I finished analyzing the results of the technology survey that I posted for my teachers with Survey Monkey. Following the example of a TIS friend, I posted the survey results on a web page so I could easily share them with my staff. I was pleased that 48 people took the time to respond. It was a short survey with only 8 questions, but it gave me a barometer reading on the local attitudes toward technology. Honestly, there weren’t any surprises. Most teachers reported that the level of technology integration in their classrooms is not very high, but they have a very strong interest in learning more about how to use a SMARTboard. As part of our district’s technology roll-out plan, every teacher in our school received a laptop and projector last semester. Our SMARTboards have also arrived, but they are still sitting in boxes in a storage room. It may be months before the contracted company gets around to mounting them. (That is a huge frustration and another story.) My teachers are eager to get their boards and want to be prepared to use them. This eagerness is an open doorway for me, and I hope to use this momentum to help my teachers see that using technology is not just “one more thing to do.” Instead, it’s a way to teach students in ways that engage and motivate them. It will also make their jobs more fun, and it will prepare students to be successful in the world in which they live. The survey results encouraged me as a new TIS. My faculty has demonstrated good receptivity to me and my ideas. I’m excited about my work, and I look forward to good things happening in my school this semester!
Curriculum Connections:
Third Grade Social Studies: Research key battles of the Revolutionary War that were fought in South Carolina. Use Google Earth to plot the locations of the battles. Use Excel to create a graph of the casualty numbers for each battle. Write a “from the scene” news report of each battle and record them for podcasts. Resource: Diigo bookmarks of battle websites.
Literacy: Post Children’s Book Award nominee books on Shelfari to encourage students to read those books and post comments. It’s an online book discussion! Check out our bookshelf. We’re just getting started with this in our media center.
1 response so far ↓
Great post! There are too many things to comment about here but I really liked looking at your survey results. You did an outstanding job of summarizing.
I was very pleased to see their preferred number of people in a training class was 5-7. This is an optimum number for a training session; not too high and not too low.
I work at part of an edTech grant supporting teachers who are supposed to have received Smartboards in their classroom. It’s taken an entire semester to get them ordered and installed. I’m actually still waiting for all of them to get installed. In the meantime, I created a Smart Board blog so they would have daily updates on Smart Boards. They will also be using self-paced courses with live WebEx support when they need it. Hopefully this will get them to use their Smartboards and keep using them throughout the entire year.
Anyway, thanks for sharing! Your results solidify the direction I’m taking with my teachers. Let me know if you’re on twitter. My account is “jameshollis.”
Jim
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