I have been in my mentor's classroom observing her teaching practices for just over two weeks now. I must say, I am amazed by her use of technology. Granted, the school is pretty well funded compared to other schools in this state....
In just these last two weeks, my mentor has presented material to the students using technology ranging to the simple over head projector to showing DVDs on a big screen with the new speaker systems that the school installed in every classroom. The school also has laptop carts holding roughly 20 computers, a printer and a wireless air port hub. This cart can be checked out from the media center, and my mentor take frequent advantage of that.
Laptops are used in my classroom mostly for searching the web for science information. The students go to the EPA website to find out data on benthic macroinvertebrates, look at sections of the human body, and look at practice quizzes from their textbook website. My mentor emphasizes that the students learn from a variety of media - books, handouts, and the internet.
My mentor also has a website with links to the three classes she teaches. On these sites, the students can find a weekly calendar, syllabus, and pdf versions of handouts in case they miss class.
My teacher incorporates technology into her classroom far more than other teachers in the same building and in other schools. However, there is so much more than can be done - blogging, listening to podcasts, creating wikis. These are things I would like to include in my class, but I now realize that time is the number one constraint that prevents most teachers from introducing technology in the class. There are so many great ideas and projects to develop for students, but it doesn't always seem feasible when there are so many other considerations and demands.
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2 comments:
Courtney, that is awesome to hear your mentor teacher uses technology in the classroom. Like Community, Huron also has carts to check out at the media center, but both my mentors teachers are not technology savvy, so I don't think we'll be using that much. However, hopefully I can bring some more of that into the classroom and it will have a effect on my teachers. It sounds like you are in a good situation to do so.
Courtney,
The laptop cart is a really interesting idea. I suspect that could be very helpful in the classroom. At Pioneer, my mentor's classroom is in a portable and it would be very helpful to have a wireless laptop cart for classroom use one day instead of having to walk the students all the way to the library.
However, I am not sure Pioneer has such a thing. I'll have to check into it because it sounds like Huron has this Stoo. The Ann Arbor high schools seem to have similar technology options, but I wonder if this is the case for the laptops...
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