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Surveys help Frank Ohl look ahead
Photo
Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Fourth-grader Cameron Medovich (left) and fifth-grader Ethan Kalosky showed off the Nook devices they won on March 5. Parents that participated in a survey to improve the Frank Ohl website were entered into a contest for the devices, and the students won the e-readers in a random drawing.
By SARAH FOOR
Officials at Frank Ohl are revamping their web page, hoping to offer more resources that are beneficial to the needs of both parents and students.
To assure that the new site will address the needs of the Frank Ohl community, the administration sent home surveys to parents asking what they hope to find on the new page.
Encouragement to participate came in the form of two new Barnes & Noble Nook tablets to be given away to a fourth- and fifth-grader whose parents shared their opinions in the survey.
After a random drawing on March 5, fourth-grader Camron Medovich and fifth-grader Ethan Kalosky were each owners of a Nook tablet.
Kalosky already had plans for the device as soon as he received it.
“I’m going to read all day,” he said.
The Nook offer garnered enough interest to have a quarter of Frank Ohl parents respond.
Teacher Jeff Swavel, who serves on the district’s 21st Century Learning team, said the surveys provided a wealth of information that the team will move forward with.
“Parents voiced very clearly that they’d like our teachers to add links to lessons and homework assignments on the site. We hope that meeting this need will help students who miss a day of school access the information, as well as give parents a tool to offer extra help and be more involved in their student’s work,” said Swavel.
Results from the survey said that 76 percent of the families polled owned a hand-held device like a Kindle, Nook, or iPad. If permission is gained to bring the devices to school, Swavel said teachers may test ways to include the readily-available devices as interactive learning tools in the classroom.
“The surveys brought us many new ideas that we’ll be using as we move forward and try to innovate in Austintown,” Swavel said.