1 Thirty-Minute Program
Grade Level: Administrators/Teachers
Curriculum: Technological Based

We visit the Christopher Columbus School to see how and what they did to completely turn the school around. The school has a 95 percent Hispanic, poor student population and was a failure; in fact the State was going to take over the operation of the school.

They started by surveying the teachers as to what was wrong and what they could do about it. The teachers said they needed more input and set out to devise a 5-year plan, incorporating reading and writing in all curriculums.

Bell Atlantic wanted to test their advanced information network, voice communication interactive data and video services in an educational setting.

Project EXPLORE was initiated in 1992. Computers were installed in the school and in the students' homes. The project works under the belief that no piece of information is as important as teaching the student "HOW TO LEARN"

The school developed cooperative learning centers with a research based educational theme stressing creativity thinking, problem solving and the ability to use technology to solve their problems.