46 ESL Students Need Just $48 to Build a Digital Fluency Lab
My students need an ESL Language Lab. I have 25 older PCs that would work great, but the hard drives are worn out. Approximately $50 buys a solid state drive for each PC that would fix it!
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. Chow's classroom raised $1,598
This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
Teaching isn't about catchy slogans or glossy computers with "retinal" monitors, nor expensive programs by big name publishers. It's simply about meeting the students where they are - and providing the guidance and leadership to get them where they need to be. This is what I do as an ESL teacher.
I have 46 students in my double-roster ESL 3/4 class.
Their ages range from 14 to 17. A double roster means that I teach two classes at once in the same room. 1/3 of the class is EL4, which means they are almost fluent in English. The remainder is EL3, which means that they are at an intermediate level.
My school is in the heart of Los Angeles. Homelessness, crime, and poverty are notoriously rampant here. However, there are also many students who deeply wish to learn, grow, and contribute to both their community and our nation. But first, they need to become fluent English speakers and listeners.
Time is of the essence, however. In the space of a few short years, they must master a second language, and then leverage that skill into overcoming a variety of obstacles such as the high-stakes state CELDT (English language mastery) test, CAHSEE (HS exit exam), language prerequisites for higher-level classes, and just being able to understand classes in general.
My Project
As a 15 year veteran teacher with a master's in Learning Technologies, a 20 year background in IT, and having been the Instructional Technology Coordinator at three high schools, I'm uniquely equipped to both design and build learning environments. What I want to do is build a Digital Language for these ESL students so that they can write essays, research topics, embark on self-driven research, and collaborate asynchronously via cloud applications such as Google Docs and Popplet. Furthermore, I want students to develop speaking and listening mastery through recording, replaying, and revising their own narratives using Microsoft's free Photo Story 3.
I've already had a lot of success in past years working with a wide range of students using these tools. But for the first time, I'd like to build a lab that is designed from its inception to foster an accelerated 21st-century-learner English fluency program for ESL students.
I've got the technological expertise, the necessary software, and almost all of the hardware I need.
The 25 Pentium D desktops I've got are from 2008, but I can get them to run just as well as any present-day PC for the purposes we need. The problem, however, is the hard drives are shot from seven years of hard use.
Approximately $50 will allow me to replace those hard drives with Solid State Drives. Once fixed, these computers will allow students to collaborate, design, record, replay, and grow at 21st century pace!
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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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 Mr. Chow and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
