Questions+about+Technology+in+Education

Hello everyone!

This wednesday (May 23) we will be having two guest speakers come in to talk with us for about an hour regarding how they use technology in their classes and their perceptions of it in the school. Please edit this page and use the space below to ask any questions that you may have about this and I will forward them to our speakers so that they can be more efficient in giving you a response. In addition, please put your name next to the question so that we know who to address, etc.

-Steven

Note: Questions are due tonight (Monday, May 21) at 11:59 PM.

Questions for Guest Speakers:

1. How do you keep students on topic/ not get distracted/wander off while they use various technologies? -Jules Graney

2. How much time a day do you recommend we spend using technology in our classroom? - Lexie Thompson

3. Have you ever had a problem with parents not wanting their children exposed to certain uses of technology? How did you handle that? - Jennifer Carver

4. Would the technology be available to take home if students had homework that needed to be completed and did not own technology themselves? How would you go about that? - Sammie Valentino

5. How can teachers monitor every single child's computer screen to make sure they are on task? Is it possible to block every site that is not educational because it always seems like there is a way to get around it? -Lyndsay Walter

6. Have you ever had a problem with the school/administrators not supporting the use of technology in the classroom? More specifically the use of games, interactive activities, and videos. -Madelynn Campbell

7. What are some suggestions on working with technology and time management? How do you maintain class structure when technology does not cooperate? - Elle DeNegri

8. How can teachers stay up to date with all the developing technologies? And does administration ever help in this process? - Caitlin Needham

9. How do school's get the funding to stay up to date with the new and upcoming technology such as getting SMARTBoards in the classrooms? -Ashley Bowmer

10. If you try to center a certain percentage of your classroom activities around the use of technology, what do you do with the rare "digital immigrant" students who reject the activities because they do not have technology in the home and therefore aren't comfortable with it? How do you keep them from feeling excluded? - Rachel Stone

11. What should we do if parents argue that the use of technology is hindering their child's ability to learn in comparison to learning "the old fashioned way" that they learned? For example, the children may rely on a calculator for all math when most adults can do the math in their heads from practice without the technology. -Taylor Tomlinson

12. Do you think that the increased use of technology has hindered student's social and interpersonal communication skills? (ex: texting instead of speaking face to face, etc.) -McKenzie McCall

13. Have you ever had parents tell you that the use of technology makes you a lazy teacher? How would you go about explaining to them that its not? - Sara Gurchinoff

14. Have you ever found technology to prove to be less beneficial than perhaps teaching in the more traditional way? If so, why do you think that is the case? - Elaina Luecke

15. Do you think that your students like using technology in the clasroom? And that they learn better when using it? -Kelsea Burke

16. If I were to notice, for example, that my students would really benefit from a certain piece of technology, but our school does not have the money to purchase it, who takes care of writing the grants? How do you go about writing a grant? Where do you get them? -Laura Cieslewicz

Depends on the type of grant. If it is a school wide grant like the OKActs grant you would need to speak with your principal, form a committee and begin working. That is a grant that takes a school year to write and submit.

For smaller grants you are responsible for finding, writing, and then purchasing the items requested. This page from Dell has some good tips on writing them, @http://content.dell.com/us/en/k-12/d/public~solutions~k12~en/Documents~k-12-grants-calendar.pdf.aspx. If you click on the PDF it will give you a calendar of grant deadlines and links to those grants. Another place to look for grants are through your school. Many school PTSAs offer grants and a lot of the big districts offer Foundation grants once or twice a year.

Another suggestion is to find someone in your building that has received grants and ask them for help. There are usually a few people at each school that everyone knows is the person who writes and receives grants.

17. Do you think that technology can be more of a distraction in the classroom than a benefit? Do most students understand the responsibilities that come along with being able to use different technologies in their classes? -Brooke Baumert