Intensive Site School
in Tennessee

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School Facts Principal- Ms. Marjorie Vaulx Contact- Grades:3-4 # of students: 600 # of teachers: 29 classroom computers: 49 media center computers:4 computer lab computers:8 Internet points: 51 Technology team: yes Technology plan: yes

East Side Elementary School 1315 E Jefferson Street Brownsville, Tennessee 38012 (901) 772-1233

East Side Elementary School is located near Memphis, TN, in Brownsville, a rural community with few industries. The school serves students in grades 3-4 and has a high percentage of minority students and students receiving free or reduced lunch. East Side is considered a Title I school and has received funds for computer labs through this program. One challenge for East Side is parent support due to the large number of students bused in from outside the community and the brief two-year span that student attend. The school has two computer labs, one for each grade level, and each classroom is networked and connected to the Internet. A storage area has been converted into a technology planning and workroom for staff, complete with workstations, periodicals, and resource materials. School goals include improving test scores, expanding the use of technology in instruction, and increasing staff skills with technology. Currently, a team of teachers serves as initial learners of a technology resource that they then introduce to the other staff members. This mentor-training approach has been successful in building communities of users of various software products.In June 1999, a team of East Side Elementary  teachers attended SEIR*TEC's School Team Academy in New Orleans where they worked on a product to create a technology reference guide that maps technology into their classroom curriculum.

A Story to Tell: A Place to Call Home
Three years ago the view from the hallway of East Side Elementary School was quite different: Piles of books, old TVs on carts, broken sofas and chairs, empty boxes. Now, a glance inside is enough to cause a double take! There are computer stations with printers and Internet connections, neatly organized shelves of software and teacher materials, a rack of technology magazines, and a center work/meeting table. Yet, it is not the "stuff" in the staff technology room that causes the double take, but the people engaged in conversation at the table, the users at the computer stations, and the staff member entering to pick up a piece of software. The staff is comfortable using the room as this is the location for some of their technology training, where they meet to explore new software programs, and the site of tech team meetings with Vice-Principal Rhonda Thompson. "A place to call home" for the staff to learn about and work with technology on an on-going basis has been the technology plan initiative that has brought about an increase in integration of technology resources into lessons and the use of technology to benefit teaching and learning.

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