Crestview to share literacy program

COLUMBIANA — Crestview Elementary teachers who devised a program to affect early literacy in their school have been asked to share their expertise with other educators from across Ohio.

The eTech Competitive Professional Development Grant Team will be sharing its technology-related knowledge with thousands of teachers, technology coordinators, administrators, pupils and others at Ohio’s largest educational technology conference Feb. 12-14 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

Susan Kershner, Lori Yuhaniak, Becky Garrod, Lisa Rudloff and Sue Weber successfully applied for a $20,000 eTech grant last spring to develop their program.

The money paid for Palm Pilots, a tablet PC and specialized software, as well as extensive professional development the teachers used to enroll in “Action Research in the Classroom,” an online course offered through eTech and Kent State University.

Team members then developed an action research proposal over the summer and implemented it this fall.

The program basically involves analyzing data collected on progress made by their pupils and then creating technology-related specialized intervention activities and adjusting their teaching based on the information gained, in order to improve early reading skills.

ETech Ohio holds an annual Educational Technology Conference to enhance the use of technology in education. It includes hands-on workshops, demonstrations of state-of-the-art technology and presentations of successful uses of technology in the classroom.

ETech Ohio was created in July 2005 to merge the technology functions and support provided by the Ohio Educational Telecommunications Network Commission (OET) and the Ohio SchoolNet Commission (OSNC).

OSNC has worked to make Ohio a leader in educational technology for the K-12 classroom since the agency's inception in 1994. The SchoolNet wiring project successfully connected more than 92,000 classrooms to the Internet for data, voice and video network.