ACCESS Field Trip

ACCESS is an acronym for Alabama Connecting Classroom, Educators and Students Statewide. Administrators and teachers all over Alabama are excited about ACCESS. ACCESS basically offers students to take courses at another school that are not offered at theirs through a webcam and a few other technology resources. Before this trip I thought the ACCESS lab as a whole would be more work than it was worth. I thought maybe in a few years it would be successful, but right now its just too new to work right away. However, through this trip I learned it is a great resource for students and teachers to further their academic excellence. The ACCESS lab cost about $85,000 to establish and was funded by grants rewarded to the school.

Jill Revette and I traveled to Robertsdale high school to visit an ACCESS lab. Mr. Mitchell, the assistant principal at Robertsdale high school, greeted us in the front office and brought us to the ACCESS lab. He was extremely helpful in explaining the lab and answering any of our questions. He explained that there were a bunch of little things that needed to be addressed for the ACCESS lab to be ran correctly.

All of the technology in the classroom is provided by "Tandberg Audio Science". Some of those things that needed to be changed in the classroom included changing the ceiling lights from regular florescent lights to be grid covered lights. This was needed to deflect that light being recieved from the webcam so that the two classrooms could see one another clearly. Similiarly, the classroom also had to be painted a regular white color instead of the semi-gloss that was there before for correct lighting purposes as well. There was also a three-sided glass piece propelling from the ceiling that picked up noise vibrations throughout the classroom which allowed the students and teacher in the classroom to be heard equally for the other connecting classroom. In the classroom they use portable lap tops instead of putting up computers at each seat. This is because they will not necessarily need to use their computers daily. The lap tops are numbered for the students in case damage is done to them. After they are done using them, they lock up the laptops in the back of the room. There was one high definition television and one webcam in the front of the room as well as one t.v. and one webcam in the back of the room. They also have a document cam which has the power to zoom in extremely close to certan objects put under it. This for instance would be used to show an important object with specific details to all of the students extremely clearly. I thought this was very neat.

Due to schedule conflicts, the ACCESS lab was not available for the students at Robertsdale this semester. Next semester there were be a daily class for students. The class size will consist to about 18-24 students. The teacher that instructs the ACCESS lab has to go through training at Troy University. Also, in front of the classroom is a telephone/ fax machine. In case the teacher has a problem with coordinating the ACCESS lab with another school or any of the technology in their classroom, they can call the "super computer" which is also in Troy. It is a quick and convienant way to solve problems.