Technology at My Placement

When thinking about Ann Arbor Public Schools, many might think that technology plays a integral roll in a child's education.  It seems like a pretty up-to-date and relatively prosperous city, why wouldn't our students have access to one-to-one technology or inclusion of cell phones in the classroom?  However, this isn't really the case.  There are still processes to follow in terms of checking out computers and cell phones are prohibited from being used.  Needless to say I've been pretty intrigued by the uses of technology at my placement site thus far.

There have been no initiatives as of late to start providing all AAPS students with laptops and iPads like other districts around the nation, but there are some steps being taken in order to allow students and faculty to integrate technology into their academic lives.  Although it's not required, most students have a Gmail account, and as of last week, use Google Docs with relative ease for writing a paper (we're working on analyses of biographies in my English classes).  There are several Mac laptop carts available for teachers to use throughout the school, so my students have been able to remain at their seats and type their papers over the last week.  There's also two brand new Mac-filled computer labs in the school!  These computers are filled with exciting programs that I've never even heard of (which leads me to suspect that many teachers in the building have no idea about them).  I was really interested a program that can make comic strips and a few other graphic design/artistic programs with names like Scratch, Fetch, Sketch Up and Art Rage.  Since I'll be teaching full-time next semester, I hope to become more aware of what the school computers can offer in terms of making student projects just a little cooler!

My school has access to a variety of databases to help students research for educational purposes, but how much of this is used by the middle school population?  I don't really remember doing too many research projects in middle school, but maybe times have changed; I'll have to look more closely at what these databases can do for my students.  One of the more interesting things about the technology at my placement is that the firewall blocking access to sites like Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter is easily removable.  A staff member can unlock the firewall to show a Youtube clip in their class, but if they neglect to reauthorize the firewall, those "forbidden" sites are open to the general public at my school.  For our 504 survey, I went to a computer in the library and proceeded to log onto my Facebook, access our class wiki and even was allowed to proceed onto Twitter (even though I don't have an account).  While students are forbidden from using any personal cell phones or internet-accessible devices during class time, I thought this was really interesting.  I can remember my days in middle and high school where the sites were always blocked and we could proceed no further even if we tried.

However, I think one of the bigger issues with technology at my placement is just the general ease of use.  My mentor teacher has complained before about how none of the LCD projectors are mounted to the ceiling, thus making it a "big" hassle to roll the cart out into the middle of the already cramped classroom area to deliver a slide show presentation (which are not the norm in our class).  If anything, I believe that if the projectors were on the ceiling and all students had easy access to a laptop/iPad (something like one-to-one technology), more teachers in my school would be ecstatic about technology in the classroom.  Instead of planning ahead to check-out the laptop cart or to schedule time in the media center with the computer labs, teachers and students would be able to use technology right in their respective rooms when needed.  It sounds cool, but like we've become aware of these initiatives are costly, and might not be the best instructional strategy for our students.  Once again, there is always more to think about than meets the eye when discussing technology in our placements for the year!  What have you been noticing at your placement?