As students come back this fall, the vigilance to clean classroom technology is another area teachers are going to be paying closer attention to. Anybody using a Chromebook used often by an early elementary student can tell you that sticky keyboards happen frequently and often. This guide contains recommendations for organizations to ensure they are making their best effort at keeping devices safe and clean for use. Your organization may wish to add to these measures, as this guide in no way serves as a prescription, but rather a guide to creates processes to limit cross-contamination through devices.
Every year educators face the inevitable issue of addressing summer learning loss. This year, as schools have been disconnected from parents and children for an increasing amount of time, keeping those learning opportunities and lines of communication open may be more important than ever.
Many organizations, such as Camp PBS Learning Media have already created opportunities for students to continue to engage in learning but also interact with the world around them. While others, like Reading Rockets, provides free resources for families and students to use. Yet another way to explore this summer is through a virtual field trip. Depending on the platform, parents could even consider streaming these on his or her TV and educators could use their ProColor Boxlight Interactive Panel to attend and record out these trips as well. In an effort to find field trips you can interact with throughout the summer, I have included a calendar with a link to each field trip in this post. In an age in which so much is going on, many teachers wonder not only how to have conversations with students about current events but also how to frame the educational technology used around these times. For example, a third grade teacher may be worried about assigning a research project and allowing students to use the internet for fear that this opens the door for misuse of the internet.
This is something I have heard from teachers of every age group and in every school setting, regardless of my role. And while every district has an “Acceptable Use Policy” or guidelines for use, it does not seem to stop the fear that students will be exposed to material in the classroom on the teacher’s time. That is a walk to the principal’s office that nobody wants to take. As a former secondary teacher, I can say that it was an opportunity for me to get students engaged in the learning process. When teaching students how to write about a “Critical Societal Issue” we spent more time talking about why these were issues, what they thought, what was respectful dialogue and what would and would not be accepted than we did on the actual computer doing research. All of these seventh grade students were also being faced with the Flint Water Crisis not only in their backyard, but from their own sinks. Two families from our school made national headlines for advocacy about this issue. I could not, in good conscience, ask them to write about school uniforms. |
AuthorJessica Tuwaiq is a former ELA middle school teacher as well as a former instructional technology coach. In her current role, she works with Michigan districts to implement technology. Categories
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