Living the Dream: Technology in Urban Schools

Lately, I have been thinking about what most students, teachers and administrators can expect in terms of technology in big box urban schools. I am sure there are other items, but here is what I have come up with so far...

You can expect that most classrooms in urban schools will have one computer that is usually dedicated for teacher use. You can expect that the teacher will only use the one workstation for work related activities such as attendance, communication, and grade keeping. These low level activities also include email and using Microsoft Office products scarcely. The highest activity occurring on teacher workstations, is internet browsing for personal interest.

You could expect that urban schools only have a handful of LCD projectors and the teachers who use them the most often use them for video playing and only pull them out once in a while. Often times you find the overhead projector getting more use then an LCD projector.

You could also expect to find a few to zero laptops dedicated for student use. You could expect to find very few if at all any color printers. SmartBoards or Interactive Boards are rare and few in between. Most are located in classrooms that has teachers who are very comfortable with technology. You also find them in rooms that the teacher may have no familiarity with the technology, but has indicated an interest in learning how to use it. The follow through and training is rarely present to help that teacher.

Printers, are also far in and few in schools. Often printers are located scarcely throughout a building with not enough of them being centrally located. Copiers are also very scarce often urban schools with 70 plus teaching staff members have no more then two available to them, and many times only have one. Copiers are often not found setup for network printing so teachers, students and administrators could rarely use them remotely throughout the school building.

Digital cameras, camcorders are scarce and very often non-existent for teacher and student use.

Computer labs are strictly dedicated for a content area and very few buildings have space for open use labs. Mobile laptop carts would alleviate this scarcity.

So what's my point, well if we are to improve urban education we need to provide access to current resources and tools. We need to provide teachers and administrators with exposure and training on using such tools to improve the overall educational experience for students in urban schools. There is a huge disparity of exposure from schools from state to state as well as within the same city. If we are to allow students of color an opportunity to succeed in the 21st Century then we must incorporate the use of technology in everything we do. The longer we wait the bigger the gap, and the further minorities will be at being able to access the digital jobs that now exist.

The time is now to integrate cutting edge technology. Let us not do it for a grant, or as a partnership with another organization but let us do it because it is the right thing to invest in.

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¡Viviendo el Sueño! (Living the Dream!)
Mr. Anibal Soler, Jr.
http://www.anibalsoler.com
http://anibalsoler.blogspot.com

The iPhone and K-12 Schools

It was about 3 weeks ago that I finally took the financial plunge to acquire an iPhone. Being the "digital junky" that I am it was only a matter of time before I got my hands on this innovative device. Let me see that the iPhone has definitely set the bar very high in terms of expectations for future phones.

Apple in my eyes has set the new benchmark for mobile phones.

Being an educator I can see a whole new world of benefits for schools, educators and district leaders. I can see this device take the place of the many "Laptop per child" initiatives. This device can do everything a laptop can do and would allow 24 hour communication between student and teacher or student and school. Obviously there are some legal concerns to consider but if done correctly it would allow for continuous learning to occur in and outside of school.

I am thinking of a student who doesn't have internet at home, he picks up his iPhone to log on to the internet to do some basic research online. That same student may text message his teacher with a question about the homework. I am thinking the school could send out messages to its students about snow days, or school sporting event schedules, etc. The school could even send out reminders for SAT registration and so on. There could be a hotline for students to text message to warn adults about potential problems. Teachers or the school could have a site with downloadable podcasts for the students on various topics along with videos that they could watch on their iPhones to support learning.

I would love to work with Apple and its education team on developing a model environment that could be reproduced in any educational setting. I would use my school as a potential learning environment. Just provide me with 25 iPhones, and 25 iMacs in a classroom and I will take it from there. One last thought the students could have a digital portfolio on their waist. They could show a mentor, parent or friend what they have been creating in class because of the total integration of iLife '08 with the iPhone.

I think you can see my point the possibilities are endless.

Steve Jobs, give me a call, shoot me an email, or text message me on my iPhone if you would like to expand your market. :)

Living the Dream!
Anibal Soler, Jr.
www.anibalsoler.com