From movie trailers to podcasts, these Richland students aren’t just watching — they’re creating

Tami Simundson shared with her students a while back how she had to research for school reports when she was their age.

Instead of logging onto the Internet, she headed to the library to look up articles on microfiche.

Her students — fifth-graders at William Wiley Elementary in Richland — were amazed.

They didn’t know about microfiche. They’ve grown up in a world where information is just a mouse click or swipe away.

Simundson’s students and their peers were born in the digital technology age, and the Richland School District has launched an initiative program to harness that technology so they learn to be creators and not just consumers — and to prepare them for jobs of the future.

As of this school year, most students in the district have their own personal Chromebooks — the ratio is one Chromebook for every student in second-grade through high school, and two-to-one for kindergartners and first-graders.

Instead of using the laptops merely to take in information, students are using them to create all sorts of things that reflect their learning — from podcasts to weather forecasts to movie trailers that tie into the subjects they’re studying.

“I’m so happy that they have these opportunities. They will be competitive (in the job market),” Simundson said.

Kennewick and Pasco school districts also have similar one-to-one technology initiatives.

As the Richland district moves ahead with its initiative, it’s also putting in place curriculum to help students navigate the digital world. The digital citizenship curriculum teaches everything from password protection to resisting bullying online.

District leaders said they’re excited about the innovation they’re already seeing, as well as the future possibilities.

“As teachers, it’s important that what we do in the classroom is relevant to our students’ lives, that they’re able to communicate in ways of the future,” said Hilary Wingert, a classroom support teacher for innovation and technology, who was helping in Simundson’s class.

“Most of our students will do jobs that haven’t even been created yet, so we’ve got to speak their language. We’ve got to be able to prepare for their future, and show them that technology isn’t just a tool where you’re sitting and playing a game, but using it to create things,” she said.

“We’re doing them a disservice if we let them graduate without the tools to succeed in today’s economy,” she said.

The innovation initiative is happening thanks in large part to school district voters, who approved a technology levy in February to help with hardware and teacher training. The levy passed with 67 percent approval.

Richland students in middle and high school use their Chromebooks in class and on schoolwork at home.

Elementary school students leave the devices at school overnight.

So far, the work being done is inspiring, said Paul Chartrand, Richland’s director of technology and innovation.

At Hanford High, for example, students in a history class used their Chromebooks to make movie trailers about historic events.

Students at Enterprise Middle School are podcasting.

In Simundson’s class at Wiley, students used their laptops to make infographics about famed explorers.

The fifth-graders, working together in pairs, already had researched their explorer, writing down facts in a grid. Then they used their laptops to put together text and images into an infographic to visually communicate what they’d learned.

Estella Cervantes, 10, and Adree Chadis, 11, had the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León.

They talked excitedly about his quest for a Fountain of Youth as they built their graphics.

“I think it’s good we have the Chromebooks” because they make learning more fun, Adree said.

A couple tables over, Giovanni Viggiano, 11, and Hudson Schneider, 10, talked about British explorer Robert Falcon Scott.

He led expeditions to the Antarctic region, dying in 1912 after reaching the South Pole.

Both boys use technology at home — video games, for example, they said. So using computers at school is natural, they said.

“Chromebooks help you a lot,” Hudson said as he picked images for his infographic.