My level of frustration with technology has risen with these two chapters. Everything they talk about is so meaningful and so useful, however, I do not have enough time in my day to work on any of these things. Nor do we have enough resources for our students- which is of biggest concern. My academy has one computer lab and one lap top cart (which is destroyed anyways) for 18 classrooms of 28 students. If we want to break down the availability even further, we will find that for a majority of the time, students are either putting in monthly benchmarks or completing NWEA. There seems to be no time for our students to participate in any of these activities- much less time for a teacher to sit down and plan a lesson involving these materials and then teach the other 5 how to do it.
In third grade, for social studies, I am having the students start and run a business. It is based off of a web-quest that was found during the web-quest discovery week in EDUG 522. It's really awesome, it has great materials and the students are really into it. However, I have to spend an hour everyday going to other classrooms and explaining how to do the web-quest because the teachers are the only ones using a computer to complete it. The students do not have access to the necessary resources to complete this on their own- can anyone say "digital divide!?" Mind you, I have no problem doing this, it is just that I then lose time to do what other five bazillion things I need to do that day.
In our school, we generate newsletters for the students on either Microsoft Publisher or Word (for those of us who are "old school" such as myself.) We also keep all of our grades and attendance online using a program called Infinite Campus (we used to use Power School- pg. 148 under student information systems). Infinite Campus even has a "parent portal" which allows parents to access their students grades and updates before progress reports come out- ensuring that our parents are held accountable for their student's success. I also use rubistar.4teachers.org for any classroom presentations my students complete- "work smarter, not harder." If you (the person reading this) have not tried that site- try it! It is AWESOME. Our school has also tried to introduce us to Quizdom since we have the PolyVision boards. I would love to utilize it, but it does not seem to be readily accessible- meaning that I can retrieve the materials, but it is difficult to find someone to help you utilize it on your time.
Earlier I mentioned that the students spend their time using the computer for monthly benchmarks. This is an assessment system used by our EMO (Educational Management Organization). Every month, students complete their benchmarks on the computer and it analyzes what specific learning strand the students as a whole are struggling with. Also, students take the NWEA (or MAPS) on the computer- seeing how they measure with students around the country (this is honestly my favorite assessment because it accurately measures the student's ability).
With my experience, it is usually the teacher who uses Kidsipration or Inspiration- we project it onto the PolyVision and the students use the pen to manipulate through the organizer. Again, it is the teacher who is utilizing it, not the students. It really is a shame because our students would be so motivated to do activities!
I appreciate the multimedia list that is located on page 175 of the text. I love the links! I will be using these next year for DEAR time and supplements for reading (specifically genres, reading extended responses, and compare and contrasts).
I use a PowerPoint everyday for the students- it clearly states their expectations and instructions for the morning. I also included a tutorial in there for working in cooperative groups. Every week I provide photos of students demonstrating cooperative group work and we identify "how they are working cooperatively." The students really get into this- they laugh and giggle when they see themselves on the board! I have also used PowerPoint for jeopardy. I created my own- an example of how I "work harder, not smarter" sometimes. I had to use hyperlinks here.
What I would love to do is use multimedia to create a welcome video for my third graders next year staring my students-giving the newbies a "how to" in third grade. Hmmm. I will look into that this week.
I honestly wish my students had more access to computers and similar resources. Yes, as teachers we are provided with materials to implement tech into the classroom- they even try to educate us on how to use it. However, it is more the students than us now that need access to technology. Until then, we are only widening the "digital divide."
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