After reading the chapters, I remembered the principal telling us that we need to use the technology we have in the classroom. We were trained on the interwrite board as a crash course into technology last year. We had an option to get retrained recently, but it was during school hours for one hour. Many of the teachers were in class teaching. I don't know how it would benefit those who didn't attend, but it did put a few of us in a position to teach or review with those in their grade level. I am wondering if the teachers are going to be the technology leaders or followers. Is our technology going to succeed or fail in this way?
A principal is there at our schools to lead us in the upward direction to reach our yearly goal to meet or exceed AYP. Counties have spent a lot of money to put in technology in our classrooms to assist us and help challenge the students to help meet our goals. We are suppose to be train to make sure we know how to use it. When I walk into some of the classrooms, I see students on the computer playing educational games and reading drills. We have a computer lab, but the students are playing educational games and drills. With the use of the interwrite boards, the teachers do use it as a visual tool to teach their lessons. We are stuck in these techniques of technology. The principal says nothing as long as we use all the technology that was put into the classroom. We need to start thinking outside of the box and putting more effort into how we can use the technology we have in new ways. We also need a leader to ensure we are coming up with ways to teach the students how to use the computers to find answers instead of drills.
Being in a Title I county is a challenge when majority of our students don't have computers at home. Students get their technology experience at school. At my school, we have the highest ELL population for elementary schools. In the classrooms, half of the computes have updated software. In the ESOL Resource Center, none of the computers have been updated since we recieved them a few years ago. They are unable to run Rosetta Stone which is valuable to the ESOL program. The county can tell when we don't use the programs in the ESOL Resource Center. If we don't use it, we lose it. How can we get a newcomer to catch up with the english speakers when they can't get the technology assistance to help them learn english?
As long as my county doesn't try to find the next big reading series or math series, we can try to concentrate on technology training and updates. We need to encourage teachers to take a risk with their technology to find new ways to have all students understand how to do research on-line, using software to print out information for visual projects, or creating a visual project on-line. They need these skills to get the students to start using technology for themselves instead of games and drills. We also desperately need a technology mission statement to keep everyone focus on the goal which can coincide with our school goal to exceed AYP. I am excited about the process but also worried about having the support. I would like to produce our technology mission statement with the help of every faculty and staff so we can all focus on the same school goal/ goals.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
My first blog
This is my first blog ever.
After reading Chapter 1, I never knew they used computers in the classrooms in the late 70's. It amazes me that the computer industry is always trying to improve and incorporate educational programs in classrooms. With bringing in technology and incorporating into lessons, is a challenge for educators. Some teachers have trouble setting up for the lesson, the technology doesn't want to work, or they don't know how to use it. When I walk around the school between classes, I can see the teachers who uses the technology we have in each class and there are a few teachers who may not use it as often.
As we move into the technology education age, we still have to worry about teaching the standards until the state decides we need to teach more skills that are useful for the students. With the state breathing down our necks, we have to worry about other critics who believe that technology is useless in the classroom. When we have people do research, they only use standarized testing to see if the students are understanding the standards. I have yet to see the results of students learning from a lesson using technology. All we have are opinions instead of facts. The only ones that can see actual results are teachers, but should we put a price on learning.
Incorporating technology into schools is expensive. When my county was putting in wireless and interwrite boards, I thought they were a little crazy considering the economy was starting to shake or falling apart. We had to get trained on the new programs. Not everyone could understand the steps the first time because they were more hands-on. The head of the technology department went to different grade levels to have the teachers play with the boards so they could try to incorporate into the lessons. It did get the students attention. Some of the teachers found on-line educational games for the students to interact with. Our students love video games because that might all that they do at home.
This year, we are getting a refresher coarse on using the interwrite board. I am very excited because I'm going for the second grade team. I am hoping to lead them into refreshing their memories on the board or finding new sites they may use it. It gives me a chance to starting getting my feet wet into leading a meeting. I usually don't like to talk to a group of adults because some of them are too critical. I will let you know how it goes.
I did find an article on edutopia about leaving students leaving their footprint into the digital world. It talks about putting a portfolio on-line on social networking sites other than facebook. The teacher wants his students to become socially involve in the media to get ahead in the job market. Its a good read. www.edutopia.com/blog/using-social-media-for-interview-20.
After reading Chapter 1, I never knew they used computers in the classrooms in the late 70's. It amazes me that the computer industry is always trying to improve and incorporate educational programs in classrooms. With bringing in technology and incorporating into lessons, is a challenge for educators. Some teachers have trouble setting up for the lesson, the technology doesn't want to work, or they don't know how to use it. When I walk around the school between classes, I can see the teachers who uses the technology we have in each class and there are a few teachers who may not use it as often.
As we move into the technology education age, we still have to worry about teaching the standards until the state decides we need to teach more skills that are useful for the students. With the state breathing down our necks, we have to worry about other critics who believe that technology is useless in the classroom. When we have people do research, they only use standarized testing to see if the students are understanding the standards. I have yet to see the results of students learning from a lesson using technology. All we have are opinions instead of facts. The only ones that can see actual results are teachers, but should we put a price on learning.
Incorporating technology into schools is expensive. When my county was putting in wireless and interwrite boards, I thought they were a little crazy considering the economy was starting to shake or falling apart. We had to get trained on the new programs. Not everyone could understand the steps the first time because they were more hands-on. The head of the technology department went to different grade levels to have the teachers play with the boards so they could try to incorporate into the lessons. It did get the students attention. Some of the teachers found on-line educational games for the students to interact with. Our students love video games because that might all that they do at home.
This year, we are getting a refresher coarse on using the interwrite board. I am very excited because I'm going for the second grade team. I am hoping to lead them into refreshing their memories on the board or finding new sites they may use it. It gives me a chance to starting getting my feet wet into leading a meeting. I usually don't like to talk to a group of adults because some of them are too critical. I will let you know how it goes.
I did find an article on edutopia about leaving students leaving their footprint into the digital world. It talks about putting a portfolio on-line on social networking sites other than facebook. The teacher wants his students to become socially involve in the media to get ahead in the job market. Its a good read. www.edutopia.com/blog/using-social-media-for-interview-20.
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