Environmental Scan of Educational Technology
April Cervantes
My hometown of Laredo, Texas is a fast-growing gateway city to Mexico. The weather is very hot in the summertime, and so far our highest temperature this summer has been 115 degrees fahrenheit. For some reason, the rain always bypasses us and when it decides to actually rain, everyone goes crazy on facebook posting their videos. According to Schoodigger.com, a site which uses statistics from the Department of Education, reports that the community for the school I work in, J.W. Arndt E.S., is made up of "99.9% hispanic students and 0.1% are white. 95.2% receive free or reduced lunch. " The majority of our students transition to the feeder pattern middle and high school. Few students venture out to the magnet schools around town. The language spoken is English and Spanish. There are people who only speak one or the other.
The pandemic of 2020 helped a lot of families in my community with exposure to mobile learning devices and education technology. Before the pandemic our students only had a class set of 7 ipads per classroom to use for Accelerated Reader purposes. If any online testing needed to take place, the class would have to follow a rotation schedule in order to use the computer lab. During the pandemic our district moved quickly to secure funding for mobile learning devices for each student. As we began transitioning from remote to hybrid learning our district made sure each student had a device in order to attend remote instruction daily. The neighborhoods had buses equipped with wifi throughout the corresponding areas for those who did not have access to the internet.
Students, siblings, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers, husbands and wives were all part of the learning curve to our virtual learning platforms. Students were logging on from phones, ipads, home computers or laptops. I will never forget the moment my student’s parents unmuted their mics to give me encouraging words as I could not figure out how to display my document camera that was being powered by adapters, HDMI cables and the works. My dad, who works in IT, was doing his best to help me solve my technical difficulties and yet we struggled. We were all new to this digital learning platform and I can proudly say, the post- pandemic teaching with educational technology comes easier to me.
The majority of our parents at my school work in labor jobs such as construction, oil fields, mechanic shops as well as retail stores and restaurants. Broadband internet access is not an issue for most of our community. The majority of our students have wifi at home and every student is issued a mobile learning device. They are able to take their MLD home and use them for homework purposes. Most of our students do have a form of technology at home such as ipads, phones or personal computers. During the pandemic there were a couple of families that did not have internet access, but didn’t go without, as our district provided personal hotspot devices for those in need. Our school is equipped with wifi throughout the entire building so students are able to work from any part of the campus. The district provides a lot of technological help to parents and students with their MLD's and more.
According to the 2023 UISD ESSER “Return to Excellence” plan, the district allocated $10.6 million for online programs for academic support and $2.9 million on technology and infrastructure. Technology programs are used daily on campus and in classrooms. At our campus, every classroom is equipped with interactive flat panels, eiki projectors, and charging carts. The district has licenses to many applications and programs, which are used to monitor student benchmarks as well as provide daily opportunities to use personalized lessons as extensions to lessons. Our district requires BOY, MOY, EOY testing on platforms such as iReady math and reading, Amplify, and MAP Fluency. Reports are generated and submitted to the district for student growth data purposes. Teachers use this data for instructional purposes in order to regroup small groups or better prepare for after school tutorial lessons. The teachers use the IFP’s for teaching and use many of the applications available such as IXL to do whole group skill building or play interactive games for ELAR, MATH and Science lessons.
The school librarian serves as the campus IT for Instructional Technology. They offer professional development sessions during planning or afterschool for website compliance. For example, her PD session included the do’s and don'ts for using images on your teacher webpage, accessibility options that need to be turned on for visually impaired visitors to the site and anything that may be audited by the district or state. She has offered PD sessions on how to use the newly installed IFP’s, not just how to navigate around it and how to operate it, but also for integrating its technological purpose into learning. I personally have used interactive lessons where students use the IFP pen to mark their answers and show their work, which also adds to the TTESS domain for implementing technology. Some teachers who consider themselves tech illiterate opt-out of using technology for teaching purposes.
Technology is ever-evolving and we have seen this in the classroom, in the library, as parents and anywhere a child is involved. My district offers summer learning opportunities for many areas and I hope to attend a session titled, “Tech Tools for Classroom Management.” Staying up to date and always learning technological advances is vital to our fast-developing way of teaching and learning in this digital world. I hope to continue inquiring and attending sessions that will make me better equipped as a future librarian.
Wow, there's a lot going on in your town! Not only the changing population, but also the increasingly positive attitude toward technology. You will have your hands full in the best way!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, the pandemic did increase technology exposure for students, families, teachers, etc. In my district, I am glad that we have moved forward with securing devices for almost all students. I think back to when we only had 3 iPads in the classroom and creating a rotating schedule to make sure each student had practice, it was very time-consuming and difficult. I hope we all continue to move forward and grow with technology.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that the librarian also serves as the school's Instructional Technology Specialist. In my District, this is a separate role, although the ITS and Librarian do a lot of collaboration together.
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