Thanks to a recent grant awarded to Waynesburg University, students in the Education Department will receive new technology to advance their education and the edification of others.

Earlier this semester, the university received a grant of $5,000 from First Energy to put towards technological advancements in the Education Department. With the money, Yvonne Weaver, chairperson for the Education Department, said the school would be purchasing iPads to be used in various classrooms.

“We talked about the grant and one thing the department faculty had an interest in was using iPads with our pre-service teachers,” Weaver said. “What we want to do is to be able to infuse the use of technology as we are working with pre-serviced teachers in planning lessons and delivering instructions.”

While initially students will be using the iPads in the classrooms on campus, Weaver said there are possibilities for students to take the iPads with them when they go out to teach for themselves at local schools.

“We hope that we come to the point where [students] can actually take the tool with them because as we know, technology is just another tool to teach,” Weaver said. “We are hoping that we are actually allowing students to take those iPads out into those field experiences and actually use them with [other] students.”

One area where students will have the opportunity to utilize the iPads, Weaver said, will be during specific classes held in the Spring Semester for early
childhood majors.

“There is a lot of ways we can expand,” Weaver said. “Our early childhood majors also take a technology education course, that’s a next semester course. That is someplace else we can look at using those iPads… that way they learn about the tool through that course.”

Weaver said that It is vital for the students to get hands on experience with technology before going out and becoming teachers themselves. As technology becomes more and more commonplace in the classrooms, Weaver said students must be prepared to effectively utilize it.

“Many of the school districts already have Chrome Books already in the classroom – iPads in the classrooms – they are using those tools on the regular basis with students,” Weaver said. “We need to look at how do we prepare our students to have that background to go in and do those kinds of skills.”

According to Weaver, the university is aiming to meet with representatives before Thanksgiving Break to discuss how the university can effectively use the grant money to purchase the iPads in time for the spring semester.

“Our plan is to actually meet with Apple representatives, talk about the funding that we have and see how the Apple representatives may be able to assist us financially in any way to make sure that we use our money wisely,” Weaver said.

With the help of Genna Steele, Academic Projects and Grants coordinator, the Education Department was able to find the grant through a process that has been put in place by the university and Institutional Advancement.

“We put a process in place where faculty who have funding needs contact me and then I work with Institutional Advancement to see if they have any foundations that would work with any of these needs,” Steele said. “Meanwhile, I’m looking through various databases to see if I can find any monies that could meet their needs as well.”

Both Weaver and Steele said that the university is expecting to have the iPads available for students in the Education Department by the start of the next semester.