Business
(2009-08-04)
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COLUMBIA, MO
(KBIA) -
Federal stimulus funds continue to be awarded in Missouri, and this time, it's to help improve technology in schools. KBIA's Maureen McCollum has more.
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The grant funds will help develop and improve technology in the classroom and also train teachers to use technology-based education methods. Fourteen Missouri school districts will share the $4 million dollars in federal money. Almost $200,000 is going to Columbia schools and almost $400,000 to Sedalia. Governor Jay Nixon will tout the grant award at an elementary school in Sedalia Wednesday.
Enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Strategies, or eMINTS, is a program headquartered in Columbia that works to develop the best technology practices for teachers. It works with schools nationwide, and will partner with most of the Missouri schools receiving federal money.
Executive director Monica Beglau says eMINTS strives to transform how children learn and teachers use technology. She says technology can motivate students to learn, and their program brings it to the classrooms.
"Not only did they learn to use technology for things that we do on our jobs everyday, such as word processing or managing data, but they actually begin to use technology as a way to help them solve problems and do research on interesting projects that teach them some of the concepts that we want them to learn as they grow up and become out next citizens."
Beglau says with the grant money, some schools will be able to expand eMINTS to multiple classrooms. Other states receving the same federal stimulus money, including Delaware, have also decided to hire eMINTS to help with technology expansion.
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