Classroom Management Challenges

The biggest challenge I have had with our 1:1 rollout is students’ technology issues.  My 7^th grade students have Netbooks that are on their 3^rd year and they are beaten up.  Our tech people are amazing and are constantly working on individual problems. We are fortunate to have a lot of loaners, but we still have issues with accessing the network, losing documents and other technological difficulties.  I am very big on modeling and teaching procedures at the beginning of the year.  I take a lot of time instructing students and allowing them to figure out how they will be using their devices in my class.  But no matter how much frontloading I do, there are always a handful of students that can’t get to where they need to be or find what they need to turn in.  With classes of 30+ and only 44 minutes to teach science per class, I don’t have a lot of time to troubleshoot.  I do have student techies in each class, but if they are helping a student that takes away from their instructional time.  Honestly I think it is something that I will just have to work with because it’s like the olden days when kids didn’t bring their supplies, a good teacher just has to have contingency plans.  Often I have them work with a partner or print out a pdf if they can’t bring it up on their computer.  I don’t want to lose instructional time so for now it’s what works.  

Communicating with Stakeholders

If I were to put together a presentation for stakeholders in Yorktown I would focus on the following three things:

1. Reasons for Integration

a.       Parents, teachers, school board members and the community need to understand the need to prepare students for the 21^st Century Global Community.  Many adults who have not been exposed to the rapidly changing need for 21^st Century Skills may not understand that we cannot continue to teach the way they were taught and expect the outcomes to be students prepared for the challenges of learning and living in today’s digital world.

2.  How technology will change day to day lives at home with homework, grades, etc?

a.       One of the questions/statements I get most often is; I liked it when my child brought home papers with grades.  Now I have to get on the computer if I can remember my password and look at a calendar and then find a link for schoolwork.  It’s so much more complicated.  Is there any way to make this easier?

b.      The answer to this is Yes and No.  Doing school is going to look and be different.  Providing training and workshops to help parents adjust to these changes is as important as the training to use the devices is for the students. 

3. Where to go for help?

a.       I believe this is the key.  If parents know that there are resources available to help them learn to use the technology such as short instructional videos, step by step instructional guides and a place to send questions and concerns than I think parents and teachers as well as all stakeholders will feel more comfortable with the transition. 

For many corporations funding as well as other concerns might be in the top three areas to address, but I believe for our community and schools providing the reasons for integration, how this change will impact them and how to find help would be the most important concepts to address with our stakeholders.