Success Snapshot: Schools Working to Keep Pace with Students' Worlds

Jeff Linman recognized early that the use of technology in Milwaukie High School's classrooms offers a direct connection to students' lives drawing on the interensts and the developing skills they bring to his classes. Additionally, integrating the use of technology into the learning environment, allowing students to choose what tools they use, and requiring them to evaluate their experiences provides for powerful exercises in critical thinking and problem solving.

Speaking with Jeff, you'll quickly get caught up in his enthusiasm for what his students are doing, as much as you are touched by his humility about how he is helping them apply their technical knowledge to practical needs. Serving as the adviser to Pulse Media Productions and the MHS Tech Cadre, Jeff provides the guidance, support, and oversight for two student-run businesses providing products and services that include web design, graphic design, print services, video editing and video production, music recording, and public service announcements. The business goals are to inform, educate, and entertain with the students employing the technology they love in a creative, service-oriented enterprise. Jeff quickly gives the inspirational credit for the current program at his school to the students who approached him a few years ago with a desire to apply the technologies being used in today's businesses to their schoolwork. That led to what you now see in Jeff's classroom, learning driven by the environment the students have created. Regarding the place of technology in learning, Jeff says it's about believing that the technology will help the learning process and then simplify going with it and learning along the way. "That is what is so very cool about the integration of technology in learning. The experience is always new, never dull, and helps us help the kids as they prepare for whatever they choose to pursue in the future."