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Education
North Albemarle Elementary School Students Have Technology Edge
Laura Kerr, principal of North Albemarle Elementary School, has used technology as a tool to help students grow.
North Albemarle Elementary School‚ which was built in 1949 to educate the children of area textile mill workers‚ finds itself on the educational cutting edge‚ thanks to Principal Laura Kerr’s efforts to make 21st-century technology available to her students.
Since arriving at the Albemarle school in 2005‚ Kerr has worked tirelessly to outfit fourth- and fifth-grade students with laptop computers and to open new learning avenues for all 330 students in prekindergarten through fifth grade.
The result is The Horizon Project‚ which was implemented during the 2006-07 school year and‚ by all accounts‚ is a resounding success.
Kerr’s efforts haven’t gone unnoticed: She was named one of the 2007 Wachovia Bank Regional Principals of the Year for the Southwest Region of North Carolina.
“When I came‚ this is what I wanted to do‚” Kerr says. “Our goal was we’d use technology as a tool to accelerate growth and thinking for these students. It helps us fill in the experiential gaps with real-world experience. They learn with tools that are 21st-century tools that they respond to – tools that have depth and are interactive.”
Using the school’s Title I funds to make the purchase from Apple Computer Inc.‚ all fourth- and fifth-graders received their own laptops to use‚ and third-graders are next in line to receive computers. In addition‚ all teachers have a laptop‚ and younger students have regular access to computers.
“The technology we have here is a tool – but it’s a tool that accelerates a higher order of thinking‚” Kerr says. “We know it’s made a palpable difference in [the students’] view of education.”
Kerr says there also has been improvement in attendance‚ less tardiness and fewer discipline problems.
“I think we’re on the precipice of education catching up to the way the world works‚” Kerr says‚ “and I think we have to be.”
Story by Anne Gillem
Photo by Ian Curcio
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