Blog Assignment #13

Assignment:

Blog Assignment #13 - Technology in the Classroom

What technology is being used in your local classroom?

Go to a local school in your area and choose the grade you plan to teach (elementary, middle, or high school). You will first have to get permission from the school district, principal, and/or teacher so plan ahead.

Talk with the teacher about what technology they use in the school and in their own classroom. Do they try to incorporate technology in their classroom or would they if they had the technology? What technology is provided for them and the students?

Write the school you went to and the teacher's name that you interviewed. Write everything that you observed in the classroom, classroom set up, teachers and students' technology use, and the teachers thoughts on the questions above.


Blog Assigment #13

Technology in the Local Classroom

College Park Elementary - Gautier, MS

Mrs. Jones - 2nd grade

I went to Mrs. Jones' 2nd grade classroom at College Park Elementary in Gautier, MS. She was more than happy to talk with me about technology and let look around her classroom. Mrs. Jones has 20 students in her classroom and an assistant teacher, Mrs. Fischer. From what I observed in the classroom there are 7 desktop computers and the teacher has an iPad that interacts with a big screen TV that is mounted in the front of the classroom. 

Mrs. Jones said the students only use the computers once a day and that is when they do centers for 15 minutes a day. Centers is when the class breaks up into 4 groups of 5 and they go into different learning centers for 15 minutes and then they rotate. When I asked Mrs. Jones if she would like to incorporate more technology in her teaching she said unfortunately there really isn't the time for more individual technology use. She does use her iPad as a tool to interact with the students on different lessons. One of the ways she uses the iPad to TV interaction is a game kind of like hang man. The screen will display a certain amount of blank spaces which represents one of their spelling words. One student is picked to guess a letter and the teacher puts that letter into the iPad and it shows up on the screen. If the letter is in that vocabulary word then it shows up where it is supposed to but if its not they get a buzzer sound. Although there isn't any student/technology interaction the students seem to really look forward to this vocabulary lesson. This lesson just shows that the teacher can use technology as a tool for any lesson.

I was curious as to why she said there wasn't really enough time to incorporate more individual technology use so I asked her. Her response was that the day is pretty much scheduled to the minute and that there just isn't enough computers to take turns on one assignment. She said if they each had their own computer/laptop/iPad that it would be much more easy to incorporate more technology. She also said they go to the library twice a week where they each have their own individual computers and this is where they are taught how to use and operate the computers. 

In conclusion I found that maybe my local school isn't where they need to be, as far as technology is concerned, but they are making progress. The students may not get a lot of technology use in the classroom but at least there is somewhere where they are being taught and getting more familiar with it. It is also nice to see that the school is providing a technology source for the teacher to use as a teaching tool. I definitely feel like this is progress and as long as schools are adapting to the growing world of technology, even if it is slowly, then it will continue to grow and it is not just something that is being ignored. 

College Park Elementary Website 

Callie Barton