What students think of technology in our school district.

For the past few years, we’ve invited students to provide feedback on our district’s technology services.  We send an invitation to all students in 6th grade thru 12th grade –  however, this years response was extremely low.  Only 106 responses.

Although the number of responses are extremely low and we need to rethink how we collect feedback from students – it’s still important that we recognize the feedback that we do have.

Download the complete 2012 student technology survey (in pdf format).

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Here’s a quick sample of the various responses……………….

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What’s going well

There are sufficient computers and laptops for use during class, study halls, and off-periods. These computers generally work in a timely and efficient manner. The infinite campus iPhone and Android apps are very helpful.

There are almost always computers and electronics in general open to a student whenever they need it making the wifi easy to access.

Infinite Campus is the best thing since sliced bread, I love how accessible it is!

Staying connected through Edmodo and my classes that have Twitter accounts have really helped me stay organized this year.

Access h drive and s drive from home is awesome.

Edmodo is by far the best communication and education tool.

Suggestions

Currently the focus is more oriented towards “full-class” technology like the projector versus “individual” technology like laptops.

I hate the messages sent to parents with missing assignments.

Sometimes I am very frustrated when I can’t get on facebook because I use it as a communication tool for groups that I lead. But at the same time I understand that teachers want the computers to be used for homework and many students would abuse the access to facebook.

Most of the computers we use take a lot of time to boot up.

Also printing is a big problem. The maximum amout of pages to print at one time doesn’t help kids and also being able to print in more than 5 pages on one document doesn’t help.

Blocking social networking sites like Twitter and Pinterest would make school alot easier to focus

Upgrade to Google Chrome would be better.

Use Edmodo more

Our computer lab computers are too slow things just run soooo slow

Student emails are always spammed so teachers never get them

Students using their personal computers can currently access the S and H drives, but they cannot access the printers.

Having it so that if you log on, it won’t take such a long time. It sometimes takes 5 minutes for a computer to log on.

What’s on my iPad: featuring kindergarten teacher Paula Olson

Kindergarten teacher Paula Olson

Paula Olson

School: Fairmeadows Elementary

Grade:  Kindergarten

Email: Olsonp@wdmcs.org

Twitter: @luv2teachk

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How many iPads do you have in your classroom?
I have four iPads in my room.

With more kids than iPads, how do you make this work?
During literacy and math time, students rotate through a number of centers and the iPads are used as one of many stations.  Each iPad is uniquely numbered: 1, 2, 3, and 4.  Although each iPad has the same 5 folders on the home page, each iPad actually has different apps.

What are the five folders that you have on each iPad?
Books, Sight Words, Spelling, Working with Words, and Math

If each iPad has the same five categories… why do they have different apps on each iPad?
Placing different apps on each iPad enables differentiation.  Some students are working on letter recognition, others are working on sight words, while others are reading. For example, iPad number 2 has apps that are at an appropriate level for the students that I assign to use this iPad during literacy rotations.

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How do you structure your literacy groups and rotations? and how do the iPads fit into this?

In the following video, Paula Olson shows the details of how her class rotations are set up…

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What are some of your favorite apps?

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What has been some of the challenges with iPads…. are there features you wish you had? what problems along the way? 
My biggest concerns are related to headphones – as we’ve had headphones break off in the iPads.  We also don’t have enough quality headphones.

What’s the best example you can provide for how the iPad is making a difference in your classroom?
We frequently monitor the number of sight words that students have mastered.  We’ve consistently been able to get our students to exceed these expectations and I believe its because of Break Through to Literacy and the additional practice time they have on the iPads.