- All the teachers have a Macbook of some sort
- There are 4 Mac laptop cars for each floor of the school that can be reserved.
- All the computers in the library are Mac
- Every classroom has a smartboard
- Every classroom has a projector
- Every classroom has whiteboards
- Every classroom has surround sound
- Every classroom comes with microphones for the teachers to use.
- The school has wifi- kinda of slow- a lot of sites are not allowed.
We haven't discussed this Tech in my placement survey in class but this situation with this amount of technology is not common. It may be in Washtenaw County or the it could be the average property tax of the district itself and how much of that goes to the schools. I know from what I have seen that the entire district is a Mac district so it is not just the high school. Teachers need technology in order to properly plan and execute their lessons and with that I whole heartedly agree; however, I don't think that there is this much technology needed. I don't know how many of the teachers use smartboards but I know they were installed because of a grant and that many of the teachers don't use them-1 reason I know makes sense. Having computer carts is nice because there aren't very many iMacs in the library- certainly not enough for an entire class- saves time with transitions. I mainly have witnessed students using google.translate to basically write their assignments for them or looking up videos on youtube when they should have been working.
I think comparing this school to other "less fortunate" schools in the area (like the high school I attended) is a good idea because not every school has carts and carts of Macbooks to let their teachers use. Granted- this high school has about 1,200 students in it so obviously they get more money from the state itself. But that is not the only method the school pays for stuff.
Almost all the students (except for a small population) have internet at home. Some have their own Macbooks that they bring to school with them (idk why).
My placement has a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy in place so students have their cell phones out during class and it doesn't seem to cause a problem. Most of them just check it real quick between activities or if they finish early- less strict than my grad classes- i'll say that. I have only noticed it become distracting a couple times but its never been bad. I think its a good gradual introduction to college life- since most of these students are tracked to go to a 4-year institution.
CONCLUSION: I do not know if this technology is a good thing or a bad thing. Somedays I miss the use of encyclopedias and typewriters that only typed. What about dictionaries? OMG THEY EXIST?
Dictionaries are imaginative and don't really exist. I don't believe they've ever existed in any other form than google translate...though I always went with babblefish when I was trying to figure it out. Perhaps this was before google became all it could be with the collected information of millions.
ReplyDeleteYour school seems a bit like mine with technology, but we just don't have smart boards. We've got projectors, mac (cough, cough) books, laptops...etc. Though, we don't actually have any laptop cars...kinda jealous! We have no lack of resources available, but student's don't generally have their own computers or cell phones out in class. I was surprised to find that in a recent assignment, only one or two of the students did not already have google docs for an assignment. Welcome to Gloria Glade (G2)! I wonder how it'll change when we enter school districts with fewer resources available onsite and less technology available at home.