February 17th, 2012
Individual Speech Coaches
by Abby Ramsey
Ed-Co individual speech coaches Mrs. Holly Wille and Mrs. Pam Ostwinkle have been busy getting ready for the conference speech competition which took place on Monday, February 20th at Maquoketa Valley High School.
This year is Mrs. Ostwinkle’s first year of being the junior varsity individual speech coach at Ed-Co. To prepare for the upcoming contest, Mrs. Ostwinkle’s speech students have been practicing before and after school; memorizing, practicing and polishing their readings and stories. Some students are practicing singing and dancing for their solo musical theatre. Mrs. Ostwinkle, who is a storyteller herself, really likes coaching the category storytelling. She enjoys seeing stories come to life. “I think the speech program at Ed-Co is excellent and something to be proud of. I have watched it grow over the years and am happy to be a part of it,” Mrs. Ostwinkle said of the speech program at Ed-Co.
Mrs. Wille has been a speech coach for fourteen years. Mrs. Wille was the only individual speech coach at Ed-Co until the number of students out for speech became so high that another coach was needed. Since individual speech started, Mrs. Wille has arrived at the school each morning at 7:15 and doesn’t leave until 6 or 7 at night since before and after school time is used for speech practice. The students are working on memorizing, blocking, characterization, interpretation, while some students are polishing up their writing. Mrs. Wille has also been making sure all students are registered for contests. Among other things, Mrs. Wille has also been mentoring Mrs. Ostwinkle who is a new speech coach this year. Mrs. Wille’s favorite categories to coach include acting and storytelling. Mrs. Wille thinks that for a school our size we have a very strong speech program and have been very successful with only two coaches. Many other schools our size have three or more coaches to work with students. “I’d like to thank all of the families and members of the community who continually support our program. If you would like to see some of our talented kids perform, all contests are open to the public and we will be performing in our own community on March 4th at the high school for our annual dessert theater, which starts at 1 p.m.” Mrs. Wille added.
Student of the Week
Mrs. Anderson’s student of the week is Emily Byrnes. Besides being a hard-working student, Emily tries her best, puts in extra time working on school work, and has a great sense of humor. Keep up the good work, Emily!
Laptops becoming a Learning Distraction?
by Ali Schwietert
Waking up early five days a week and heading to school by 8:20 followed by sitting in four eighty minute classes for seven hours isn’t exactly what every high school teenager wants to do for 180 days a year. A lot of students will say it gets rather tiring or monotonous depending on the teacher, but now that Ed-Co Jr.-Sr. High School students have a MacBook right at their finger tips it has quickly become easy to become preoccupied in class with something other than class work.
The Internet opens up so many different realms of gaming sites for students to waste more of their time with but it’s not just games students are spending their class time on anymore. Other sites are pinterest.com, stumbleupon.com or regular shopping websites. There has been an increase in the number of students who are spending learning time online playing games or on social networking site that are not blocked by the school at this time. When originally given the MacBooks students were told that they were to use them as a learning source and tool to help advance their education. But it makes you wonder if the school thought about all the loopholes students would find with websites or what a hassle it could become trying to stop students from using the laptop at the incorrect time?
Ask almost any Ed-Co teacher and they’ll all tell you the same thing; it’s a large distraction when the computers are being used at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.
High school Spanish teacher Mr. Kevin Kleis commented, “It’s a terrible distraction but I don’t try to block all the sites because students just find a way to get around everything or they’ll find a new game/site to play so it’s never ending.”
Kleis has a point if you look at it from that point of view. Let’s face it, high school students don’t like to be told “no” and when they are, they just find a new way around whatever they were doing. Thus when a teacher is trying to “police” every student’s laptop it begins to take away their time to teach their students which in return takes away from the students’ education. What does a teacher do when it comes down to teenagers finding a way around the rules?
The teachers have the option of using a program called, LanSchool. This program allows teachers to block certain websites or applications at certain times, such as learning time or test time. It also carries new teaching tools and services which allow teachers to do what they come to school every day for; to teach. But ask some teachers once again why some of them are choosing to not use the security program and you hear a lot of the same answers; we teach high school students for a reason.
High school teacher, Mr. Mike Lutgen said, “If the students don’t know by now when it’s the right time to be using it then it’s certainly not teaching them anything by shutting it down. I’m not going to babysit the few that can’t make the decision and effect the others learning time by trying.”
Other teachers agree with Mr. Lutgen. Many agree that it shouldn’t have to be blocked because when a teenager is in high school they need to be taught self-discipline and by shutting down websites it simply is not the way to be doing it. However, there are certain teachers in the building who are purely fed up with the game playing and social network sites being used during learning time and those are the teachers who try and “police” the computers as much as possible.
Coming from a student’s perspective you’ll hear them all agree with each other. High school students spend a lot of time online inside and outside of school but when asked why they choose the wrong choice during school they all say it’s a way to pass time in class. I can’t say I found one student who couldn’t say they have not been on a non-class related website during class time. But as some teachers said, it is okay to be on those websites in class as long as learning time is over, the student is done with homework and up to date in class.
Even the Ed-Co Jr. - Sr. High School principal, Mrs. Dawn Voss, said she was torn on what to do with the predicament. As she said there has to come a point where the students start governing themselves after being taught when and how to use applications or social media. She does want to assure everyone that the sites and games students are spending time on are not inappropriate, it’s just not the time or place to be on them because school is a place to advance education. Mrs. Voss also stated that it is the teacher’s choice on whether or not they take a student’s computer away if they are not using it appropriately.
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