Electronic Contact Assignment

This is a picture of Amanda and her husband Jon Marsh.

I chose to interview Amanda Marsh as my electronic contact. She has been a teacher for 5 years. She graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, GA. I have known Amanda for three years now. She has helped me in my pursuit to become a teacher. I can call on her for help and support through my educational endeavors. I thought of her for this assignment because I know that she has a passion for teaching. Her email interview with me is recorded below.

I began by asking her for a short description of where she teaches and what grade she teaches:

I teach a 4th grade inclusion class. I have 26 students in my class 5 of them have special needs that range from hearing impaired to physical needs. I have a full-time special education co teacher who is in my class all day to serve my special ed students in the least restrictive environment. I teach in Macon, GA in a school that serves about 525 students from Pre-K through 5th grade. My school is pretty much equal white vs. black students. If you want to see more on our test scores or demographics you can look at this website, http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ReportingFW.aspx?PageReq=101&PID=63&PTID=214&SchoolId=42536&T=0&FY=2008

1. Do you use technology in your classroom? If so, how?

I do use technology in my classroom but not always on a daily basis. In my classroom I have 6 computers but they are not always working. My class goes to the computer lab once a week. Sometimes I have planned lessons and sometimes I just give them free time to play on educational websites. One of my most often used tools is the avery key. It is system that lets me hook my computer to my classroom tv so I can show my students movies on United Streaming or how to use the internet. Recently I did a lesson on searching for information in doing research for their science fair projects. I used World Book online and showed them how to search for articles, take notes, and cite them. What is nice is that they can watch what I am doing on the computer on my tv. The most common program used is our Accelerated Reader. The students can read books and take tests on them to check comprhension. They earn points and twice a year we have incentives for students who have reached their goal.

2. Do you think that technology is a hinderance or an asset to your classroom? Why?

I think it depends on the type of technology. In our school we have this great cart that has individual keyboards students can use to type and then print what they have done. We also have a SMART board that teachers can check out. It is really cool. You can write on it and then save what you have written. Your college classes probably have them. Our school has one that is on wheels. The problems with these items is that it is such a pain to get them and set them up that teachers don't really have time on a daily basis to this. I maybe use the smart board once a year because it is such an inconvience to check it out and set it up.


3. Is there any new technology that you hope to use in your classroom in the future? If so, what?

We have been told over the next 5 years we will all have a laptop in our room and get a SMART board in each classroom. It would be nice to have one because it would be useful to design graphs, charts, or directions for assignments that could be pulled up and put on the screen when needed but would not take up wall space. A classroom can fill up quite quickly. Honestly I would rather have less computers just because they take so much space and limit the way the classroom could be arranged. I guess in a perfect world it would be nice to have only laptops so you could put them away when you are not using them and students could use them at their desk or at a table.

I found her responses to be quite informative. I would love to see the SMART board that she talks about. I find it sad that she has six computers in her classroom but that they don't always work. In schools today, technology seems to be the key for student success. I agree with Amanda, I hope that one day soon our students will be given laptops so that the classroom can be more spacious and the students can have more ease of transportation of their materials and technology.

Here is the link to my email message between Amanda and I:

http://webmail.att.net/wmc/en-US/n/wm/8581045333249042?cmd=Print&sid=c0&folder=INBOX&uid=16056&popup=yes&js=yes