Don't throw away those pens and notebooks yet. But enterprising teachers in one rural district have found that computers can be useful tools in teaching writing skills to eighth-graders.

Teachers in the Jeffersonville-Youngsville district collaborated in 1997 to get a $71,000 federal Goals 2000 grant and turn it into a computerized writing laboratory that has both "raised the bar" and "leveled the playing field" for JYCS students, said teacher Linda Szymkowiak.

Looking ahead to the state's new standards, teachers thought about what eighth-graders should know and how technology could be integrated to help some reach Regents-level writing.

"We had started to do a fully included class together, and we developed a whole new curriculum to go with it," Szymkowiak said. In doing that, they formulated ideas for how computers could improve learning for regular and special ed students working together.

The members of the Jeffersonville-Youngsville Faculty Association, whose president is Joseph Dayton, did not set out to get a roomful of computers just for the sake of having the equipment. The plan was driven by curriculum, said social studies teacher Carol Slotkin. The computers are just new tools.

"This is not a computer room - this is an English classroom," said Slotkin, a member of the New York State United Teachers Board of Directors. "Despite having all this technology, you still have to teach."

Said Szymkowiak, "How I teach has been enhanced by the technology."

Many students are stifled in their writing by poor organizational skills or a lack of spelling acumen. This can be especially true for students who have Individualized Education Programs, Szymkowiak said; the technology helps them overcome those obstacles.

"The way the information is delivered is different," Slotkin said. "It's visual, it's in motion, and it's interactive." It departs dynamically from lecture-based instruction that did not work well for some students.

Szymkowiak planned the writing lab with Slotkin and special education teacher Carol Bliefernich. They drew up the proposal in the spring of 1997 and implemented the writing lab that fall.

'The Learning Project'

Szymkowiak, an English teacher, designed "The Learning Project," a technology-based eighth-grade writing curriculum. Students enhance their critical thinking and school-to-work skills through long-term projects in which they learn about how they learn.

Students who were hesitant to write anything at the beginning of that first year were more willing to try this. "They dove into it," Szymkowiak said. All 65 students passed their English 8 writing requirements.

The project also advanced a goal of the JYCS School-to-Work Program to integrate the program into K-12 curricula. It emphasizes career awareness, as well as workplace skills, Slotkin said.

The students work on writing projects that teach workplace competencies identified by the U.S. Secretaries' (of Education and Labor) Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills.

SCANS competencies include knowing how:

• to allocate time, money, materials and human resources;

• to acquire, interpret and communicate information;

• to participate in a team, teach, negotiate, and work with cultural diversity; and

• to monitor and correct performance, improve and design systems.

Students also work on research projects that require them to decide how to allocate time and resources, and evaluate sources of information from the school's network and the Internet.

Szymkowiak was one of seven JY teachers who developed school-to-work projects in 1997-98. The projects provide students in elementary, middle and secondary grades with opportunities to see the connection between what is learned in school and skills needed in the workplace and college, Slotkin said. Most of the projects are being implemented this school year.

A computer novice when the project was conceived, Szymkowiak said she learned not to be intimidated by the unknown.

She encourages other teachers to take it step by step. "Don't be afraid of the technology," she said. "You just have to learn one piece at a time."

- Hoskin