Small Texas Town Offers Big Lessons in Teaching with Technology

Canutillo, a Texas border town along the Rio Grande River, boasts a school district that is winning national attention for success using technology to enhance teaching.

Canutillo, Texas, might seem an unlikely place to look for educational innovation. The tiny town, just a 15 minute drive from Mexico, is poor and has few community resources. But the richness of some public school programs offered to Canutillo's mostly Hispanic students would put many large, wealthy cities to shame.

Consider the most recent success at Canutillo Elementary, a pre-K to sixth grade school of 783 students, all of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch subsidies. For 90 percent of the students, English is their second language.

With HP's help, in March of this year, 34 sixth graders completed a 26-minute documentary video, The History of Canutillo, which is taking their local community by storm, while winning statewide and national honors. The dual-language students (instruction is provided in Spanish and English) spent more than 300 hours researching the history of their town, interviewing residents, taking field trips to local points of interest, and filming, editing and producing the documentary.

"No one had ever recorded the history of Canutillo before," says teacher Susan C. Smith, who led a five-member teaching team. "Everyone loved the project, because we were telling their story." The film's premiere in the school cafeteria drew 460 people-almost 10 percent of the town population. All four local television stations featured the documentary in newscasts, and the local PBS channel may broadcast the video in its entirety.

Canutillo Elementary was one of 197 K-12 schools and two- and four- year colleges and universities selected from 2200 applicants to receive 2004 US HP Technology for Teaching awards. They are one of two schools in the Canutillo Independent School District to win grants through this program over the past two years. Each grant is worth $35,000 in HP products, cash and support. "The awards support HP's goal of transforming education by promoting innovative use of technology to accelerate learning," says Rachael Bertone, education program manager in HP's Philanthropy and Education department. "For such a small district to win two awards is very unusual."

Using five HP Tablet PCs, an HP digital camera, five HP multimedia digital projectors, and an HP Officejet, along with a video camera and other equipment on hand, the Canutillo Elementary students recorded the first history of their community. For example, students looked at the ecosystem of the Rio Grande, charted bird migrations, and filmed social rituals such as burying the town's dead. (Out of economic necessity, community members often join together to bury their own.)

The project emphasized students investigating and discovering things for themselves," says Rachael.

Susan praises the HP Technology for Teaching grant initiative for emphasizing teamwork, plus a rich mentoring program provided by HP through its partnership with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). "In the five years I've been teaching here, this was the first time the five sixth grade teachers all came together to work as a group," says Susan. "And ISTE saved us countless hours of stumbling around."

HP grant award recipients like Canutillo whose projects went well in 2004 won the chance to apply for an additional $2 million in HP grants this year. On June 28, HP announced that Canutillo was among 25 schools receiving a 2005 HP Technology for Teaching Leadership grants.