Technology Gives Us a Voice: 21st Century Skills for ALL
My students need an iPad (with communication and learning specific apps) to give them a voice in the classroom and school community and practice 21st Century skills. We also need a flip stand to make the iPad easier to access.
Every student needs a voice. In a 21st Century school and world, every student not only needs to have a voice, but needs to be able to use it to collaborate, invent, analyze, generate questions, and more. An iPad 2 will allow my students to be active participants in our school's 21st Century learning.
I teach six amazing 1st-3rd grade boys who love cars, Legos, Spongebob, computer games, and playing outside.
All of my students are diagnosed with autism.
We have a very active classroom within a typical ECE-5th grade elementary school. At any moment you may walk into six (or more) different things happening at once. Students follow their personalized schedules to move between centers, working towards their individualized learning goals. Other adults frequently come in and out. Besides me (the teacher) there are three paraprofessionals and three related services adults who work in the room.
Our biggest classroom goals center around communication and social skills, as these are my students' biggest needs in our 21st Century world. Some students talk, but need support for appropriate social interactions. Some are learning to use pictures and signs to show us what they want. All of my students will benefit from the communication and social planning support an iPad 2 loaded with apps can offer.
My Project
An iPad 2 will bring my students into the 21st Century. It will give students a voice, who otherwise may have none. It will motivate students to learn, communicate, and work with others. It will inspire other students to interact and work with mine. An iPad 2 with classroom specific apps and a protective case will increase my students' communication, social, attention, academic, and play skills.
The biggest app I am requesting, Proloquo2go, is a communication app which will literally give a voice to my students who do not talk. I am also requesting many academic apps that are specific to my students' goals: as with most students, mine learn best when they are able to interact with the lesson. All of these apps will be highly motivating to my students.
With great motivation comes the greatest learning! These apps will turn our classroom into a 21st Century classroom. Like the rest of our school, my students will be able to learn with technology: practicing collaboration, information literacy, and self-direction.
I teach amazing students.
They deserve to be heard and to participate in 21st Century learning, just as every other student does. An iPad 2, with the apps targeted towards my students' needs, will allow my classroom to become a more active and equal part of the school community. It will give my students the skills they need to be successful in our 21st Century school and world. It will give my students a voice. And they want to be heard.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Wales and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.