Our classroom computers are now older than my 10 and 11 year-old students! The aging hardware just can't handle newer operating systems, rendering many of today's online learning opportunities out of reach for the kids in my class.
Almost all of my students are English language learners from low-income families.
Many do not have Internet access at home and rely on the computers in my classroom to do research. Currently, they store all of their writing projects "in the cloud" on Google Drive, but some of our computers are too obsolete to support browser updates. On these machines, the only word processing option is for kids to type their work into the body of an email, which is obviously less than ideal when it comes to formatting and printing.
Right now, trouble-shooting technological glitches sucks up a lot of instructional time; typically at least one student a day is unable to complete a learning activity because a browser crashes or an educational website fails to load properly. The rest of the class misses out on my help with the task at hand while I coax a decrepit machine back to life.
My Project
My students need several new computers, but to maximize chances our project will get funded, I've broken it into several proposals, each one--including this one--for a single Chromebook laptop. Access to up-to-date computers means access to the world, and beyond: from Khan Academy's math tutorials, to the interactive graphics of an iTunes U course, from 3-D models of the earliest humans, to Stephen Hawking's musings on the cosmos.
As a teacher, I worry that the Internet can be a source of distraction at times, but I also appreciate its power to level the playing field. My students all qualify for free lunch, but as long as our computers are new enough to run the most recent version of Chrome, my kids have the same access to many of the Web's high quality learning opportunities as students at exclusive private schools do.
My classroom's old machines--like yesteryear's slide-rules and 8-track tapes--may have value as historical artifacts, but as teaching tools, they fall short.
My students cannot prepare for the future with last century's technology. Your generosity will help bridge the digital divide and enable my students to navigate the world they live in.
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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. Carter and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
