Sunday, January 13, 2013
Week 1- EDUC 630
Teaching first grade provides a balance between using technology and teaching a child how to form their letters and book awareness. Working in Littleton Public Schools, a small district in the suburbs, has been amazing. The district's awareness of technology is accredited with distinction. Technology is important to the district as well as the teachers. All schools have student and teacher computers in the classroom. Most schools have SMARTboards or some type of interactive apparatus in most classrooms. Most classrooms have small notebooks that students are allowed to independently work on. All classrooms have a document camera. Students are encouraged to use technology for assignments and facilitating a rigorous learning environment.
The school that I work at doesn't have interactive boards in every classroom. There are only three classrooms that have these, mine being one of them (lucky me!!). I believe this is a barrier in our school, especially because two out of three first grade teachers have a SMARTboard. It is hard to stay consistent as a grade level when we do everything on our SMARTboard and our poor teammate has to do everything paper and pencil. I think all classrooms should have a SMARTboard because it does adhere to students' desire to use technology in their learning.
We have tried to write grants but it is hard getting money because our free and reduced lunch is lower than expected. Does anyone know some grants that I could look into for getting at least my teammate on board?
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What do you think the biggest difference technology provides? Do you think it's easier to teach? Do you think the students learn faster? Does just learning how to interact with technology help with preparing students for more technology later? I think technology in the classroom is amazing but I constantly think that teachers may get used to the technology and allow the technology to become a crutch and depend on it too heavily. I do love using SMARTboards, etc, though.
ReplyDeleteMaggie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. It is so good to know that your school district in Littleton values technology. Technology has transformed the teaching and learning process in our schools. The availability of new technology accounts for many innovations in the classroom.
New strategies, methods, and techniques are now being used and developed to enable teachers to successfully integrate technology into their instruction and work collaboratively with their students. The integration of technology in the classroom has had an immense impact on the educational environment of their classrooms.
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any grants but Donors Choose may be a good resource for you and your team to research. The website is: http://www.donorschoose.org/.
Blessings,
Tangie
Maggie,
ReplyDeleteI also taught with no smartboard, while the class next door had theirs and utilized the technology. I was not a happy camper being left behind and the students were commenting on wanting to go into the other class because they had fun. At the end of the year it did not matter much as test scores were actually better without the technology. In my thought process, I believe either funding was not available or this was an evaluation of technology use in the classroom.
Listen, if those chickens fail to lay eggs, send them south to me. I love chicken!
Jim Orbin
Liberty University
EDUC630
Hi Maggie,
ReplyDeleteI was going to suggest Donor's Choose as well and I see Tangie suggestesd it! I am not able to use Donor's Choose because I am at a private school and they do not give to private schools - only public. But, I know so many teachers who have been blessed by Donor's Choose!
I do not have a SMARTboard. I wish I did. I have just about everything else, though, so I am blessed! There are a lot of places to search for grants. Keep looking! I received a very large grant years ago from Intel.
I hope you enjoyed your first week! Pam
Hi Maggie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. I do not have a solution for your SMARTboard problem. Our school has them but since we got a new IT Director last year, we are moving away from them so they are just glorified whiteboards to project our laptops and now iPad images on to. My projector in my computer lab does not have sound capabilities to work with my AppleTV so there is another of my challenges when projecting, video, etc.
I teach in middle school and have no lower grade level experience but I do have a cousin who has taught 2nd grade for over 20 years and I know that she is very passionate about her students and loves that age.