I am a
middle school teacher, and I teach Language Arts to second language learners. One
of the many things I assess at the beginning of the school year is how much my
English language learners know about technology. Most of them can’t type; they have no
knowledge of how to work with a basic word document and often are afraid to use
it. Very often students are reluctant to use the software I wish to teach them
because it’s too much work and it’s not fun.
The
first task I would like to improve productivity by in my classroom, is by
setting a definite time block of 30 minutes once a week for keyboarding
practice. Interestingly year after year, I notice that 90 % of my students do
not own computers at home and therefore are extremely deficient in technology
skills.
The
second task that I wish to improve productivity with is having my students
learn the basic functions in Word or Pages. Learning how to compose work in
this type of software is a must. Again, my students have not been exposed to
this very important skill. I have a set of 15 Mac laptops for my students, and
while they show interest in using them, they are also aware of their lack of
knowledge.
The
third task I intend to improve is to engage my students with the Promethean
board. I finally had one installed and we (my students and I) have started
using it. I think once we become more familiar with it we will be able to
engage everyone since at this time some students are not too willing to work
with it. I am hoping that once the Activote software is installed I can vary
the approach to the use of the Promethean board. I have already begun to implement the first two tasks since the beginning of the school year; I intend to continue improving productivity using technology as much as I can.
