In this space, Osborn-Preston and her principal want students to be creative, to think critically, to collaborate and to use technology. She deploys skills she recently learned as a Google Certified Innovator.
“I really wanted the environment to not look like a regular classroom,” she says, but instead to be inviting and spark curiosity.
Many of the students at her school come from low-income families, and some of them experience food insecurity. For many, English is a second language. Educators want to equip them to be able to make their own way in the world, Osborn-Preston says.
“We just really want to give them every tool that we can and every skill that we can,” she says. “We have to give them what we can now so that they can be ready for everything.”
Supporting Engagement, Blended Learning with New Technology
In The School District of Philadelphia, recent installations of new SMART Boards will support more small-group collaboration among students. District leaders expect to have almost 3,000 new interactive whiteboards installed by fall, CIO Melanie Harris says.
The interactive whiteboards accept input from multiple sources at once, allowing two or three students to collaborate.
The devices are ideal for center-based classrooms, a layout that enables students to work at the board in small groups, independently, with a teacher or at other stations in the classroom, Harris says.
The district’s technology infusion also includes about 75,000 Chromebooks and 8,000 tablets.
All of that technology requires a robust networking infrastructure.
District leaders “made a strategic decision a decade ago to build out our internet access,” Harris says. “You couldn’t do all of this cool stuff if you didn’t have great bandwidth.”
The district has 20 gigabytes of internet capacity, she says, including high-speed internet and Wi-Fi in every learning space.
But “great instruction is not always with a device,” cautions Fran Newburg, the district’s deputy chief of educational technology, noting that the core approach to teaching still needs to be strong.
MORE FROM EDTECH: Check out these five considerations for buying classroom technology.
Reading, Writing, Arithmetic — and Coding
Other educators say they are planning to weave technology lessons into core subject areas.
Students at Loess Hills Elementary in Iowa will learn to code as part of an ongoing computer science emphasis that began in recent years and has become a model for the state. Under Principal John Beeck’s leadership, teachers plan to have students participate in the international Hour of Code and write simple programs to direct robots through mazes.
Even for kindergarteners, learning to code helps with understanding other skills, such as numbers and directionality — left, right, straight, back — Beeck says.
“It’s very motivating,” he says. “The kids love it.” Loess Hills is part of Sioux City Community Schools, which has a districtwide emphasis on personalized learning and incorporating technology into instruction, and is in the third year of implementation of its Future Ready cohort program.
For the new school year, the district expanded its one-to-one computing program to cover grades six through 12. This year, students will get to take home their assigned devices.
“It’s really good for kids. The Future Ready project and trying to get more and more teams of teachers to use technology — it really is an equity issue,” says Associate Superintendent Kim Buryanek. Those experiences should not be limited to students in a particular classroom or at a particular school, she says.
“I want every student in every classroom to have those experiences, and it’s really important. Technology isn’t going away, and our students are going to have to be adept at using a variety of forms of technology. We just want to prepare them for the future as best we can.”
For more on how to make 2019 a successful IT year, check out more of our back to school content.