21st Century students must be equipped to master our current and future learning capabilities. This goes well beyond the realm of antiquated textbooks and printed worksheets. I have worked at creation of websites for my classes instead of textbooks and we need devices for the classroom to grow.
We are a rural public school district in Missouri.
Several students come from financially stressed households with limited resources. But these students are full of capability. They are diligent and hard working, striving for academic success. We see this every day in our high school students and work feverishly at providing them with the necessary resources to achieve such success. The ability to update printed textbooks remains prohibitive in maintaining our district's budget. Beyond the financial aspects, some of the content area has limited current texts available. Plus, the typical replacement schedule for social studies texts is every ten years. We all know that a lot of new discoveries and changes in our world can occur in a decade.
My Project
As a secondary social studies classroom, the opportunities to use these 10 tablets are endless. In the Missouri History classroom students can use these to access information on various famous Missourians and moments of our state's history. The high school American Government students and seventh grade Civics students can research Supreme Court cases, political parties, the backgrounds of particular amendments and learn current elected officials at all levels of government. Personal Finance students can utilize the tablets in maintaining budgets, bank accounts, income tax processing, and more. With the ever-changing tax laws and political elections, the capability of accessing current information is crucial. The eighth grade American History students can develop geographic displays for the development of our country, examine primary sources, view video presentations of events in history, etc. All could use these to post on class websites, blogs, create documents, and take exams.
Colorado instructor Karl Fisch echoed my concerns when he said, “We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist using technologies that haven’t been invented … in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.” Many of us recall life B.C.
(before computers) and every year there are new technology coming along. Teaching students the same way the 19th century factory system will not foster a joy of learning in today's students. I want my students to go beyond!
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