Tuesday, March 27, 2012
About to erupt...with...EXCITEMENT
The video clip above is my connection with my continued frustration with how technology at my school is not evolving. I am pretty sure we have the same computers for students as we did four years ago when I began my journey at this school. How many new Dells have come out since the ones that my students use? How many times do these same computers die in the middle of a project or get locked out of the entire network.
When Doug answers the phone in the video and is talking to the political polist it reminds me of the majority of the teachers at my school. "I don't know" or "I don't care" about the lack of technology available to their students is a common answer when questions come up on this topic.
When Arthur picks up the phone and begins to dial while Doug is on the phone it reminds me of my administration this year and our new school based technology specialist. They think they know best when they don't really have that much education on what is best.
My new school based technology specialist recently sent an email out about how she had acquired a bunch of Alpha Smarts. I was speechless. I found out that my administration was excited because it was more technology. My response, sometimes less is more.
Arthur and Doug's banter at the end of this video is the good ol' fashioned, who knows best? Who can put the other person down the most before they decide who was the best person to answer the political polist? Who will decide who is right within our school before we stop taking in other people's hand me downs?
I cannot wait to be done with my graduate degree so that I can go a little further and help educate people in my school to help them realize what is best for our students. It is not Alpha Smarts. It is new technology that students can use in and out of school. No where will there ever be an Alpha Smart for a kid to use when they are not at school!
Obviously...I am super annoyed with this situation. I am literally about to erupt with frustration but my title of this blog says, "excitement" because I am trying to stay positive until I have more time to invest in this cause at my school. Until then...
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I understand your frustration. We received an email from the higher ups today about an initiative that every classroom in the county is to have an interactive whiteboard by 2013. Don't get me wrong, I loved having an interactive whiteboard in the classroom and found it VERY beneficial to learning. However, having had the experience of visiting other classrooms this past year and seeing how they are very often underutilized it makes me cringe. Give people the time, trainings, and tools to effectively integrate the boards rather then just throwing them up in the rooms. Get teacher input about the types of technology they would like to have access to and the training they would like to receive rather then making the decisions for them.
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