RESERVE — West St. John Elementary School recently showed off the results of a seven-week pilot program to integrate technology into the classroom.

The Feb. 23 tour of the connected classroom was open to community members, educators and others to gain a better understanding of how the St. John the Baptist Parish Public School District is using technology to teach its students.

“Technology has always been here, but we needed to find a different way to use it to get our students more engaged in some of the lessons, and we saw that engagement today,” West St. John Elementary School Principal Chantell Walker said. “Their minds are so busy and they are distracted by so many things. If we can get them more engaged in class by using technology, they will learn even more.”

The initiative was developed and implemented through the St. John the Baptist Parish Educational Technology Department. For seven weeks, a teacher was pulled out of the classroom and into training on different ways to integrate technology.

During the same time, teacher Wendi Tierney would go into the classroom with other teachers to work with them to better use technology.

AXI Education Solutions consultants were available on an as-needed basis.

The pilot was an effort to have teachers utilize available technology to its full potential, while also determining if using this method of professional development is more effective than days set aside outside of the classroom.

West St. John High School teacher Nelann Taylor gave guests their own handheld responders to demonstrate how the technology can be used at the high school level for students to respond to multiple choice questions and show data for correct and incorrect answers, as well as to input text that can be immediately displayed on the board.

West St. John Civic Association member Warren Coleman said it is incredible how many people live in the area and do not realize what is taking place in public schools.

“It’s incredible to live here and not realize what is taking place, what our teachers are doing, what the community is doing and what those surrounding the teachers are doing to support the teachers to enhance education and to prepare students with the necessary competencies to get a job within the parish, the tri-parishes, the state or the world,” he said.

“Before we talk football, before we even talk about all the other things we love to talk about, we need to say, ‘Do you realize what the school system is doing for our kids?’ We are proud of the students we’ve turned out throughout the years without technology. Think about with this type of technology what we can do, how we can challenge companies to come in here and say, ‘We have students who can do this job.’”