Trails, taxes key, MccD residents say in survey
Friday, JaNuary 18, 2013
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Classrooms entering digital age Traditional tools being replaced with tablets, laptops Voice your opinion
By STEPHEN Di BENEDETTO
sdibenedetto@shawmedia.com
In a Martin Elementary School classroom, teacher Carol Johnson rarely finds the need to stand in front of her fourth-graders and lecture on a literacy lesson. At Marengo High School, science teacher Terie Engelbrecht doesn’t need to remind her underclassmen to write notes on a lab assignment. Laptop computers replaced stodgy paper notebooks a few years ago. The teachers are from different school districts but
How important do you consider technology in classrooms? Vote online at NWHerald.com. have firsthand experience with the digital transformation that is changing classrooms in McHenry County and the country. The days of chalk, blackboards, classroom lectures and textbooks are fading. Traditional tools have been replaced with tablets, laptops, apps and a classroom learning style that puts more emphasis
on the student rather than the teacher. “My teaching has done a 180,” Engelbrecht said. “I have moved away from traditional lectures, and now the kids are doing their learning. It’s less me and more them.” Engelbrecht’s freshman students are a part of the first class at Marengo District 154 to buy small laptops called
Netbooks as a requirement for all subjects. Freshmen pay a $300 fee and will carry their Netbooks, a case and replacement battery for the next four years. The laptops essentially put classes online. Software allows teachers to file and grade assignments, and students can access a range of research materials and resources. Engelbrecht’s students write about lab assignments in Google Docs and publish their work online, where science professionals outside the
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Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Nick Chapman, 10, of Huntley uses a tablet Thursday in his fourthgrade classroom at Martin Elementary School in Lake in the Hills. District 158 recently started transitioning to tablets from textbooks in classrooms.
Dog survives plunge into icy Fox River
Algeria: Hostages rescued by army The ASSOCIATED PRESS
By LAWERENCE SYNETT lsynett@shawmedia.com
FOX LAKE – Seeing no alternative, Penny the pooch leaped from a McHenry bridge to the icy Fox River below Wednesday – and survived. The Rhodesian ridgeback-boxer had been miss-
ing from a Ringwood home for more than five days when she found herself on the bridge near Riverside Drive and Pearl Street. With the help of bystanders and rescuers, the year-old dog was saved from the icy waters of the Fox River. She has a few bumps and bruises to re-
member her big splash. “Considering what happened, I can’t believe that she is alive,” said John Barratt, who adopted the dog a month ago from a shelter in southern Illinois. “She has already lived such a hard life. I’m so grateful to have her back.” Penny went missing Fri-
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Rhodesian ridgeback-boxer mix Penny and owner John Barratt relax Thursday in their Fox Lake home. Penny jumped off a McHenry bridge near Riverside Drive and Pearl Street on Wednesday, more than five days after she went missing.
A Richmond man was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl. Ariel Guerra, 30, who also had a recent address in Crystal Lake, pleaded guilty to two counts of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child, both Class X felonies. For more, see page B1.
Woodstock North’s Randy Kline (right) and Grayslake North’s Ian Pearce
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day after jumping a chainlink fence in the yard of Barratt’s brother, where she was staying while her owner was out of town. When Barratt returned home to Fox Lake and found out she was missing, Barratt placed
ALGIERS, Algeria – Algerian helicopters and special forces stormed a gas plant in the stony plains of the Sahara on Thursday to wipe out Islamist militants and free hostages from at least 10 countries. Bloody chaos ensued, leaving the fate of the fighters and many of the captives uncertain. Dueling claims from the military and the militants muddied the world’s understanding of an event that angered Western leaders, raised world oil prices and complicated the international military operation in neighboring Mali. At least six people, and perhaps many more, were killed – Britons, Filipinos and Algerians. Terrorized hostages from Ireland and Norway trickled out of the Ain Amenas plant, families urging them never to return. Dozens more remained unaccounted for: Americans, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians, Japanese, Algerians and the fighters themselves. The U.S. government sent an unmanned surveillance drone to the BP-operated site, near the border with Libya
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