Week 5: Using Technology

When I first came to UHS, it surprised me to find out that there were only a few classrooms that had Smart Boards. Granted, I don't think it's necessary to have a Smart Board in your classroom in order to be an efficient teacher, but sometimes there are things I'd like to do in my class that would work better if I did in fact have one. My mentor teacher from last semester was very tech savvy and had all sorts of gadgets in his classroom to make up for the lack of a Smart Board. This year had been a little different. There's a TV in the room and a projector, but that has been the extent of it all.

This week, my mentor teacher stumbled across a tablet that connects to the computer through Bluetooth and has a variety of different functions that lets it interact similar to what a Smart Board can do. It took a few days for Mrs. Anderson (a tech support school employee) to install the tablet onto the computer. Then once everything had been installed, the table began going through phases where it would work for a few minutes and then not work for hours. Neither my mentor teacher nor I could get it to work regardless of what we tried to do to fix it. I guess that's what you get with technology though. I've always tried to have a back-up plan when using technology because it can't always be depended on. Anyway, I finally got it to work and we were able to use it to do the bell ringers. Instead of correcting the sentences on the board, we are able to use the tablet to correct them & our markings show up through the projection. Eventually, we will be able to let the students use the tablet to make the corrections themselves.

One thing I love about UHS is the availability of technology when planning in advance. There is a set of laptops that can be reserved for classroom use, as well as a set of iPads. In addition to these, there are also three computer labs that classes can take advantage of. I've used the laptops and computer labs in previous semesters, but this coming week will be the first time I've ever used the iPads. I'm really looking forward to it because my students are excited to have something they can work with "hands-on." We spend so much time just reading and writing that actually having some type of technology will be a good switch for them.