by Gary Jahrig

In East Helena, schoolchildren are telling new TALES that bring to life the history of the old mining town. They wouldn’t be able to do so without the help of UM’s Technology and Learning in Every School (TALES) outreach program.

“It’s a marvelous thing,” says Larry Matchett, the technology coordinator for East Helena schools. “It’s allowed us to put technology in the classroom and integrate it into our curriculum. Not just computers, but all technology. It’s changed the way teachers teach. They love it. It’s been very well received.”

The TALES program, in its third year, is the product of a $9.1 million federal grant from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the largest educational grant ever awarded in Montana. Administered through UM’s School of Education, TALES is designed to improve staff development and technology in K-12 schools across the state.

Rick van den Pol, a UM education professor who directs the program, says TALES provides a needed shot in the arm to cash-strapped Montana school districts that do not have the resources to bolster their own technology budgets. But he says administrators at the UM School of Education also realize that making sure teachers know how to use the technology is just as important as acquiring equipment. “We know it takes time for teachers to develop skills,” van den Pol says.

“The first thing we were concerned with was raising their comfort level with technology,” he says. “A lot of us who have been in education for a while didn’t use technology and, to some extent, have been intimidated by it. We had to figure out how to build a comfort level. We decided the best way to do that was to have teachers look at something that was meaningful for them and put together a story about it.”

UM education faculty selected 13 Montana school districts to take part in TALES. Along with East Helena, others benefiting from the UM outreach program are Missoula’s Target Range and Loyola Sacred Heart High School, and schools in Corvallis, Helena, Polson, Superior, Billings, Cascade, Lincoln, St. Ignatius, St. Regis and Townsend. Each school receives about $75,000 per year for five years. The money pays for an on-site technology coordinator, computers, software and other technological tools.

Telling TALES
The first task for each teacher participating in TALES was to use the new technological tools to tell a personal tale.

“They ranged from mom and dad’s 50th wedding anniversary to a child’s senior year in high school to a trip to China to adopt a baby girl,” says Jo Jakupcak, an assistant professor in UM’s education school who works with teachers in the TALES program. Once the personal stories are told, the on-site technology coordinator works with teachers across grade levels and curricula to develop a program where their students can tell tales related to the community they live in.

“They’re charged with telling a Montana tale, across the curriculum,” Jakupcak says. “And sometimes it’s hard to cross disciplines. For many teachers, this is the first time they’ve been asked to integrate their curriculum with other teachers.”
That’s where the expertise at UM’s School of Education comes in handy. Education faculty members regularly meet with TALES coordinators to help them use the technology they have acquired to tell their stories.

“A lot of our teaching faculty take this on as part of their teaching duties,” says van den Pol. “It helps fulfill our service mission. We also have a lab in the Education Building that is reserved for people from these schools to come to Missoula and work. We provide someone to work with them.

“I think we all recognize that this is part of the mission of the University.”

David Erickson, director of professional development for the education school, says teacher training does not end at college graduation. He points out that the TALES program provides a great outlet for UM educators to continue helping teachers improve their classroom skills.

“The School of Education is in the business of preparing professional educators,” Erickson says. “Just because you graduate, it doesn’t mean you’re done learning. It’s a lifetime development, especially with the technology involved now, which changes from day to day.”

Another requirement of the TALES program is that each school must demonstrate some form of outreach in its own community.

“We reach out to the schools; they reach out to the community,” says Jakupcak. “They go out and find students in homes where they don’t have technology and invite them into the schools.”

Says van den Pol, “The whole philosophy of outreach from the University to the schools has been extended as outreach into the community.”

For example, in St. Regis the TALES coordinator has arranged for a computer in the town post office to give community members access to the Internet.

At Target Range in Missoula, parents and neighborhood residents are invited into the school for TALES activities.

Matchett, in East Helena, can’t say enough good things about TALES.

“We’ve been able to use the money to buy each teacher a computer,” he says. “We’ve really been able to integrate technology into our curriculum and change the way teachers teach.”

High-tech history
The first TALES project tackled in East Helena saw students compile a multi-media presentation on the history of the Main Street School, which served the community for 100 years before closing two years ago. A different group of students set up a walking tour of East Helena. The students highlighted historical sites and installed signs detailing points of interest around town.

“These were done by different kids from different schools,” Matchett says. “We have three schools participating all told.”

Matchett also mentions a component of the program where grant money is used to provide computers to community residents.

“We lease computers to disadvantaged families at no cost so they can have them in their homes,” he says. “We’ve got 15 leased out already, and we will put out another 15 this year. We also open our library and computer lab to the community in the evenings because we don’t have a public library in East Helena.”

Perhaps most important, Matchett says the interaction and funding provided by UM has proved to be an important morale booster in East Helena schools.

“It’s allowed us to actually treat teachers like professionals,” he says. “We can pay them for training time and time after school. ... It’s even allowed me to work as a technology coordinator. There would be no funding for that otherwise.”

For more information about Montana TALES, contact the School of Education at (406) 243-5344.