New tech super
Living a vibrant life of change



GUILDERLAND — The first-ever tech supervisor for the Guilderland schools is a model for what she preaches.
"Our charge as educators is to prepare kids for change," said Kathryn Perry. "We don’t know what the world will be like, except that we know that it will be different."

She cites data from Richard Riley, the nation’s former education secretary, that the 10 jobs most in demand in 2010 did not exist in 2004.

The job Perry holds today, the career and technology supervisor for a suburban school district, did not exist when she was a Cornell student, majoring in nutritional sciences.

She grew up in Wappingers Falls, the youngest of four children with a stay-at-home mom and an IBM-engineer father.
She loved school — all of it. "I loved sports, I loved lunch, I loved science," said Perry. She swam and ran cross-country and track, talked with her many friends in the cafeteria, and pursued science with a passion.
At Cornell, her love of learning expanded. "It was that exhausting kind of on-the-edge-of-your-seat learning," she said. "It was exciting and a challenge."
"I wanted to teach," Perry said. "I had a passion for health and happiness and family values."

She believes someone can earn $200,000 a year and be spiritually vacant and unhappy while someone else may earn a tenth of that but have a fulfilled and happy life.

Perry’s first job, after graduating in 1982, was teaching home economics and social studies at a West Point post middle school run by the United States Department of Defense for the children of parents stationed at the military academy.
Her students were very motivated, she said. "The ‘be all you can be’ mentality eked out into the children," she said. "All these kids with really diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds were united through the Army culture."

In her Wappingers Falls public school in the 1970s, home ec classes had been strictly for girls while shop classes had been for boys. By 1982, both boys and girls were taking the classes together.
"The mission has always been the same — to prepare the whole child. But the specific nature of the apparatus has changed as society has changed," said Perry.
As the youngest teacher at the West Point school, Perry recalled, "I was the expert in technology because I had just graduated from college"I evolved into being the computer education coordinator and taught math."

She went on to pursue graduate studies at the University at Albany, earning a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with emphasis in educational psychology. Her dissertation was on the development of conditional reasoning abilities in early adolescence.
She posed problems, using if-then statements "to tease out what was going on," Perry said.

She described several theories on the subject that ranged from domain-specific, meaning reasoning only develops through content, to abstract formal reasoning, totally devoid of content.
"A bunch of curricula was based on that," said Perry.
Her research led her to this conclusion: "A student has to be developmentally ready for certain types of instruction or it won’t take."
She also discovered, "When problems deal with significant content — not some random thing — kids do learn to reason through computer programming."
Perry taught teachers at The College of Saint Rose and then, in 1999, went to work for the Mohonasen School District as a technology coordinator. "I was excited to get back into technology," she said. She helped teachers integrate technology into their curricula.
"The teachers that are fearful at first are the most exciting to work with," said Perry. "The reward is amplified. Their excitement over conquering something they were afraid of is the greatest thing to witness — it’s a transformation."

Tech a priority

Perry applied for the Guilderland job because she’s always up for a challenge. The newly-created post pays $81,500. The school board last year made it a priority to improve technology education at Guilderland and the new post is part of that initiative.

Twelve people applied for the job, said Superintendent Gregory Aidala, and the decision to hire Perry was unanimous.

The board this year is considering a $27 million bond vote that includes $5.7 million for technology and safety.
The technology improvements include upgrading cabling in all seven school buildings with dedicated wiring and power distributions. Each classroom will have a projector and there will be 10 "smart boards," which allow students to see and work a computer on a huge screen by the touch of a pen or finger, in each elementary school and 20 each in the middle school and high school.

Each school will have a video distribution system and mobile carts for video editing and podcasts. Each school will also have added laptop carts, and, at the high school, components will be put in place for a pre-engineering program.
"We have to show the community we have a curriculum that uses this stuff," said the school board president when the plan was presented last month.

That’s where Perry comes in.
"Kathy’s a very hard worker and very knowledgeable about how teachers can use technology in their classrooms," Aidala said. "She has written lots of articles and done presentations on technology integration"I think she’s going to do a great job."
Perry will be overseeing a new 20-week course for all sixth-graders at the middle school. The students will spend 10 weeks in computer labs and 10 weeks in production and application labs, she said. She described production labs as being "like a shop with all the tools" and application labs as a place where students "focus on learning the principles of engineering."

When the sixth-graders learn about the science of flight, for example, they’ll be learning the principles and they’ll also study flight by making and using model rockets.
"The technology teachers have done a wonderful job," she said of developing the new course. "It was pretty much finished before I was on board." Perry started work this month. "Now it’s just a matter of tweaking it," she said.

Perry is excited about the two new middle school teachers who have been hired — Greg Pattison and Kathleen Zimmerman.

Perry is also working on a pre-engineering sequence for high-school students that will start in the fall of 2008.
"It’s not to replace what’s there," she said, "but to expand and enhance opportunities for kids who have an interest in engineering."
She went on, "It’s not a sequence just for kids who want to be engineers. It’s for kids interested in design process and application of science and math."
Perry is also looking forward to working with teachers on integrating technology into their courses. In-service courses, workshops, and what she calls "just in time" learning will be provided.
She explained, "When individuals or small groups have ideas but don’t have the expertise to carry them through, a staff developer teaches skills they may need and helps them develop project and lesson ideas."
In-class support will also be provided "if a teacher is trying something new and just wants someone there," said Perry.

Being the district’s career supervisor, Perry said, is integral to the rest.
"It goes with everything else," she said. "It’s like my passion for home ec — what it takes to be a happy contributing member of society. Part of that is finding a job that you enjoy doing, 40 hours a week. You need to find a job that’s stimulating and enjoyable."
About 56 seniors at Guilderland this year will be involved in internships in community businesses and organizations, said Perry. "It helps them identify the types of vocations they would find rewarding," she said.
Middle-school students get a day-long look at different jobs as they "shadow" workers in various fields.
"One of the main goals," she said of the business curriculum and the family and consumer sciences, "is to develop the forward-looking potential of the child so that he or she will perpetually keep in mind ideas about what he or she may pursue as a career."
"Meaningful understanding"

Perry turned to the laptop computer on her office desk at the middle school to show a video made by Mohonasen fifth-graders about tracking the weather. Pinewood Elementary School is part of a nationwide WeatherBug program where kids monitor weather from instruments at their own school and then report the results on line, forming a cross-country computer network that allows them to follow weather patterns and make predictions.
She’d like to see Guilderland kids get involved in the program. As a WeatherBug advisor, she said, "We have the opportunity to use this for free."
Perry also shares a concept map created by a fourth-grader with a computer program that divides "Living Things" into two categories — "autotrophs," diagrammed as "producers," and "heterotrophs," shown as "consumers. The student placed a picture of a cactus and a pine tree next to "autotrophs" and pictures of a person and a panda bear next to "heterotrophs." Arrows show that autotrophs can’t make their own food while heterotrophs can.
To make such a concept map, using a computer program, Perry said, students "have to figure out how concepts relate to each other. They have to use critical thinking."
Summing up the role of an educator, Perry refers to notes she has made, saying, "We have to develop critical thinkers, those who base inference on evidence, who consider multiple points of view with concern for a sustainable earth, and who innovate when faced with difficult problems."
Returning to the conclusions she reached doing research for her Ph.D. dissertation, she goes on, "We can’t just teach critical thinking, however. Such skill is directly linked to knowledge and grounded experience. Only with meaningful understanding can kids think critically."

Such knowledge and skill, Perry said, are needed for students to succeed as family members, as providers, and as world citizens.