I am in my second year at an amazing high school. It is a rural school that has a strong community and great students. I am currently teaching algebra, geometry, and an engineering class. All of my classes have a strong visual aspect to them. There is a lot of interaction with visual and tactile materials. My algebra class is a high-needs class with many special education students, so using highly visual and interactive lessons is very important. We have a lot of parental support, and the staff is wonderful and collaborative. I love it here and I hope to bring some of my ideas into the classroom!
Like many high schools we are in a budget crunch. We have had many layoffs, many extra curricular activities have been cut, and our budget has been frozen. This includes our technology budget. As our school struggles to fix aging computers and replace lights, there is no money for new technology. I am a huge advocate of technology in the classroom. I feel that it is a tremendous tool to help students learn in the 21st century, and I feel we need to a better job as educators to prepare our students for a global world. I am currently implementing the first blog at the school, where students can interact and collaborate with other students. I feel this is a great way of showing students how to interact in a way that will make them global thinkers. In a more practical sense in the classroom from day to day is the visual aspect of learning math. I use transparencies to show various visual representations on an overhead, but the price of transparencies have put our school on a crunch and even those are now not available to us. It would be nice to have a way of visually showing information to a large group without using expendable resources!
A digital projector has long been something I have wanted in the classroom. Not only would it cut down on the use of expendable materials like transparencies, markers, and paper, it would provide an enhanced level of interactivity with the students. I have a white board, and being able to project an image right on it so one could draw on it would be wonderful. Imagine graphing a graph on the board, and then seeing the computer graph it for you to compare your own drawing. Now imagine being able to animate the graphs to see how changing a variable changes the graph, right on the board! This is not possible with overheads. Or imagine finding how students’ houses are related to one another using Google Earth and geometry software. This is not simply playing a movie or showing a PowerPoint, this is REAL interactivity where the students, not just the teacher, are manipulating things. Plus, with my strong advocacy for Learning 2.0, blogging, web quests, and other current tools like using a web camera to have live video chatting with engineers, other students, or other teachers from around the country, an LCD projector would be a tremendous help. Having this great tool in the classroom will enable a higher level of learning for the students. This is not just about making it easier for me as a teacher. This will actually improve their level of understanding by introducing them to enhanced interaction with the material. They can actually TOUCH the math, and see how it moves and interacts with them. In addition, with my attempts to bring the 21st century into the classroom, by having a window to the world that will make it possible to connect with a broader place. It excites me to think of the possibilities of having this tool in the classroom, and having a chance to bring the world to these rural students through this window. It is especially beneficial because I do not have an actual window in my classroom!
I thank you for your time and consideration on this very worthwhile tool.
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