Cosgriff's computer lab stacks up against the best

Intermountain Catholic

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Computer teacher Karen Smith gets J.E. Cosgriff Memorial School students involved in technology early. Here she introduces kindergartners to the commands they will need to know to work in the school's computer lab. IC photo By Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — The newly expanded computer lab at J.E. Cosgriff Memorial Elementary School is always abuzz with activity. Not only do classes from pre-kindergarten on up cycle through the lab on a daily basis, but teachers make ample use to the lab, too. All of the activity delights computer teacher Karen Smith, a Texas native who left her heart in Australia on her way to Salt Lake City.

Smith’s goals for expanding the technology program at Cosgriff School have included building a budget and acquiring computer, routers, keyboards, and monitors from wherever she could find them.

"I am enormously grateful to the McCarthey family for their financial support of this program," Smith told the Intermountain Catholic. "In addition, Jim Duane from Juan Diego Catholic High School has donated equipment to us as well as to Our Lady of Lourdes School and the Madeleine Choir School. He received a number of computers and parts from the Internal Revenue Service and ALSCO, and all of us have made good use of that generous gift."

The Cosgriff computer lab has 36 functioning computers, servers, routers, and a storage closet full of spare parts. Smith is as adept at taking computers apart and putting them back together as she is using them to solve problems and so research.

"Even our pre-school students spend time in the lab," she said. "They are getting acquainted with the keyboard, playing educational computer games, and learning to spell simple words and add."

Students from pre-kindergarten through grade eight spend a least one hour a week working with Smith, who has integrated everything she teaches with the school’s core curriculum. "Everything is integrated, so the students can take what they’ve learned from one class into another."

Smith has developed a technology profile – goals for each student to strive for as they move toward graduation and high school. Those goals include each student developing an understanding of basic computer components and terminology, including familiarity with hardware and software items; a basic understanding of the configuration of computer systems, both stand-alone and networks; an understanding of basic computer operation and proper procedures; propter keyboard techniques; proficiency in using components of Microsoft® Office; Internet research proficiency; problems and dangers of the use of computer technology; and the ethical use of computer technology.

Smith has accomplished all of this in only her second year of teaching at Cosgriff.

Students file into the lab, where Smith is assisted by teachers and parent-volunteers. She quiets the students by playing tones on a toy xylophone, then explains the lesson for the day. Fourth-graders are learning to write and copy sentences on the computer, while eighth-graders are comparing relational databases. Fifth-graders are using the Internet to research a project in social sciences. All students are generating documents appropriate to their levels of learning.

"Eventually, our second-graders will begin to study multi-media issues that will prepare them for developing presentations with animation," Smith said.

Smith worked in the public sector and taught on the college level. "But I decided I wanted to give back to Catholic schools what they’d given my five children," she said. "That’s when I started developing a technology profile for high school-bound students. I’ve gotten good input from the administration here, teachers, parent, and students."

Smith said including lessons on the ethical use of technology is important in any school setting, and will help students avoid some of the dangerous pitfalls of undisciplined use of technology, especially the Internet.

"By the eighth grade, our students are capable of taking a computer apart and putting it back together again so it works," she said.

Smith makes an annual presentation to the school technology committee – a kind of "State of Technology Address," in which she lays out plans for Cosgriff’s future technology use and purchases. "It is very goal-oriented...

"I’ve never worked in a school where there was such wonderful support from the administration, other teachers, and parents," Smith said. "It’s a joy to be here."

Her joy in her work is one reason why the Christmas holidays found Smith and her husband installing 20 new computers in the Cosgriff lab using donations from American Linen Supply Co., Jim Kearns, and Robert Steiner.

"This is an extremely powerful program," Smith said. "I’d put it up against any program in the country that uses state-of-the-art computers."