My students need 30 Acer Chromebooks and a BlackBox Charging Cart to hold them in order to become digital citizens who feel competent in technology.
$11,389 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! 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.
I teach six sections of English I and Advanced 8th grade students at J. L. Long Middle School in Dallas, TX. Many of my students are high achievers who get bored without constant challenge. This makes them an exciting group! I am always looking for ways to be more innovative with them.
My students are just beginning to seek investment in their futures, as well as the futures of their communities and the world.
Throughout the year, these 150 students consistently create ideas for change as we study universal themes, global conflicts, and self expression. Middle school students are at an age where passion and empathy meet and it is for this precise reason that I love to work with them. I want my students to be able to cultivate their creativity while using technology to ensure their amazing ideas extend outside of the walls of our classroom.
My Project
While my students have grown up in the Age of Technology, play Pokemon Go like pros, and can't stay off their Snapchat stories, they are not the tech geniuses many adults assume. Many students struggle with typical "work related" tasks such as using spreadsheets, formatting documents, or even using email. We have a very large school (almost 1,500 students!) but not very many technological resources to offer them. Right now, there are only two "COW Carts" (Computers on Wheels) that can be checked out for all the subjects and grade levels. This makes any kind of consistent access difficult.
I want to use these chromebooks in my classroom to teach my students digital literacy as I teach them how to think deeply about literature and write effectively.
With this technology, they can collaborate on group presentations, create media to share literature (such as book trailers or vlogs), and write their compelling thoughts in a format that could reach around the globe. My students will be able to gain confidence in using technology for purposes of creation and formal communication.
This technology will also open the door for a new after school program! With the help of an awesome community member who specializes in computer programming, my students will have the chance to learn coding. According to MIT Professor Michael Resnick, "When you learn to code, you start thinking about processes in the world" (WSJ, Why Coding is Your Child's Key to Unlocking the Future). Resnick also believes that coding is "uniquely suited for training children not just how to solve problems, but how to express themselves". These intertwined tools are crucial to middle school development and allow all students to increase their higher order thinking.
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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. Johnson and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
