The article called Toward a New Model of High-Tech Schoolrooms by Royal Van Horn discusses how it is more successful to transform a classroom rather than a school in terms of technology. Van Horn says that he has worked with 5 schools to help them become high-tech and only one of those was successful. The three things that made the one school successful were a hand-picked faculty, an enthusiastic leader, and a teacher evaluation system that made technology use a priority. Van Horn discusses that it is hard to include computers into a kindergarten class because they are on a routine schedule and computer time is not part of that schedule. In most cases, the only time the students are allowed on the computers is while they are waiting to go to lunch or to go home. He says that if you were to remodel your home, you would do it one room at a time; that is how a school should be transformed to a high-tech school, one room at a time. There are four approaches described in this article to transform a classroom. The first suggestions are specialized geography/Earth science labs at the secondary level. The second idea includes a planetarium, a 360-degree immersion theater, and a high-definition television production lab. These types of technologies will put an emphasis on oral language, which is usually overlooked in schools. In the next model, every student at a grade level or in a particular school is given a laptop computer. "A fourth approach to using technology in a school district might be to concentrate the technology in an all-out effort to narrow the achievement gap."
I think this article is useful for all teachers, teachers in training, and administrators. We are in a time where technology is present in everyday life. More and more educators are realizing this and trying to incorporate technology into their classroom. If this is to be done in a successful way, Van Horn suggests to do it one classroom at a time. If you try to transform the whole school at once, it will most likely fail. This article partly addresses my inquiry question: How can technology be incorporated into a kindergarten classroom? I know the tendencies of kindergarten teacher to only use computers before lunch or dismissal. I will try to use the computers and other technologies more often and incorporate it into the daily schedule.
http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxy.fgcu.edu/hww/results/external_link_maincontentframe.jhtml?_DARGS=/hww/results/results_common.jhtml.9
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2 comments:
I really like this article. The plan intended though definitely seems very expensive. In response to your question about how to incorporate technology in classrooms, I think that students should be allotted time most definitely. What worked for me in my kindergarten class was a computer corner. Every day students would get to play in any of the four corners, or two corners, your choice. This would be inexpensive for the school because there could be three-four computers in the corners, your choice.
I am glad you also found this article helpful. I agree that some components of this plan are expensive. The thought of each student being given a laptop seems impossible and very costly. I have never seen a school that actually gave a laptop to every student, have you? Have you worked in a school in a kindergarten classroom? I am just curious becuase you make the comment about your kindergarten class. If so, you probably have a lot more helpful ideas to share with me! Are you planning on teaching kindergarten when you graduate (I couldnt remember)?
I agree with you that the students should be given time to work with technology, especially computers. It is improtant for children to learn about technology while they are still young because it will be a big part of their lives. What I noticed about this article are the suggenstions he gives are not realistic to kindergarten. Like everyone having a laptop would not work in a young class. Also, some of the suggestions are specifically for the secondary level. There are not many articles for technology in kindergarten so we will have to be really creative and perhaps one day write our own articles.
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