What does my situation look like in terms of educational technology? In my elementary school, we are a mid-size school of 300+ students that offers both Montessori and more classical methods of teaching and learning. As the technology teacher, it is my job to make sure every one of the classes receive 2 40-minute sessions with me a week. I do this by making use of everything tech related I can get my eager hands on.
Classroom: In my classroom, I house and utilize a laptop cart of 30 Dell computers that each have marked with their own individual coloured/patterned tape, matching taped up charger cable, and a corresponding marked spot within the cart. It keeps the cart clean, organized, and everything is in its rightful place.
I have done the same for the iPad cart that houses 20 iPads and I have perched a lockbox with 4 more iPads on the top. It’s enough for a full class set.
There is a large HP television that is on wheels at the front of the room that has HDMI and Bluetooth connectivity. On my desk there is a makeshift document camera mount that I can place my iPad into that projects to my television.
I have a Padcaster studio kit for filmaking, a half class set of Spheros, 6 of each Dot and Dash robots, 6 Makey Makey kits, and a full class set of Micro:bits nested into some shelving. By no means is this classroom without resources. I have exhausted every piece of technology in that room, and have brought in some online programming to freshen up my curriculum.
The biggest challenge in my room is securing funding for more physical products that can take technological and computational learning from the screen of a laptop or an iPad, and making it tactile. My annual class funds as a non-enrolling teacher is a very humble sum. The latest item on my wishlist is a class set of Kittenbot Meowbits, or ELECFREAKS Retro consoles where my students can download the video game codes they design into it, and they can physically play their game on a handheld device. Unfortunately, after price conversions and shipping fees, one of these items takes me over my class budget. I worry that my students are missing out on the real world applications of their technology education when everything I teach them stays on devices for the most part.
School: On top of receiving 2 technology preps a week, my colleagues are very well supported in terms of educational tech. Each of the 5 intermediate teachers have 6 additional Dell laptops in their classes for immediate use. All 13 classroom teachers also have 1 teacher ipad in their classrooms. Student Services has a few ipads and laptops in their arsenal for using specifically to meet the needs of our vulnerable learners, and delegate a few devices to be the hubs for certain programming. Our school has recently achieved one of our tech goals to have 1 HP television in each classroom, similar to the one in my class, so every teacher has access to wireless connectivity. We have purchased licenses to many different online platforms such as: Lexia Core 5, Seesaw, Matific, RAZ Kids, and Simbi. We are a Microsoft school, so we also have access to all of the progamming they offer. Minecraft education is a popular one. My colleagues do struggle with finding time for them to book out the laptop cart. I am constantly using devices and there is very little downtime for when the laptops are free for in-class use. We have come up with a system, and we have proposed to our administration and parent advisory council (PAC) to keep in mind our desire to possibly add another laptop cart to the school.
District: At the district level, there are many different ways that we are supported with our technology needs. Our school district does have a tech team that regularly hosts professional development workshops, offers online courses outside of school hours to try new programming, organizes school district-wide technology contests, visits schools in need of assistance with educational technology, and runs a district tech lead team. A few of my colleagues and I are on the tech team and we are the point of contact supporting all teachers with their educational technology needs and bridging the gap between district and classroom teacher. There is also a digital literacy sub-team that the district has created where teachers, like myself, are provided resources on selected topics such as digital citizenship, online safety, and critical thinking in online spaces. One of our biggest caveats is the lack of teacher autonomy for the use of new technologies and programming. Any time we want to use a new form of educational technology, we must send the information to the district, they make the judgement call, and they install the necessary data at their discretion. They are making the necessary online privacy, disk space, and monetary considerations , but not having the ability to make a good judgement call at the school-level severely shrinks the list of options that are available to students.
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