BBCF Head Start teachers get first look, training on tech tables that are first in classrooms in Alabama

Head Start preschools in the Black Belt will be the first in Alabama to use interactive IgniteTables in their classrooms – and teachers learned how to use them on Friday.

In a packed training room at Wallace Community College, teachers from across the Black Belt who work for the Head Start programs of the Black Belt Community Foundation laughed and played learning games on one of education’s latest technology tools – a giant iPad-like table for children ages 3-6.

“The kids are going to love this,” said Virginia Pitts, a teacher at Southside Primary in Dallas County as she played a soccer game on the table with other teachers. “A lot of our children play sports, and this will get them talking about it and building their language skills as well as promote teamwork and collaboration.” 

BBCF spent about $200,000 in federal funds to buy 20 IgniteTables that will be used in the classrooms at facilities in Dallas, Wilcox, Marengo and Choctaw counties. The teachers said these tables are already in their rooms ready for their children to use when school starts back on Monday.

Taquila Monroe, Director of the Black Belt Community Foundation Head Start program, first saw the tables at a Head Start conference in Phoenix and decided to get together the funding to put them in her classrooms.

“I knew I had to get these for our kids,” Monroe said. 

After the COVID pandemic, Monroe said many children returned to school with “challenging behaviors” and had lost skills learned before schools were closed. Monroe saw the tables as a way to align with their curriculum and teacher strategies, including catering the table’s games to which areas need to improve for each child.

She’s not worried about kids not catching on quickly to the technology. “Kids in this generation are already come already technologically inclined.”

She sees the tables being motivators for the children to stay busy – and busy means in less trouble – so it will be advantageous to kids in classroom.

The tables will be incorporated into lesson plans with a focus on science and math, but Nate Cox, senior vice president for IgniteTable, says it has a goal of building social interactions among students and the communication perspective of shared experiences.

For example, a writing assignment would have the kids work together to complete the assignment and teachers can gather data from that time the kids are using the table. The table produces many reports for teachers’ use.

Monroe adds there will be a limit of using it of 20-30 minutes a day.