Hewlett Elementary School introduces tech design class

You’ll see more Chromebooks, laptops that run Google’s own operating system, than notebooks when you look around Kristina Gallagher’s Tech Design class.

Gallagher’s class was working with a group of second-graders, teaching them the basics of coding and programming on Dec. 11. Fifth-graders are assigned a Chromebook and a younger student before working with them on a variety of projects. It’s the 11th session they’ve done, she said, and that her students have been working with third and fourth-graders as well. “[The fifth-graders] are acting as mentors,” Gallagher said. “It’s their favorite, because it’s flexible.”

In the first school year where Hewlett Elementary School has departmentalized the class schedule for fifth grade students — the students change classrooms for different subjects — administration officials believed this was a great opportunity to have the students become more familiar with technology by offering this new course.

Tech Design is not totally reliant on technology. Students also made a roller coaster out of paper towel rolls and “balloon rockets,” which were fifth-grader Dylan Reyes’ favorite project so far. Reyes also likes mentoring the younger students, and is impressed with how much they already know about computers.

“I don’t know it’s just fun, like helping them it just feels good,” he said when asked what was his favorite part of being a mentor. His mentee, Jake Tucker, a second-grader said the puzzles they sometimes solve on the laptops are his favorite part.

These exercises are just one part of the larger program to incorporate the SAMR Model of Technology Integration. It’s a system where the integration of technology increases with each step.

Substitution is the first level, which is similar to having students take notes on a tablet, rather than handwriting them. Augmentation means that using technology has improved the exercise, such as using the tablet to share notes.

The Hewlett-Woodmere School District is hoping to eventually reach the levels of modification and redefinition, where technology allows students and teachers to accomplish common classroom tasks easier and eventually new tasks that wouldn’t be possible without the technology.

Besides opening new horizons for what the children can learn, the categories help teachers examine exactly what a new technology will do. Introducing new technologies only to have to turn around and tell the students, actually we won’t be using this would be confusing for them. “We’ve been talking about meaningful technology integration,” said Amanda Kavanagh, district director of Instructional and Administrative Technology. “So often it just feels like another tool. We’re really stepping back and saying if we’re going to use technology, then we really need to understand the purpose.”

The program is associated with the district’s implementation of Makerspaces, places where students can creatively solve problems together with less supervision from their teachers. In Gallagher’s class, children can work with technology or old-fashion tools, and it’s been a hit with the students so far.

“We’ve also developed a Makerspace recess program for students that have chosen to forego outdoor recess, to go into the Makerspaces on a two- or three-week rotation,” said Hewlett Elementary Principal Christopher Uccellini. He then added that they’ve had nearly 160 kids sign up so far.

It’s the district’s hope that students can take the skills they learn here and incorporate them into other academic subjects. “It’s all interwoven,” Kavanagh said, “It’s embedded into everything we’re doing. So these skills these children are learning are then going into their other classes with them.”