Teachers in Demopolis are working hard to bring their classrooms into the 21st Century, but a lot of times, high tech equals high cost.

U.S. Jones Elementary School teacher Mary Stuedeman has been able to bring technology into her third-grade class through grant money, enabling her students to work on the cutting edge.

One bank of laptop computers helps quiz students on spelling words and vocabulary, timing their responses through puzzles and games using the words.

“It’s a different way to quiz the students through the week on vocabulary words and memorization,” Stuedeman said.

The students are not just learning their classwork through the computers; they are learning how to use the computers themselves, setting up their lesson plans, printing pages and photos and working the high-tech scanners called Elmos.

This Elmo is not the furry red Muppet from Sesame Street who always talks in the third person. This Elmo is a scanner that can read books or pages instantly and project them on a screen in front of the class. It provides a way for the entire class to look at something at the same time, like a textbook or a student’s work.

Classroom technology also includes portable advanced reading centers that allow the students to take advanced reading tests at their desks and write stories. Students can send the stories to Stuedeman’s main computer, where she can correct them.

The classroom also has listening centers, where students can hear books on compact discs.

The classrooms in Demopolis are advancing with the times, using the convenience and capabilities of modern technology to help students learn more and make learning more fun. It teaches our students not only the things they learn in each class, but also how to use the modern technology, which will be important in years of education to come.