(Phoenix Unified School District, Phoenix, AZ)

As the United States shifts from a manufacturing economy to a service- and information-based economy, critical thinking and information problem-solving skills are becoming more and more essential for ALL students - whether they attend college or join the work force after they leave high school.

To prepare all its students for the Information Age, Metro Tech High School in Phoenix integrates TCR/NewsBank throughout both its academic and vocational classes.

Blending Academics and Vocational Training
Metro Tech High School is a vocational magnet school located in the heart of Phoenix. Part of the Phoenix Union High School District, Metro Tech offers more than 40 vocational programs and serves approximately 2,000 students in grades 9 through 12. In addition to its own students, Metro Tech serves students from local district schools who choose to attend for vocational training, and students taking evening school classes.

"Metro Tech's job is to prepare our students for work and life outside school," said Nancy Russell, department chair of the Information Management Center at Metro Tech. "My primary objective with TCR/NewsBank, as with anything, is to teach kids skills they can use throughout their lives. Learning how to use information resources is a truly transferable skill."

TCR/NewsBank is uniquely suited to develop the information literacy skills required for a 21st century work force. Designed to support integrated academic-vocational instruction, these resources provide teachers with powerful vehicles to address current material on topics that textbooks cannot cover.

" TCR/NewsBank connects the curriculum to real world learning and makes teachers' lives easier," Russell explained. "It provides lesson plans, activities and other components to help teachers integrate the information resources with their particular content area. Using the correlations bank, teachers can align their curriculum to state and national standards, and create viable lessons that match their curriculum goals."

TCR/NewsBank is available on classroom computers throughout the school and all 80 computers in the Information Management Center.

Teachers and students use TCR/NewsBank across a variety of academic and vocational areas, including business, fire science, and law enforcement.

In a vocational business software course, for example, the teacher asked students to create a PowerPoint presentation on a country or an important person. With, TCR/NewsBank students learned to locate, evaluate and use digital information resources. They integrated the information they found with visuals and animation, and presented their final PowerPoint projects to their classmates - just as they would deliver a presentation to colleagues in the business world.

"When a student experiences success, that success helps motivate them," noted Russell. "On the Web, kids spin their wheels a lot and it's easy for them to go off on tangents. TCR/NewsBank is time-effective because it is much more focused than the Web. After I provide some initial training, students are able to quickly find what they're looking for and apply that to what their teacher is asking them to do. Students find TCR/NewsBank very beneficial and easy to use."

In addition to class projects, Russell assists students in developing independent research projects to help them continue to develop and reinforce their skills.

" TCR/NewsBank helps students build critical thinking and problem-solving skills. It also helps them read more, which always makes me happy. Anything I can get them to read - whether it's on an electronic screen or a printed page - is a bonus.

"In addition to improving students' literacy, TCR/NewsBank improves their technological literacy," she continued. "It makes students feel more comfortable about how to ask questions and how to find what they're looking for using technology. The state is moving toward technological literacy skills. We're moving as fast as we can to incorporate more technology into the curriculum."

Building Information Literacy into the Curriculum
This summer the Phoenix Union High School District will finalize a technology proficiency component that will be implemented in all 10 high schools in fall 2000. As part of the new curriculum component, all freshmen and sophomores will be required to learn basic word processing skills and research skills, respectively. Then, as juniors and seniors, they will be required to incorporate those skills throughout their academic and vocational classes.

TCR/NewsBank promises to play a substantial role in helping students develop the technology skills required by the district - and the real world. By fall 2000, all of the district's 10 high schools will subscribe to TCR/NewsBank.

" TCR/NewsBank will provide a consistent, unified resource for the district. If we're all working from the same page, we can more easily identify any problems kids are having and solve them," said Russell. "At Metro Tech, TCR/NewsBank has been the constant among our technology resources. It's our anchor program."