Wouldn't it be nice to have a classroom full of all your technology "wish" items? Well, I'm sure we all dream of what we would like, only to not even get half of what we want. Imagine my surprise, when I was surplussed from my old Elementary school to my new Middle School last year. I walked into the classroom and saw I had a desktop computer for the classroom, my own lap top, a SMART board, surround sound in the room hooked up from both the TV and the computer, and even an audio microphone system to use in class. I may not have found those amazing CPS "clickers" that I love to use, but I sure got a lot either way. So, imagine my surprise, when I go to one of the first faculty meetings and our technology person asks another faculty member "I have all these items in the room that I don't know how to use...". My jaw nearly dropped to the floor! I couldn't believe that this was the technology person in our school! This one act alone, left me thinking of how many teachers must actually be confronted with this same dilemma simply because they do not know how to use their equipment. I am sure the school had some type of orientation the first year it opened on how to use the classroom tools, but that was 4 years ago. From then to now, there have been many teachers that could use another type of refresher class, and even introduce the programs that the school also pays for, such as: GIZMOS, FCAT Explorer, UnitedStreaming, and BrainPop. This is actually something that I have tried to tackle on for one of our upcoming non-opt teacher workdays. Here's to crossing our fingers!
~J.A. Lorente-Pico
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