My students are 11th grader English/Language Arts students in an urban setting (Madison, WI).
We have a high number of free/reduced lunch students, a 47% African-American/Bi-racial population, and my classes range from ELL classes (multiple native languages) to general-tracked classes to Honors classes.
Today's students are very technologically centered and need more regular access to computers. Our school has a very limited number of computers (maybe 180), and only 3 computer labs, all to serve 1600 students. This makes it difficult to reliably plan on having computers for a lengthy time.
My Project
Currently, teachers at my school have to plan months ahead in order to be able to sign up for laptops. Every subject needs to have access to technology and we currently only have 5 computer carts available, which makes for 150 computers for a school the size of 1600.
In English class, we often only have computers for a week at a time; we rarely have time to do full peer-revising on them; if one or two of the computers aren't working or are missing, then there is a shortage and I have to find someplace else for a student or two to work.
As a writing-focused school, and as a teacher who has been specifically trained in teaching writing, I want to be able to have computers in my classroom so we can run stations. One day, a group of students will be working with partners to look through essays, make revisions, offer suggestions. Another group would be using computers to read a peer's paper and compare it to a rubric for content, organization, and mechanics. A third group could be working on finishing essays (either rough drafts if they need more time, or final drafts after having been peer reviewed and revised).
Having computers in my classroom would also allow me to more easily have a couple of days on computers, a couple of days of instruction or choice book reading. Not having to inch onto the highly competitive computer calendar would allow more flexibility for me and my students.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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