ShawneeDispatch.com

National School Board Association members watched politely, nodded their approval and asked sensible questions Monday afternoon as Lexington Trails Middle School science teacher Wendy Karr navigated her class through a technology assisted lesson.

Using a projected image of a real sheep's heart, Karr's students and their guests identified its chambers.

They traced the flow of blood through one ventricle to the next using a stylus, white board and projected online diagram.

As a group, students highlighted and read about functions of the heart's various parts on an educational science Web site.

But no amount of technology replaced the innate need of sixth-graders to charge the front of the room and stick their fingers in the aorta after the important guests left.

"And we do that, too," Karr laughed as students poked and prodded at the cold, rubbery specimen. "If they want to."

The National School Board Association, or NSBA, chose De Soto USD 232 as one of three stops nationwide on its 2005 education technology site visit tour. This week a charter busload of visitors made their way through district buildings and classrooms to see examples of technology at work for schools.

John Canuel, an NSBA member whose home district is in Golden, Colo., attended Karr's class and said he liked what he saw: science was taught with the help of technology, not the other way around.

"The emphasis was on science," he said. "The technology was secondary, which is what we want."

Lexington Trails has enough laptop computers for each student to carry one throughout the day.

According to the district's technology plan, increasing numbers of laptop computers are scheduled to be added at other schools through 2010, with middle and high schools eventually reaching a 1:1 ratio.

All district schools are on schedule to have thin client, a remote wireless computing system, installed by the end of this summer.

The district tagged $8.6 million for technology in its most recent bond issue, passed in November 2002 for $76 million. Though designs for a new middle school came in over budget and one of three planned elementary schools was dropped from the bond schedule in December, technology dollars were not reduced.

Responding to NSBA visitors' questions, Karr explained how daily checkout worked, how often teachers used laptops, how the computers held up under middle school wear and tear and how the filtering system worked.

Canuel then asked students: "What's the best thing and the hardest thing about having the laptops?"

Students said they liked always having a computer to themselves and that it was more fun to click through online lessons than read a textbook.

The hardest things, students reported, were carrying the computers around school -- your hands get tired, one boy said -- and not being able to take them home at night to work on.

Karr said technology also made it easier to communicate with parents. They can log on to the district's portal just like students to see their assignments, grades and work in progress.

"Kids, how many of your parents get the e-mail every week?" she asked the students participating in the demonstration.

All raised their hands.

"How many of your parents check it to see how you're doing?"

Most students sighed heavily and rolled their eyes, leaving their hands up.

Retired science teacher and NSBA member Sue Switzer, Indianapolis, said she would have loved to be able to use technology when she was teaching school like Karr did Monday.

"I love it," Switzer said. "It just opens up so many avenues to actually facilitate your teaching."