A Macbook Laptop for Every Lap!

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

Most of my students are madly clicking away on laptops, updating their reading blogs and revising their essays. However, four students sit stewing because we don't have enough Macbooks for the entire class. I can teach them how to conjugate a verb, but how do I teach them patience?

These students have a lot to say.

They're impatient to assure a better future than the fate that our school's lack of resources seems to offer them. Our diverse urban inner city high schoolers (approximately 55% Hispanic; 35% Black; and 10% other) come with a wealth of knowledge about their families, neighborhoods, and cultures. They also bring deficits: more than 75% qualify for free lunch, more than 20% receive special education services but are integrated and mainstreamed. Most have little access or knowledge of the digital technologies which colleges and our global society increasingly require.

My Project

When my students do get their turn at the computer, they accomplish amazing feats: they draft and revise their formal essay work in google.docs; they update their reading progress at goodreads.com; they research the background of a text before we start reading it; they search for images to illustrate their own memoir anecdotes. However, they can't do any of this when their own laps are empty, outnumbering the computers available in our classroom every day. Right now, my classes have rosters that easily outstrip the number of computers in our room's cart. Although my 9th grade classes will use this cart 3-4 times a week, it is also shared by other teachers in the room, including a 10th grade ELA and a 12th grade Civics class. Laptops need tweaking, run out of power, and freeze up. Every time something happens to one, another student starts twiddling her thumbs, or puts his head down with a sigh--and waits.

By donating to this project, you'll help create a complete classroom Macbook cart that will serve, with the additional desktops already in service, the needs of each and every student in my ELA class.

While being able to follow a lesson on Internet research is important, it is more crucial they develop longterm digital literacy skills. Your gift assures a bright future for the next generation of American voting citizens. These students need these tools to thrive.