_{Photo Credit: Can you take a photo of my hands too! from eviemaedavid’s photostream on Flickr.}
I know, I know, I’ve been an awful blogger! My feed has grown to almost 400 unread articles (yikes), I haven’t commented on a blog in a month, and my last post was at least a fortnight past. Like many of you, I’ve had a serious addiction to political news, but I’ve also had some interesting things happening “in real life”. One of them may end up shifting my focus from my online community to my school-based peers. Seemingly before I could have predicted it, a small revolution has taken place on my campus. We have a bunch of “carry-over” funds from federal bilingual money that have to be spent. The principal pitched it to be spent getting an “extra” upper grade teacher so that class size could be lowered (from ~30-33 to 27 or so). With no prompting from me, the upper grade teachers who had the most to gain from this decided that the money would be better spent on getting technology for every teacher in every classroom, instead of just having it in my lab. I’m very pleased with this change, but it’s meant that I’ve had to shift my focus from you all, to my school site and peers.

What will we be getting? A teacher laptop for all classroom and resource teachers, along with digital projectors, and document cameras.

Why does this help with English Language Development? While this is far from one-laptop per child, I think it’s a necessary first step. We have teachers with broken VCRs and no DVD player. The district has sprung for Discovery Streaming, but for most teachers, the only way to show it is if I burn a dvd for them, or they have the kids huddle around a computer monitor. We have Inspiration/Kidspiration (another district-wide purchase), but teachers can only hand out paper copies, and can’t do class “webs” for thinking and sharing ideas. Since the classrooms have 1-6 outdated desktop systems, the computer is something that kids go an do by themselves in small groups (which is good), but there is no opportunity for teachers to share online images, and sound files to illustrate concepts (don’t know what a galaxy is? here’s a pic from NASA kids).

I also think that giving teacher a laptops of their own will be a big game changer. The flexibility of laptops cannot be underestimated, it gave me the ability to experiment and use technology in ways I never dreamed of. It will give them the ability to use computers for their lecturing in a way that will make it more visual and engaging. Since based on my observations (dropping in classes, etc.) they seem to give students independent work time, and not just play sage on the stage, I don’t think this will let them continue with outmoded practices, but instead make the amount of lecture time they engage in really count. Many have already used technology, like tvators (all of these are currently “dead”), to supplement their lectures (locating supporting images) and having that available on the fly is something they value. This tells me they already have some good instincts about how to use technology to improve instruction.

The next part is what I’m really excited about. Another order with digital recorders, cameras, and camcorders for each class should be next. This will let them document, and share student learning that is authentic. They can photograph illustrations, demonstrate concepts, show their oral listening and speaking skills, and it can all be saved to review their progress.

What would I like to see them do with it? How about using Inspiration to talk about stories they read, and record book talks they have about it too? How about demonstrating concepts, and narrating what they come up with, then sharing it with the class? How about showing videos as an into or building background? What about sentence lifting on the projector with color-coding of different elements? Why not show images and visuals of ideas and concepts that are being taught?

Will all my dreams come true? Probably not, but it’s a step forward, but scary because now I have to talk tech with the folks I work with, and make it work for them.