Carolyn Beardshear: ICE Teacher of the Year

Carolyn Beardshear, a German teacher at Noblesville High School, has been named Teacher of the Year by the Indiana Computer Educators.

Mrs. Beardshear was honored during the recent ICE conference in Indianapolis. The award recognizes a project entitled "Durch meine Augen/Through My Eyes" that her fifth-year German students completed during the 1999-2000 school year.

Although the award was given to Mrs. Beardshear, she emphasizes that it is the work of her students and that of students at the Angersgymnasium school in Jena, Germany, that made the award possible.

"They are the ones who did the work," she said.

For Mrs. Beardshear, the recognition from ICE has underlined the support - especially from Lorie Homan, technology coordinator at NHS - that she and other teachers receive for their work to integrate technology into the curriculum.

"It occurs to me how many people support my efforts to use technology. These projects require help from the entire technology staff; it's not just work by the teacher who facilities the projects," she said.

"Because we are on the leading edge of technology, we are encouraged to try new things," she continued. "We know if we fail at it, that's OK, but we are encouraged to try new things and we are encouraged by everyone in the school."

Assistance comes from outside the school as well. As Noblesville German students were gathering information for their projects, representatives from the Buddy Project came in to train the students in building web pages and included many high-end techniques in the training.

During the Durch meine Augen project, students at NHS and Angersgymnasium interviewed people of all ages about pivotal events of the 20th century. Using the internet and e-mail, the two groups of students compared their observations and created web pages based on each topic discussed.

Their work may be viewed on the Noblesville Schools' website, www.nobl.k12.in.us. Click on the High School link at the top of the page. Select the "Academics" and then the "Buddy Projects" links.

The student interviews focused on events such as World War II, the building and fall of the Berlin Wall, communism, the Cold War, the moon landing, the Vietnam War, Chernobyl, space exploration, alcohol and drug use in past decades, and patriotism and national pride.

Because the Angersgymnasium is located in the former East Germany, the students found that the thoughts of older Germans on several issues differed greatly from the American view.

"The perspectives of the students' parents and grandparents were greatly different from those of our students' parents and grandparents, but views of students from both countries were very similar," Mrs. Beardshear noted.

She suggested that student views were similiar because the teenagers were only about eight years old when the Berlin Wall came down and Germany was reunited.

"Durch meine Augen" showed students that the German language is not an end onto itself, but a tool for communicating with 90 million other people, Mrs. Beardshear said.

"The vocabulary they learned was real and not textbook language. Their motivation to read and comprehend subtelties of meaning was greatly enhanced, knowing they were reading about the lives of real people," she said.

The success of project was due in part to a grant from the "Buddy Project." Mrs. Beardshear was one of the first high school teachers to receive a grant that ensures that each student has a computer in his home.

Although most of her fifth-year students did have computers with an internet connection at home, several did not. The Buddy Project grant provided 40 percent of the funds to purchase computers for those students to use, and Noblesville Schools provided the balance of funds needed. Those computers are now in use at NHS.

The relationship Mrs. Beardshear's class shares with students at Angersgymnasium is long standing. Two years ago, students in both countries worked together on a project about the construction and eventual fall of the Berlin Wall. That project also utilized e-mail and web pages to share the thoughts of Americans and Germans on the topic.

Mrs. Beardshear received a "Golden Apple Award" in recognition of her use of technology in teaching for that project.

Technology has greatly affected the way Mrs. Beardshear teaches.

"I am no longer the most authentic and up-to-date source of German language and culture for my students," she said. "Internet commercial and educational sites, sound and movie files, my students' e-mail partners in Germany, and German chat rooms are now sources for all things contemporary."

As a result, she finds her role as a teacher is shifting.

"My challenge now is to take the vast resources available to students, to filter them through my 26 years of experience, and structure my students' daily experience so they can learn effectively and efficiently from these new sources."

Mrs. Beardshear finds she can address all learning styles better because students can find sites and topics which relate to their interests and use a level of language with which they are comfortable.

And, she says, technology gives her students additional ways to show what they know and to learn from others. For example, advanced German students have put children's books into hypertext and NHS now has a digital library of books for beginning and intermediate German students to browse through in its language lab.

Technology also has enhanced the student exchange program that NHS shares with a school in Usingen, Germany. Access to e-mail has allowed both American and German students to know each other better before travelling and to stay in close contact after the visits.

The result of that, Mrs. Beardshear says, is that the German textbook with its outmoded "school German" is being replaced by communications with friends and families in Germany.