Technology at Ypsilanti High School: A Gap between Presence and Usage

Coming into Ypsilanti Community High School which I knew was a "high needs school," I assumed that their would be a lack of resources, especially technologically While this lack of resources definitely exists, there are actually  many technologies available within the walls of the school. For instance within my mentor teacher's classroom we have 18 Macintosh computers and a set of fifty graphing calculators for students to use within its walls. As far as the overall technology in the classroom there is a teacher laptop, a projector, an audio device for the projector, a dongle to hook up the teacher laptop to the projector, a DVD/VCR player. While technological equipment is requested by teachers for their classroom the summer before the school year, the lack of enough and of organized technological specialists prevents many of these requests from being handled, For instance, many of the teachers were not even  issued the laptops that the district provides them with until two weeks after the year began-so  teachers were not able to record grades online or submit attendance electronically. While the school does have internet, it only works for about an hour and not very well in the basement where the STEMM academy is located. Even though teachers have complained about the internet servers, there has not been any changes made.  For about a month the computers in the back of the classroom weren't working as well. This limited some of the different types of lessons and activities that we could do in our classroom. In fact, my mentor teacher hardly uses the technology that eventually became available. I began to wonder about some of the reasons, other than having an overbook tech specialist, that might have helped to make this true.

I figured that some of the discrepancy between having the technology and actually using it is due to a lack of comfort with using itf or teaching and learning. Even teachers who are using technology and report a high degree of comfort with technology probably tend to use it in fairly rigid ways that mostly cater to themselves and planning for their lessons since having students learn with technology brings about a variety of complications.  While students frequently do use computers in the classroom, use is often limited using them for Google searching and as a factual resources rather than as multimedia tools or digital content to design and create products Often, learning with technology is teacher-centered rather than student-centered since teaching with technology is not always offered to teachers as a course.

While many teachers still feel uncomfortable using technology in their teaching practice, it is also likely that teachers feel new technologies are unproven in the classroom. Though there has been a great deal of research on the efficacy of technology tools for teaching and learning, many of these studies may not translate well to the reality of the classroom. This also seems to be the case in my own school where when I asked about the technology specialist, the teachers there replied that young people like myself were the specialists. I found there to be some disconnect in this way of thinking since I am still a learning teacher-I may have a better grasp of using some technologies but it is difficult for me to know how to use they effectively in the classroom since I have not been in a classroom for long!

David Theune: Transforming the Way Education Connects to Places Outside the Classroom.

After a long day of student teaching, I can't say that I was very excited to attend my bi-weekly night class about technology and education. However, the moment David Theune, an English teacher from Western Michigan, walked into the classroom I was interested in what he had to say. Perhaps it was his really neat red glasses or his colorful outfit that grabbed my attention but I think more my intrigue was due to his excitement to be there. Instead of merely presenting on some tools and ideas that could be helpful in our classrooms, he presented tools and ideas that he was very interested about and worked in his classroom since his students were interested as well.  

One thing that stood out to me about David's practices were how involved he got his students with people, places and subjects that were outside of the classroom. For instance, he explained how he often gets the student's families involved with his classroom. He explained how he made his classroom open for parents to visit. I think that this idea is one way that one can break the barrier between the school and the home-connecting these two important parts of a students life is one way in which we as educators can make the idea of school and the subjects within it more palatable to students. Getting to know student's guardians is one way to be a more socially aware teacher as well. Feedback that one gets from parents who watch them teach could be really informative for their practice and certainly helpful in helping a teacher get to know more about their students. David also talked about an activity where he had students write pieces that they were going to share with their parents and families. He informed the students that they were going to be sharing their work with people from their homes which Theune then described as a way to push students and motivate them to do well since someone whom they cared about, and someone other than their teacher would be involved in the learning process. On his blog, Theune describes a "service-learning project" that the students completed after finishing a novel. This interested me for I had taken a lot of wonderful "service-learning" classes in my undergraduate studies. In his post he wrote about the knowledge that the students got out of it and how the experience forced his students to get "real experience of working and listening to adults and empathy to community members." I had not thought about having 'service-learning" units in my classroom before looking at his blog, and seeing a personal account of it working in Theune's class made me all the more excited to think creatively about a way to implement a similar activity in a mathematics class. 

David is a colorful man whose personality and passion stood out as he presented to my class. I immediately began following his twitter in hopes of learning more about some of the other projects and ideas that he had for the classroom. I think Theune is able to bring his students out of the classroom in a way that does not always require technology which is important to consider for schools that may not have technological resources. However, in terms of his own personal technology use, David's blog and twitter have inspired me to create my own professional accounts so that I can explore the edublogger world and begin to put my own thoughts out there in cyberspace as well.