Adela

This article is so true!  I have said in previous classes that I am so jealous of surrounding school districts when it comes to technology resources.  I work for Richmond Public Schools, and yes I only just completed my my third year, but it appears that we are so much further behind the surrounding counties.  Am I wrong?  Yes, we get new computers every three years or so, yes we have LCD projectors, scanners, and other equipment.  But we have a lot of constraints put on everything in regards to security.  We just got Windows XP, we do not have access to Blackboard or Moodle.  Can you tell that I am frustrated?  We are expected to keep the students up to date with technology when we ourselves are behind.  All of our teachers do not have access to a computer at school.  This is a prime example of the 2006 Market Data Retrieval survey in the article.  I am currently working with our new principal to get new computers set up for teachers.  Every teacher should have a working computer in their classroom.  We do have four portable labs for teachers to use, but they do not like setting them up.  I am not available 24/7 to set up equipment.  I teach them how to do it, but they seem to forget after awhile.  Last year my students set up the portable labs in their core classes.  Look at Henrico issuing laptops to all students.    This year a lot of teachers are using online tools for students in core areas.  We only have a couple of teachers with their own web page.  I will be honest; I am just setting mine up this year.  It was never set up by the last teacher.  We do have the technology available,   but we get a lot of excuses.  But what can I expect?  Richmond’s technology plan does not exactly emphasize these advance technology resources; we are concentrating more on hardware and infrastructure.  Yeah, they plan to do something four years from now, but nothing specific.  For example, I tried an online course this year.  I think this would be great for classroom instruction.  According to our technology plan, online learning is not of great importance right now, but they are always emphasizing the integration of technology in the classroom.  Hello, what better way to integrate technology in the classroom than online courses?  Our plan definitely needs to be updated in lieu of the National Technology Plan.  As I have stated before, we are behind in many ways.  If we had blackboard that would be great!  Video conferencing would be another great technology resource in the classroom.  They can use video conferencing to work with other classrooms across the city, state, country or world.  This will help our students improve their learning and develop new skills by experiencing other means of instruction and meeting other people.  This is a way to accommodate all learning styles and share ideas.  Teachers could learn from other teachers and students can learn from other students.  Not only would it be a great learning experience, but it would be a great way to meet other cultures.  Teachers could share the work load sort of speak.  They always say that two minds are better than one.  Integrating videoconferencing in the classrooms would be just like have a partner teaching the class.  One teacher may be able to explain a particular topic better.  Being a business teacher, I would love to have video conferencing in my classroom.  I would be able to video conference with businesses in our community, and maybe set up mock interviews with companies through video conferencing.  I do not think that there is enough emphasis on this aspect of educating the students.  I feel that by being in this program makes me an innovator in my school and by completing the course ant the project requirements is my way of getting started.  When this is done, I plan to incorporate my course learnings in  my classroom instruction one way or another.  I have spoken with the principal and she agreed to let me link to our school website and add some things.  I encourage teachers to use textbook online resources.  Even though the plan does not emphasize online learning right now, we are charging into the future with technology at Elkhardt Middle School.  As you can see, reading this article just made me blabber on and on.