Do your teachers stay in the tech lab with the ed tech during tech
classes? If they do, what is their role?
Only one of our six elementary schools has a physical lab. All but one of the others has a mobile lab with anywhere from 10 - 15 laptops. The school with the lab schedules each class, K - 4, for one time each week. Open spots are first come, first served, that teachers can sign up for when they are doing projects or need extra time. Usually it's grade 3-4 who uses these blocks of time. Teachers who need my assistance, schedule time for me to introduce and/or help with a project, but, since I am spread thin among five elementary schools (the sixth did not buy into my position), two middle schools and the high school, it makes it difficult to spend a lot of time with any one class. Therefore, the teachers are in charge and always there when I am.
At other elementary schools, I will sometimes pull-out small groups of kids, while the teacher works with other groups doing other types of activities, after a full class introduction to the project has taken place. The main reason we do this is that those schools do not have enough equipment for an entire class to be working on technology at the same time.
At the middle schools (5-8) there are "computer teachers" who are scheduled as part of the unified arts. They have their own curriculum, taught in computer labs, and kids are on a rotation with the other unified arts classes for one quarter of the school year. I am the integration teacher who works in the classroom, with teachers present, for projects (when I can - as I said, I'm spread very thin). The computer teacher in one of the schools does a lot of integration work with teachers and classes as well, allows kids to come into the lab to work on classroom projects if there are free computers and/or when classes are not scheduled. She is very open to assisting when she can.
Do you have specials, including technology, on the last day of school? Why or why not?
I'm not sure how the middle school works, but would assume that unified arts classes are held the same as others. In the elementary schools it's not applicable given our configuration. If a teacher needs me for a last day project (usually something such as an end of year slide show), they will schedule the time with me.
Joanne Finnegan
Technology Integration Specialist
Chittenden East Supervisory Union
(voice) (802) 858-1728
(fax) (802) 899-1059
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