Have you ever experienced the frustration of losing your beloved PowerPoint for work? Do you hate waiting for the PowerPoint to come up because your computer is so full of saved files? This is what I face every time I attempt to teach in my classroom.
I am a high school special education teacher.
I teach students with autism and other health impairments that are similar to being on the autism spectrum. My students learn through repetition, pictures, video, hands-on projects, and in every other way. They are working on functional math skills, sight words, and picture identification. When I teach, I use PowerPoint's for every subject, including life skills and cooking. Sometimes the videos embedded in my PowerPoint's are the only way my kids experience new things. All of them come from impoverished backgrounds and do not often get to go to museums, explore new places, or even leave home because their parents often work several jobs. As a teacher, I have to teach in a variety of ways, but most ways involve technology. The computers in my classroom crash almost every day because they are so full of PowerPoint's for my students. When my students have to wait, valuable learning time is wasted and they cannot refocus easily.
My Project
With a large external hard drive, I will have the freedom to store large PowerPoint files and other media files/documents that I use to teach my students. I often have to delete things off my computer just to get it to run. I can't save even one more picture...and my kids need to see pictures of themselves! Seeing pictures of themselves succeeding motivates them to keep learning. Without proper storage areas, I can't save pictures or even download pictures to print and hang them in my classroom. This is discouraging. In addition, my students will finally be able to maximize their time. When we waste five minutes of math waiting for our PowerPoint to finally pop up, my kids lose focus and start to get anxious, resulting in undesired behaviors. If we have to wait, they all lose focus and some students are just not able to refocus afterward. This would truly benefit the students in my room because I would be free to save more teaching materials on my hard drive!
This is going to impact my students greatly.
They need repetition, but they also need change. Having three very similar PowerPoint's is good for my students to learn to generalize new information, but it is hard on my hard drive because of space issues. I am currently having to really limit what I create for my students. In addition, it is VERY important for them to have pictures in the classroom. My students rarely feel success and they need something to show off, too!
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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 Mrs. Silvia and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.