Being a teacher in West Virginia, the second state to adopt the 21st Century Learning Program statewide, I was already at least somewhat familiar with some of the content contained within this site. Seeing how this program has been transforming my school over the past few years has me excited to see that more states have been adopting this program as well. The changes have not been taking place over night, and more teacher training and classroom internet access is needed to really effectively incorporate this program, but the change is happening and it has been allowing us to access many new devices and updates to our aging buildings to bring our facilities into the digital age. Some examples of these changes include the introduction of TI-Inspire calculators into our math classes, Labquest data collection devices into our science classes, on-line journaling in our English classes, smartboards into all of our classrooms, additional ethernet hookups and computers in many classrooms, new computers for our computer labs, and our district is also in the process of installing wireless internet access in our schools as well - though that is still a work in progress. The district has also been making available a number of technology teacher trainings. Some of these have been mandatory with compensation, but others have been completely voluntary, after school on our own time and a bit more few and far between than what I believe is really needed as many of them I would have liked to have attended, but was unable to.
If anything surprised me at all about this site it was the number of resources that were available, although they appeared to be resources more geared towards implementing the program on the district and state level rather than focused on the classrooms and teachers themselves which is probably why my district had not really pushed our awareness of this site and its available resources, but rather provided us with hard copies of the resources they felt were the most relevant to us.
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Wow your school seems so much more technological than mine. I am so limited with the technology we do have. I recently changed classrooms and left behind my promethean board and now I don't even have a screen to use the overhead projector. I have been begging for my LCD projector and promethean board to be moved, but seems as though there is a great deal of money invloved. I still don't know if I will have it. I also found this site very interesting in how it explained how different states were meeting the challenge. If anything, I feel like my specific district in MD is doing a better job holding us back (being safe and secure is what they call it) than encouraging us to work toward the necessary technology goals.
ReplyDeleteI was happy to hear that at least in high schools (somewhere!) the students are getting the support to use modern technology to meet thier instructional needs.
Kelly McCarty
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI taught in West Virginia for my first four years of teaching and although I heard some cruel WV jokes concerning education, I know they are more prepared than some bordering states. For this reason, it was no surprise to see West Virginia on the list, but not Maryland or Pennsylvania. Although teacher compensation may be toward the bottom of the scale, they take some issues seriously when it comes to providing education to the students.
How do they afford all of these upgrades? Is the funding on a local, state, or national level?
Kelly,
I also teach in Maryland. I thoroughly enjoyed your statement:
"If anything, I feel like my specific district in MD is doing a better job holding us back (being safe and secure is what they call it) than encouraging us to work toward the necessary technology goals".
What a great way to explain exactly what is happening. So sad, though.
Melissa
To answer your question Melissa, the funding is coming from local, state, national, and buisnesses. If you look at that site about the 21st century learning partnership you will see that partners include the National Board of Education, and many buisnesses including Dell. For adopting the program there is financial support from the National Board of Education as well as these buisnesses. The West Virginia state governor has also added financial resources from the state budget for the program. Our smartboards were bought using money from a local bond referendum voted for by the residents of our county.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your comments about your school's involvement in the 21st Century Partnership. When there is so much frustration with the lack of funding and resources, it is nice to see that this program is working. I think that it is a great initiative that really requires adoption and participation by more than just the education system. I think that it is really exciting to see that there are various levels of government and business that are helping make this work. It requires everyone to contribute and while there may be kinks that need ironing out, it is interesting to see it working!
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