Madison Co. schools receive federal technology grants

High school science teacher Andy Felt and agriculture teacher Cindi Jones were recognized at the county school board’s July 20 meeting for helping secure the grants for the school system.

Felt gave a presentation to the school board on how the grants will help instruction at Madison County schools. One grant is for iPod “touch devices” to all students in AP biology, AP U.S. History and AP physics. There will also be five laptop “Netbooks” for classroom activities and laptops for teachers that can communicate with the iPods.

“It will allow electronic communication between teachers and students,” said Felt. “There’s a lot of that going on at the college level. It’s really getting our kids ready to take some of those online courses they’re going to be expected to take at the university level.”

The equipment will also allow teachers to gather information to assess their students. College lectures and video clips will also be accessible.

Teachers hope to increase the number and diversity of students taking AP classes, while also improving Madison County’s scores on the AP exams.

A separate Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) grant is for $691,000 split between MCHS and MCMS. This includes $86,000 for each school for professional development from the UGA Educational Technology Center, Athens Tech Bioscience Department and Texas Instruments. Another $17,000 at each school will go toward evaluation of the grant implementation, while $240,00 will go toward equipment, including some infrastructure upgrades.

The grant is intended to “teach science, math and a vocational area” as subjects with real-world applications.
“Kids will see these things are all related to each other in the real world,” said Felt.

The science teacher said the grant application included picking a vocational area of focus.

“And agriculture was the most natural choice for this community,” said Felt. “Because we know that agriculture is the lifeblood of this community.”

The grant will primarily benefit students in grades six through 10.

Equipment at each school will include: a laptop cart with 30 laptop computers, several classroom response systems and wireless slates, 12 to 15 document cameras, two SMART board and LCD projectors, four class sets of TI graphing calculators, biotech equipment, including plant tissue culture, microbiology and genetics, probeware tools to gather real-world data and microscopes with digital photography equipment.

“This is a great thing for our kids,” said Felt. “We appreciate everyone who made it happen.”