Challenges of Technology in the Schools

I'm an elementary school media specialist at a school with a 73% Hispanic population and a very high poverty rate, so the challenges of technology here are probably very different than a lot of schools. Our kids don't bring as many computer skills with them as those in more affluent parts of the county, and they don't have as much access to computers at home as others. In addition, there are the issues of language, poverty, and transiency, all of which help to contribute to lower test results, and an overall lower-performing school. Where some schools in our county would be using technology to learn the "Big Six" and to do Excel spreadsheets and graphing, our students struggle to compose research papers using MS Word and presentations using PowerPoint.

Nonetheless, many teachers (myself included) incorporate technology anywhere they can. At our school, computer is on the specials rotation, along with Art, Music, and P.E. Although we don't have a certified person teaching computer, our teacher works very hard to try to teach the students keyboarding skills, and as many applications as she can. We also have several wireless laptop carts at the school, which can be checked out by teachers so that each student can use a laptop in the classroom. In addition, many teachers have access to (and actually use) LCD projectors in conjunction with their teacher laptops in order to present curriculum topics using Brainpop, videostreaming, and other online technology tools. Our county pays for several online databases and encyclopedias which students can access to do research, and our media center OPAC has the option to find Web sites in addition to books on a particular subject.

The demographics of our student population also present ways of using technology that many other schools don't have. Because of our high number of ESOL students, our school has access to several programs that help teach students English, such as Read 180 and Rosetta Stone. These programs allow the students to interact with the computer by listening to a voice reading English and then, using a desk microphone, recording their own voices speaking English. We also have access to a Spanish version of Brainpop, which is helpful for our older students who come in with the ability to read and write Spanish, but not English.

Overall, I think our students have a lot of catching up to do with students from predominantly English-speaking schools, but our teachers are working hard trying to get them up to speed. Knowledge of technology has become so critical in the workplace these days, and students really need to start early to learn all that they need to.