The Research Center for Educational Technology at Kent State University will celebrate over 10 years of technology-based projects created by teachers and students from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14 in the Moulton Hall Ballroom on the Kent campus.

The event marks the 10-year anniversary of the AT&T Classroom, which serves as a unique learning and research center. The ubiquitous classroom offers state-of-the-art technology to K-16 students and teachers as the classroom becomes their “school room” for an extended, inquiry-based unit of study.

Since the classroom opened in February 1998, over 2,000 students, 100 teachers and 13 school districts have utilized the environment. A group of eight teachers, members of the AT&T Classroom cohort, bring approximately 200 students to campus during the school year. The classroom serves asa research laboratory with kids attending Monday through Friday, for six-week time periods, learning from their teachers as an intact class.

“This is a unique, one-of-a-kind place. There isn’t another K-12 research environment like this in the world,” says Dr. Dale Cook, director of the Research Center for Educational Technology. “It is a real credit to Kent State University to have this kind of research laboratory here.”

The Research Center for Educational Technology staff and researchers study how teachers instruct classes using technology while examining how children utilize new skills. In the AT&T Classroom, teachers and the students have access to any kind of technology they would ever want to learn to use, says Cook.

Recent technological additions to the classroom include the ability for researchers at other universities to conduct real-time observations. Using flat panel controls, visitors can virtually manage audio and video in the classroom.

KentState education students studying to become teachers use the classroom for observation with their professor, which means that the students don’t have to individually visit outside school districts and then return to the classroom to discuss their findings, says Patricia Mazzer, instructional specialist with the Research Center for Educational Technology.

“They can all observe together and talk about their review with their professor, right there and then,” says Mazzer.

The facility features technology including an observation room equipped with Dell computers, distance learning capabilities, Interwrite School Pads and Bluetooth technology, a set of Danas and Palm handheld computers with peripherals and a Smart Board.

To learn more about the event, call 330-672-5995 or email rcet@kent.edu.

                                                                                                  ###

Media contact:

Rachel Wenger-Pelosi, 330-672-8046 or rwenger@kent.edu