1. School name:
Viewmont Elementary School
2. Name of Principal:
Margret Young
3. Names of teachers talked with whose classrooms you visited and grade level:
Sarah Fairclough- 1st grade teacher, MaryAnn Anderson-Secretary, Cindy Stephan-ESL Specialist/2nd Computer Lab Technician
4. Ask the teachers/principal their perspective on current and future use of technology in the classroom:When I asked the principle her perspective on the use of technology in the classroom today and in the future she had a lot to say. She talked about how they’re building a new jr. high school in the Murray School District and just this past week they had a meeting just to plan for what technology is going to be needed in the school. She also said that things have changed a lot since she began her career in Education twenty-two years ago. She talked about the copy machine they used to have then verses the ones that we have now. Also how there used to be projectors in every classroom and now there are document cameras and overhead projectors, and how most teachers have a microphone system in their classroom. She also mentioned how much the internet is used. How the school district pays a certain amount of money each year for use of a website through Discovery Channel. This website has videos and other learning activities that teachers can use in their classrooms. She also said that the internet and technology in general is great for the small things, like taking attendance or sending out an email with meeting notifications or anything else very quickly to teachers or anyone else she needs to. As far as technology in the future she said “who knows what the future will hold” and mentioned that the school buildings themselves will need to be updated because they are already very old and needed to be changed to keep up with the technology.
5. Does the school have its own website? If so who maintains the site what is the URL?
http://www.murrayschools.org/schools/viewmont-elementary/
The school has a website that parents can access through the school district website. Different parts of the website are maintained by different faculty members. The Principal puts out a Parent link and maintains the calendar with school events, the Secretary puts information up that parents need to know about the office, and teachers have links on the website that are specific to their classrooms. Some teachers use the website but not very many do because it is complicated to upload things and isn’t very user friendly.
6. Do teachers at the school have class blogs? If so who has access to them?
Some teachers have blogs through UEN, because it’s free and they upload curriculum and different lesson plans or things that are going on in the classroom. Some teachers also use blogspot blogs that parents have access to.
7. Is there a school technology supervisor? Name?
Yes, Sarah Fairclough 1st grade teacher
8. Do all the classrooms have computers in them? Explain what you find:
Each teacher has a laptop in their classroom that they use, but each classroom doesn’t have enough computers for each student. There is a sixth grade classroom that has enough laptops for every student that the all sixth grade classes are suppose to be able to use but the one teacher that has them isn’t very good at sharing them.
9. Is there a computer lab/s? If so how is it used and by whom?
There are two computer labs in the school and there are also six computers in the library. The computers in the library are used for students to take A.R. tests. Each class has computer lab time once a week, the older grade also use the computer labs for Utah Writes. The ESL students use the computers and the computers are also used FastForward which is a computer program used for students behind in reading or students who spend part of the day in resource.
10. What kinds of computers are in the school – PC’s, Laptops, Mac’s etc.? Overhead projection equipment etc.: PC’s are in the computer labs, teachers have PC laptops, every classroom has a projector, some teachers have elmos, every teacher has a microphone that they use every day, Kindergarten has IPADs and the reading aids have IPADs that they use.
11. What software programs are regularly used by teachers?
A.R., Fast Forward, Imagine Learning, Microsoft Office (Word, Publisher, Excess, Excel, PowerPoint) is widely used by the school and the district.
12. Can/do teachers use the Internet in their instruction? Detail findings.
Most teachers use the internet in their instruction. All grades use the internet for educational videos. A teacher I talked to says she uses them for math games and a lot of other teachers who teach the younger grades use them for educational games for students. The older grades use the internet for research.
13. How does a teacher get further training to use technology?
USOE provides a lot of classes that are available for teachers mostly on Saturday. A lot of teachers take these classes because they’re very beneficial. There is also district training but usually the only time that the district will have technology training is when they adopt something that they want the teachers to use, or sometimes on teacher prep week they will have different classes to further teacher training. Teachers also learn from other teachers they work with or some teachers also use trial and error.
14. See if you can get a sense of the % of students who might have a computer in their home: At this school the percentage of students that have a computer in the home are probably 90% or more.
15. Did you observe students using computer based technology? If so detail what you observed:
While I was there I observed students using one of the computer labs for Fast Forward.
16. Other:
As I was talking to the Secretary I was surprised to learn that the school website isn’t used by the teachers as much as I thought it was. I was surprised that it isn’t very user friendly for the teachers and that there aren’t a lot of parents that actually look at the website.
I was also surprised to find out, when I was talking the technology supervisor that the school district isn’t very efficient with using the internet to teach. She said that there isn’t a lot of funding or motivation for teacher to use the internet a lot in their teaching or in student learning.
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