Everything that we've been talking about technology in the classrooms has really started to come together after these first few weeks in the field. More specifically, it's started to become more clear the challenges that most of will face in our future schools.
What has struck me the most so far are the "age limits," so to speak, that seem to come as a footnote to technology availability and use. I'm placed at a middle school, and just from looking at the options on our tech surveys and talking to my classmates, I've begun to notice some differences in what is available for the students at my school.
Some things can be attributed to legal reasons; most sites don't allow students under 13 to sign up for accounts. That's about 3/4 of our school population. Of course, that doesn't mean students DON'T have accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter, just that they aren't technically SUPPOSED to...
Similarly, the use of technology in the school is very heavily monitored. The acceptable use policy for middle schoolers in AAPS (which is different from the high school/faculty policy) has explicit instructions for how students are supposed to pick up, carry, and in general handle laptops from the portable carts. This isn't to say high schoolers don't get the same warnings, just that I sense that middle schoolers really need some extra instruction when it comes to how to properly carry a laptop across the room. Similarly, our first day in the computer lab came with a 5-minute debriefing from the media specialist about what NOT to do with the computers. My school just got a new lab full of Macs, and within the first 2 weeks of school one of the keyboards had already been broken.
In terms of what is available, I noticed I left several boxes unchecked on the survey. Software is installed pretty equally across the district, I believe, but my school doesn't have all the same hardware that I expect a lot of high schools to have. There aren't digital cameras or camcorders for students to check out, and scanners are reserved for teacher use/ special permission only. Part of this is most likely due to the fact that most middle schools don't have the same elective classes that high schools do that would require such devices. Also, we still rely heavily on written work, and only have used the computers for online testing or image searching for poster-making. This leads me to wonder if my students would have trouble utilizing more technology, or if they just aren't given much opportunity.
Have any of my fellow middle school homies noticed any similar differences?
