Technology in the Classroom

Technology is key to education, and one of my first priorities when I get to a new school is to get it into my classroom. When I took my instructional technology class, at USU, I had my eyes opened to the possibilities. There are hundreds of private grants out there for technology which are primarily untapped. What I would do is get my classroom it's own set of netbooks or laptops by writing a grant.  In preparing for this post I found that Dell has a grant program and there are others that I could probably find with a little more research.

This is how I  would justify having a set of netbooks for a social studies classroom. In previous posts I have talked about writing in my classroom, (see Gilded Age BR & Writing Literacy) and the other day I realized a better way to  do this other than notebooks, netbooks. Each day students world come into class grab their assigned netbook and do their bell ringer response. I would have them use Google Drive, all they need is a gmail to login.  The nice thing is that GD has all of the aspects of word, but it saves automatically,  and you can access your documents from any computer with the internet, including smart phones. Another aspect that is nice for me is that there is an option to share documents. I would have the student type their bell ringers  on one document and have them share it with me, with the option to comment only. I would also have them do their wrap ups on GD and have instant access to make adjustments to my lesson plans accordingly.

Another reason I would have a set of netbooks is that with the common core in math, it has become harder and harder to get into the computer lab, and not to mention end of level test. With a set of netbooks students can do research on a daily basis, and do more writing and presentations without scheduling conflict in the lab. Also most new textbooks have an online version, allowing students to leave there book at home or not to have one at all.

The best way to get grant money is to have a plan, this is my plan.  The world needs better writers and communicators, and the social studies classroom is a great place to learn and apply the fundamentals of writing.