SAN MARCOS ---- Local educators and corporate sponsors took turns dissecting frogs this week, but the adults, dressed mostly in suits and skirts, didn't need scalpels or formaldehyde.

They completed the work with a few clicks of a mouse Tuesday during an interactive demonstration at Cal State San Marcos' new Gateway Center, located on the campus of Woodland Park Middle School.

The virtual dissection demonstrated the new wireless Internet technology and laptop computers that Cal State San Marcos students will use this semester as they train to become middle school teachers at the center, which opened in February.

For the fall semester, the university has also expanded the education program to include night courses and administrators said they plan to start a master's program for middle school education in two years.

"Technology is critical because it's a teaching, information and management tool," said Steve Lilly, the dean of the CSUSM College of Education. "We will be able to use the technology in our teaching and will be able to show them how to use technology when they teach middle school students."

The university is one of only three in California, the others are San Francisco State and Humboldt State, that has a state-approved program with an emphasis on preparing students specifically to teach middle school, said CSUSM professor Janet McDaniel, who helped start the Cal State San Marcos program 12 years ago.

The university received more than $263,000 to pay for the center, including $86,000 worth of computer equipment that the Gateway Corp. donated. A grant from the Hamilton-White Foundation paid for planning for the project, and donations from Tom and Teresa Bernard, the Parker Foundation, Price Charities and the Girard Foundation helped the university buy the classroom. The classroom, which is where all the program's classes are held, is relocatable.

"We've always been in middle schools, but never had our own facility," said Laurie Stowell, a CSUSM professor who also helped start the program. "Our students learn how to become middle school teachers by living on a middle school."

The university has operated from classrooms at Rincon and Del Dios middle schools in Escondido, Lincoln Middle School in Vista and Woodland Park in the past, but the university now owns the classroom equipped with a small conference room and faculty office.

Cal State San Marcos pays for utilities and cleaning, but they don't have to rent or lease the space from the San Marcos Unified School District, McDaniel said.

Administrators from both the university and the district said everyone benefits from the partnership as many of the college students volunteer to tutor before school and help out in the classrooms.

"It's wonderful to have them on site," said Larry Maw, superintendent of the San Marcos district. "Middle school teachers are absolutely the toughest to find and the people coming out of that program are excellent."

The middle school teaching program, which has six faculty members, is the smallest of the university's educational programs, with about 36 students enrolled this semester, Lilly said.

The enrollment, however, nearly doubled this fall when the university added the night sessions, he said.

McDaniel estimated that 220 students have earned their multiple-subject credential with a middle level certificate from Cal State San Marcos in the past 11 years, and she said a vast majority are still teaching in North County or Southwest Riverside County.

Several of the graduates came to the Gateway Center to share experiences and help in the presentation Tuesday.

Sarah Olson, who graduated from CSUSM in May, came up with the idea of doing the virtual dissection, and she cheerfully guided the veteran administrators through the demonstration.

"The teaching program here prepared me so well that sometimes I forget I'm a new teacher," said Olson, who works at Warm Springs Middle School in Murrieta. "And with the new technology in the classroom, the creativity level is going to go way up," she said.