learning technology (Anderson, 1984). A recent study showed that 80% of the 2,000 largest, most financially-capable schools used computers for classroom instruction while 60% of the smaller, poorer schools did (Mathews & Winkle, 1982). There is reason for concern about the relative competencies of rural and urban youth. Are rural students being left behind in an increasingly technological world? Rural communities also have many strengths, and these may be built upon in a distance education staff development program. Nachtigal (1982) lists some of these strengths: personal and tightly linked communities, verbal communication among its members, entrepreneurship, and self sufficiency. Helge (1981) also mentions rural strengths which we might take advantage of: a personalized environment, communication person to person, community spirit and inherent cooperation. To address the concerns of computer education in rural areas and to build upon their already existing strengths, a one-year training program was developed at Kansas State University in the College of Education. The project was funded by a Women's Educational Equity Act grant from the U.S. Dept. of Education. This paper will describe the model used in that project to train practicing teachers in rural areas to assure computer literacy in their upper elementary and middle school classrooms. A unique delivery system which delivers the curriculum to practicing teachers in rural areas was used. Special materials were developed to demonstrate computer applications in rural areas, and successful strategies were also developed. Methods Twenty teachers from all areas of the state participated in the two-semester project, for which they received six hours of graduate credit. Seventeen teachers eventually completed both semesters. Training in computer education was given first. It included instruction and projects in: LojfoWriter, evaluation of software, building a database, lesson plans involving software, BASIC programming, and telecommunications. The program also utilized two computer education textbooks, instructor written materials for each of the 12 lessons the teachers had to complete, and a number of practical and research articles. A long distance seminar via telecommunications followed the computer training (see Thurston, 1990). Its aim was to help teachers devise ways of ensuring equity in computing to their students by working on sex equity strategies and computer projects with rural themes. …