By KARI BLURTON
Hays Post

Thanks to a multi-year fundraising effort, teachers at Wilson Elementary are preparing classes for the upcoming school year with new technology.

The Wilson Home and School Association recently purchased Mimio interactive technology projectors that turn an ordinary white board into an interactive teaching device.

Brenda Bickle, Wilson Elementary Home and School Association President said Wilson students have spent the last two years selling cookie dough and magazines to the community to raise the  $40,000 to buy the high-tech system.

“Truly, it is definitely because of the people in the community that we are able to do this, because if they had not purchased the cookie dough or the magazines…we wouldn’t be able to this,” Bickle said.

Wilson Home and School fundraising chair Jody Scoby also thanked the community for their support and said fundraising is especially important these days.

“Because of all the cuts that are coming from the top down – not necessarily just in our district, but every district in the state, (fundraising) is what helps us subsidize,” Scoby said.

Scoby added the boards are important tools for the teachers and especially the students who are used to working with the latest technology and will need to know how to utilize technology in the real world.

“The world is now so driven technology-wise,” Scoby said.   “It is not books anymore.  It is technology and how to use it and how to interact with it.”

Dustin Frank, former teacher and Mimio consultant from Engaging Technologies, Omaha NE, came to Hays recently to help teachers train with the new boards and agreed with Scoby.

“Students nowadays are used to immediate feedback, cellphones, computers, so (the boards) just take the things we used to do with dry erase boards and chalk and makes it more digital.”

Frank says the technology also allows teachers to post their lessons and content online to share with other teachers and students.