Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Thoughts on Class


Looking forward to learning more about web 2.0 tools and how to use them more in the educational setting at the elementary level. I am currently an assistant principal and technology coordinator at a K to 5 elementary school with over 650 students and 90 staff members.  Technology is very important piece of teaching the students of the 21st century and needs to be addressed.

The problem I’m finding is getting the resources and time to be able to have staff PD to use the technology, and then having the time during the day to teach the students how to use this technology. That’s if we are given the equipment and freedom to go to these sites and the technology we are given is up to date. Technology unfortunately takes a back seat to No Child Left Behind and NECAP testing. Especially, if you are a title one school with state requirements that need to be met yearly in mat and language arts.   

So I am going to be very interested to see how others school districts are able to implement web 2.0 into their buildings with all the budgetary issues, as well as, privacy issues. It is amazing though what other countries and school districts are able to do using the technology given to them and the advantage they are going to have when they enter the work force. As the technology coordinator I am always working on getting technology into the classroom, especially all the free web 2.0 tools out there, but with limited resources and time it is very frustrating. Hoping to cure some of this frustration.

2 comments:

  1. I hear you loud and clear. I think some of the most frustrating things about technology is the lack of it, the lack of time, the lack of professional development time, the people who are in charge of the technology - yet do not understand how it is beneficial to education and how the "test" outweighs the improvement of technology in some schools. I hope through this class you will see how to enable students to use technology even if there is just a small amount of it available but also how to open up the world of technology by explaining the pedagogy behind the use of the tools. I am happy to have you here and I am more than happy to work out some of these concerns with you!

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  2. I think you would be surprised how different a High school does thing. I know typically High schools tend to get more technology, but there are a lot of changes that our school is making to save money and use more tech.

    For example what kind of email does your school use? we use Zimbra... uggg. But last year we gave every student a google account and are looking to switch the school to this better and free platform.

    I do hear you though, time is always the limiting factor. I sometimes feel as though it takes years to make it work in a class room.

    on a side note is that a picture of you on the bike?

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