Did you ever have a pen pal in a foreign country? Do you remember waiting weeks for a reply. Well, times have changed. My students have epals in Australia and send emails to them and often get replies the next day! However, our computer labs are full and not located in our wing of the school.
Our elementary school is one of the largest in the state with over six hundred students enrolled.
There are five sections of each grade level K-5. Each class has two thirty minute scheduled computer lab times each week. My twenty second graders love using computers and are very good at it! They send letters to their epals using Jan Brett's website. They use Kidpix to create their own artwork for other letters. The problem is that they often need more time to finish a project, and feel rushed because they only have thirty minutes.
My Project
I am slowly building a netbook station in my classroom. Generous donors have provided two netbooks and one laptop for my students. I would like to add another netbook so more students could use the computers each day. The netbook I am requesting has a card reader and the students would be able to share photos that they take with our digital camera with their friends in Australia. It also has a web cam, so they could use Skype to chat with their epals. My artistic students would love being able to spend more time creating artwork and slideshows.
This netbook would expand our literacy center. There are wonderful websites for both beginning and advanced readers. The netbook could be used to type and publish students' stories. The students could use it to do research and for reinforcing their math skills. We are already very fortunate to have some computers in our room. I would like to give my students the opportunity to use a computer every day.
I love using computers with my students and have created projects with classes all around the world.
If we could get an additional netbook for our classroom, more students would be able to send letters or create artwork throughout the day. We could also use the netbook in other subject areas. We hope you will help us increase the size of our netbook center. Thanks so much!
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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. Coats and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.