Neighborhoods of learning

Teaching Pre K-8, Nov/Dec 2001 by Romano, Katherine

Celebration School's "webcentric" vision marries technology and curriculum in an everyday cooperative learning environment

The town of Celebration, FL may have been one you have heard of before, whether or not you have ever visited. Established in 1994, Celebration, a planned community created as a special initiative of the Walt Disney Company, was founded on the cornerstones of education, health, technology, place and community. The idea of a planned community was initially met with a few raised eyebrows in the press, but Celebration has become a town that people are flocking to, and for good reason. With a growing population of 4,500, the town of Celebration has a long list of amenities to offer - a vibrant downtown area situated on a lake, gorgeous homes, nature trails, beautiful parks and recreational areas, an 18-hole public golf course... and Celebration School.

A technology showcase. Before Celebration School opened it's doors in August 1996, the Osceola County School District and the Disney Company consulted a mix of education experts from Harvard, Auburn University, Johns Hopkins, University of Minnesota and a consortium of Florida universities, as well as experts from technology corporations and learning research centers, to aid in their design of Celebration's curriculum.

Interwoven into this curriculum design was an educational technology philosophy that the staff at Celebration defines as "webcentricity" - using the Internet and technology to support the school's teaching and learning environment. As an important part of this vision, Celebration has become a "technology showcase" school, meaning that corporate partners like Sun Mi crosystems, Apple Computer, Rauland Borg and McGraw-Hill use the school to preview their latest contributions to school technology before they are released world-wide.

This past April, Teaching K-8 traveled to Celebration, FL to tour the school and find out more about its intriguing webcentric vision.

Hands and feet of technology. Our tour guide for the day was Scott Muri, the school's Instructional Technology Specialist. A National Board Certified and former middle school teacher from North Carolina, Scott now oversees Celebration's seven-person technology team, which includes an in-house, live Help Desk that kids can call when they're having technical problems such as a jammed printer, etc. As the head of the technology team at Celebration, Scott believes his position was created to help kids and teachers take the tools of technology and integrate them effectively into teaching and learning. "I want kids to see technology like they see a pencil; it's something that you pick up and use for a purpose and you put it down and move on," he said. "It's a tool that you use to make something happen; it makes your life a little easier and allows you to accomplish a goal."

According to Scott, this goal is not an easy one to reach - that is, not without the help of the "hands and feet of technology" on the Celebration campus - the team's Instructional Technology Assistants. "Their sole purpose is to work with students and teachers to help them successfully integrate the technology tools," he said. "They go in and hold the hand of a teacher or work with a group of kids and take them down the road." Scott's admiration for the school's Instructional Technology Assistants is well-deserved - this dedicated team of three women was in nearly every classroom we visited, helping kids and teachers with their questions and guiding them as they explored the worlds of technology they can visit during a typical day of learning at Celebration.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Another way in which Celebration is making waves is in the remarkably open and flexible architectural design of the school. "We wanted to do away with the word `classroom,'" Scott told us. "It puts a specific image in your mind - straight rows, teacher standing at the front, blackboard, etc."

So, if there are no classrooms, what then? Once again, Celebration has set the trend and has arranged the school into 17 "neighborhoods" each is 6,000 square feet of space with 100 students, restrooms for both teachers and students, four full-time teachers, a teaching assistant as well as specialists in music, art, wellness and technology that work in and out of the space.

Each neighborhood is also outfitted with a central hub called the "hearth" that teachers use to kick off the day and have some sort of communication with the students - whether it's to celebrate a birthday or to discuss messy restrooms. The hearth is also used for close interaction and quiet activities and is laid out as a typical family gathering spot, similar to what a student might experience in his or her own home. In addition to the hearth, neighborhoods also house a large group room, a teacher planning area, a "wet" area for sometimes gooey science and art activities, and cubbies so that each child has his or her own personal storage space. And then of course, there's the technology end of things - in the younger grades there are about 25 desktop computers in each neighborhood. In the middle school there are 30-35 computers as well as digital cameras, video cameras, printers and scanners.