Kindergarteners team up with older buddies
When she first thought about taking the Intel® Teach Program Marika Koch wondered if technology had a place in her Kingman, Arizona, kindergarten class. “As soon as I hit on the idea of having my students work with bigger buddies, technology for the ‘Bears’ unit fell right into place,” she says.

Before teaching the unit, Marika collaborated with an interested fifth-grade teacher to plan activities and schedule a common work time for their students. To make their cooperative venture work, each teacher had to accept trade-offs, such as missing a library session or a preparation period, but both thought the teamed instruction was worth it. In the process of helping kindergarteners learn about bears, fifth graders learned technology and research skills that were appropriate for their grade. After helping younger students sort and count colorful gummy bears, older buddies learned to use a spreadsheet to graph color frequency and the results from a Favorite Flavors poll. Fifth- graders found interesting books and Web sites for their young friends, and in the process learned to make research queries on the Internet and cite references for a bibliography.

Measured approach
When deciding how to use computers in her kindergarten classroom, Marika took a measured approach. “At this grade level, I use technology predominately for presenting instruction,” she says. “Presentation technology such as a slideshow gives me one more method for delivering instruction, and it makes learning visual and exciting.” Marika takes student work and presents it electronically, too. Recently, she scanned student artwork and put it in a slideshow for a parent night presentation. In terms of using computers themselves, Marika found it made sense to pair students with older buddies when they worked on projects involving technology. “This unit is more of an introduction for kindergarteners, more of an exposure to computers to show what they can do,” she says, “And I think that’s appropriate, developmentally.”

Hualapai Elementary School
Marika’s instructor for the Intel® Teach Program is also the technology teacher for Hualapai Elementary. “Between having the course and a great specialist on our staff, the technology competence has been raised at our school. The people who took the course in the fall really talked it up, and in the spring, other folks jumped right in.” When asked what she’d like to do next, Marika says, “A second class would be nice, for the opportunity to focus on another unit!”

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