We are working to spool up our technical resources at our rural school. Each class received a projector for use in his/her room. Now I am in need of a document camera to assist in my 1st grade instruction. We have had 10 days of school, and if I had a document camera, I would have used it each day.
We are located in rural Iowa.
Our enrollment has steadily decreased since I attended school here 30 years ago. Along with reduced student levels come cutbacks. Unfortunately many times that affects the elementary school first, as priority is given to high school and middle school. We are a school that qualifies for Title 1, meeting the requirement for free and reduced lunch. We have a mixture of students from parents that are very involved in their kids education, to parents that do not give much academic support or interest. We are lucky that most of our students have great attitudes and are excited to learn (at least in my 1st grade class, but also throughout the K-5 building.)
Our school consists of approximately 220 students in grades K-2, with 2 classes of each grade level. The class sizes average around 22 students.
My Project
A document camera would be a life saver in my classroom. In first grade there is so much instruction done by teacher modeling. So many times I am giving instructions and have to borrow one of the front-row students papers to give the example. At times I will make overhead transparencies, but sometimes that just isn't practical for instruction.
Oftentimes in reading and math I just need to have the lesson page in front of the students so that they can follow along. In first grade we really start to use workbooks and this is a new concept for students that have come out of kindergarten. To have a document camera that I could just slip the example under and point to it on the white board would be awesome.
Also, I would appreciate the fact that the document camera would make instruction and learning hands-on, as the students could come to the whiteboard to answer questions and examples. Also, a huge bonus would be the instructional time that I could save with the document camera.
By receiving a document camera for my first grade class, instruction would be so much smoother and more hands-on.
I am a huge believer in hands-on learning whenever possible, and with the help of a document camera, it would be easier to follow-through on this hands-on philosophy. I could follow through in math especially, and also in reading and other areas that are sometimes difficult to engage students in learning. Thanks for the opportunity!
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